Divisional Buying Manager at takealot.com

The position reports to the Head of Retail Buying.

You will be responsible for managing a team of category buyers and driving growth and improving performance for the Lifestyle division, including: Camping & Outdoor, Fashion, Luggage & Travel & Sport. This includes developing a category strategy for 'how to win' in these categories, assessing market opportunities, managing the team to deliver against the strategy, building a team, and driving performance improvement initiatives throughout the team.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Develop a comprehensive strategy/plan to drive growth across the departments in brands, suppliers and new product selection
• Manage the execution against this plan and ensure teams prioritize strategic objectives
• Manage team against key financial and service level performance indicators within the department (sales, margin, rebates, listings availability, stock cover etc.)
• Profit & Loss management
• Develop range, forecast and stock management methodology to drive efficiencies within supply chain whilst maintaining and growing product selection
• Build & foster new and current supplier relationships, improve service level agreements and manage the team to deliver on stronger negotiations
• Identify and execute on performance/business growth initiatives
• Motivate and professionally develop your team, while ensuring appropriate succession planning
• Manage site-merchandising and work with the marketing team to develop promotional strategies for the division

Attributes required:

• Smart, analytical thinker
• Energetic, dynamic individual - can-do attitude, self-motivated
• Results oriented - Proven track record of delivering exceptional results

Qualifications and experience:

• 8+ years’ experience in a high-performance environment
• 3+ years managerial experience
• Bachelor’s Degree in Business Science, Commerce or Psychology required (Preferable Post-Graduate degree in Business)
• Strong competency in analytical tools
• Experience in building, managing and developing teams

The Environment:

• takealot employees are entrepreneurial and dynamic, smart, customer-centric, fun and have the shared ambition of takealot being the leading e-commerce company in Africa.
• We have fun, work hard, take ownership, work in teams to create solutions, and are always open to direct feedback/new ideas on where we can improve.
• We are short on ego and high on output.
• We are doers and not only thinkers, its all in the execution after all.
• We love what we do and what we are creating.

We seek to Employ an Extra Ordinary Mind who

• is forthright but respectful
• is an expert at doing, who can not only design but also execute
• is analytical, able to use data to make decisions
• is competitive, self-directed and strive to be the BEST (GREAT requires a lot of work and does not only happen during business hours
• is passionate about the potential of e-commerce and delivering a world-class customer experience
• is entrepreneurial, thrives under change and accepts it is a constant and always looks for solutions to do something better and faster
• is able to think about problems from a business perspective using technical and product input
• is curious and challenge the status quo
• is innovative and enjoys iteration
• is collaborative
• will be at the cutting edge of developing new concepts for takealot.com.
• thinks like an owner of the business.