Merchandiser & Product Development Lead

Full Time

Dubai

About The Role

Key Responsibilities

• **Roadmap ownership:**
• Define and lead the product roadmap — identify gaps in the assortment, propose new categories or SKUs based on market trends and financial opportunity, and prioritize by revenue and margin potential.
• **Assortment planning:**
• Build and maintain seasonal assortment plans, balancing newness, core replenishment, and exit of underperforming SKUs.
• Partner with E-com and Design to validate demand signals.
• **Product development and execution:**
• Own the full critical path from concept through bulk delivery — tech packs, sampling, testing, and approvals — on time and to spec.
• **Product engineering:**
• Create and maintain detailed tech packs and specifications.
• **Margin and costing:**
• Lead target costing, negotiate with mills and factories on FOB/landed costs, and own margin modeling from concept through final cost.
• Propose alternatives when targets are not met.
• **Supplier management:**
• Manage daily follow-up with factories on samples, test reports, lead times, and MOQs across multiple regions.
• **Cross-functional coordination:**
• Align Design, Ops, QC, and E-com to unblock decisions and hit key milestone dates.
• **Budget control:**
• Manage the product launch budget, allocate resources efficiently, and track spend vs. forecast.
• **Risk identification and mitigation:**
• Anticipate potential delays or challenges, create contingency plans, and escalate issues with solutions in a timely manner.

Skills & Competencies

• Strong commercial and quantitative acumen — margin modeling, cost analysis, financial trade-off decisions
• Merchandising instinct: knows what sells, why, and what is missing from an assortment
• Structured roadmap planning and prioritization
• Supplier negotiation — confident negotiating cost, MOQ, and lead times
• Clear communication & stakeholder alignment
• Detail orientation & quality mindset
• Entrepreneurial mindset with strong end-to-end ownership of projects and outcomes

Qualifications & Experience

• 6–8 years of merchandising, buying, or product development experience in ecommerce for consumer goods
• Demonstrated experience owning a product roadmap or assortment plan
• Strong Excel/Google Sheets skills including margin modeling and scenario analysis
• Proficiency in project management tools such as monday.com
• Experience managing vendors and timelines across multiple regions
• Experience in US, EU based ecommerce is an added advantage