The Merchandising Manager is responsible for supporting the development and execution of merchandising strategies that drive sales, optimize inventory, and enhance store performance across the network, ultimately delivering the business plan in line with the Company strategy. Supporting HOM, this role will utilize the support and strength within the merchandising team to lead them to success.
This position manages multiple product categories with a tailored approach: it requires a highly hands-on, operational-level involvement for Men’s Ready-to-Wear, while focusing on high-level oversight and final decision-making for Men's Shoes.
Serving as a key liaison between Boutique teams, local partners, and Paris counterparts, the ideal candidate must be a highly organized, analytical, and proactive individual who thrives in a fast-paced environment and can manage multiple priorities with accuracy and professionalism.
Key Responsibilities:
-Strategy & Business Delivery: Deliver the business plan across assigned product ranges (Men's RTW and Shoes) in alignment with overall company goals and strategic vision.
-Seasonal Buying & OTB Management: Lead and execute seasonal buying strategies (including Paris showroom buying sessions); define product assortments and manage Open-to-Buy (OTB) parameters tailored to local market needs and trends.
-Collection Events & Product Launches: Strategize, plan, and execute major collection events, trunk shows, and new product launches in close collaboration with the Marketing, VM, and Boutique teams to maximize commercial impact and VIP client engagement.
-Cross-Functional & Stakeholder Communication: Act as the primary strategic bridge and maintain seamless, proactive communication with diverse internal and external counterparts:
Global Headquarters (Paris): Align local market trends and commercial needs with global brand guidelines, reporting local performance and securing necessary product allocations.
Store & Retail Teams: Conduct regular store visits and touchpoints to gather quantitative and qualitative feedback, ensuring retail teams are fully aligned with the product strategy.
Local Cross-Functional Partners: Collaborate closely with Marketing, PR, Visual Merchandising (VM), Retail Operations, Retail Learning and Supply Chain to ensure a 360-degree, unified execution of the brand strategy.
-Team Leadership & People Management
Directly manage, mentor, and develop a team of two (2) merchandising staff members to maximize departmental strength and drive collective success.
Support the Merchandising Director in setting clear KPIs for the team, evaluating performance, and fostering a collaborative, high-performing environment.
Category Management & Execution:
-Men's RTW: Take full ownership of day-to-day retail operations, inventory allocation, and execution down to the operational, ground level.
-Men's Shoes: Provide macro-level strategic oversight, review overall performance, and exercise final decision-making/approval authority.
-Inventory & Performance Optimization: Drive sales, optimize product assortment, and manage healthy stock levels across the boutique network through rigorous business analysis and reporting.
-Cross-Functional Liaison: Act as the primary bridge between Boutique teams, local partners, and Paris headquarters to ensure seamless communication, operational excellence, and effective strategy follow-through.
-Team Leadership: Support the Merchandising Director in guiding, developing, and leading the merchandising team to maximize departmental strength and success.
Details of daily basis work
- Responsible to manage MRTW & MSHOES (inspire, motivate, coach, nurture and develop) and to further develop and grow in Korea
- Analyze & generate periodical sales and KPI report for Merchandising Director & HQ Central team and propose appropriate action to take
- Be proactive on managing balanced stock flow in the store together with SC
- Be active and alarmed always on Fashion trends to propose country specific market insights and new product initiatives
- Be responsible in processing season collection materials (set venue for training, produce training materials etc)
- Merchset management (monitor stock in/out from head office for various event purposes)
- Monitor, control products performance with target sell-through and brainstorm action plans
- Study and research competitors’ trend, pricings to support Merchandising manager actively communicate with corporate merchants to build right positioning for the market
- Event support in diverse aspect (product preparation, track deliveries, set targets and assortments)
- Be align, to support transversal activities with other categories
- Minimum 15 years of strong merchandising experience and mindset (Past luxury retail experience is highly preferential)
- Bachelor's degree at minimum (relevant field of major is preferential)
- Excellent communication skills in both Korean and English (both verbals, written) with parteners and stores
- Strong luxury business background with insights
- Demonstrates high commercial instinct
- Multi-Dimensional Analysis on retail aspects
Excellent tool skills (Powerpoint, Excels as mandatory)
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1. Professional & Technical Skills (Hard Skills)
Strong Analytical & Matrix Modeling Skills:
- Demonstrated ability to structure and cross-analyze complex, multi-dimensional retail metrics (Sell-through, OTB, WOS, Margin) by store tiers and product categories to derive actionable business insights.
- Advanced proficiency in MS Excel (complex formulas, pivot tables, and data modeling) and familiarity with enterprise retail systems (e.g., PBI, Anaplan etc)
Strategic Buying & Assortment Planning:
- Deep understanding of the local luxury market trends and consumer behaviors to plan healthy OTB parameters and optimize local product assortments.
- Experience in leading seasonal buying sessions in international showrooms (e.g., Paris) and managing product lifecycle extensions.
Operational Agility & Tailored Category Management:
- A proven hands-on mindset to manage day-to-day execution, ground-level retail operations, and detailed stock allocation for Men’s RTW.
- Strategic oversight capabilities to monitor the Shoes portfolio from a macro perspective and make swift, high-level business decisions.
2. Communication & Interpersonal Skills (Soft Skills)
Multi-Stakeholder Alignment & Negotiation
Fluent Business English
Proactive Problem-Solving & Flexibility
3. Ideal Personality Traits
- An approachable and inspiring leader who takes pride in developing junior talent. Capable of clear delegation, constructive feedback, and pulling a team of 2 direct reports together to achieve shared business objectives.
