Merchant - Skin Care

At Sephora, beauty is about feeling seen, valued, and empowered, individually and collectivly. It is connecting deeply with others, celebrating diversity and inclusivity, unlocking your potential and making a difference every day. Together, we belong to something beautiful. **POSITION PURPOSE:** * The Category Merchant will be working on maximizing the sales and growth of the Skincare category while being fully responsible for the permanent and non-permanent merchandising in all stores of Sephora ME. * She/he will ensure that the products appear at the point of sale at the appropriate time and correct quantities bearing in mind Sephora’s overall retail and category strategies. **KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:** **Assortment Management and Merchandizing** * Plan and manage product lifecycle, and prepare sales and stock plans under supervision of Category manager * Ensure proper stock levels in stores and online for display and sales for animations and thematic * Secure planograms of allocated brands and ensure full merchandizing visibility * Implement and maintain regional assortment on SKU level and manage allocated catalogue of brands’ portfolio. * Maintain skincare calendar including launches, expansion and opening of new doors, and discontinuation strategies * Prepare sales forecast on SKU level by country in alignment with brand budget. Propose the most relevant product mix. * Monitor stock based on forecasts and flag overstock situations to management, particularly monitoring slow sellers and suggest action plan * Analyze every aspect of the brand performance (bestselling points…) and ensure that they reach their full potential. * Conduct quarterly brand assortment analysis and propose action plan on optimization of sku’s and merchandising * Initiate and follow up on the regulation and compliance of all new sku’s * Plan activations, launches, animations, and marketing activities with brand partners and internal teams. * Develop and manage training support with brands and education department. **Brand Management** * Responsible for overseeing the entire lifecycle of skincare brands within allocated portfolio * Build relationships with partners and organizational stakeholders * Develop and execute comprehensive brand strategies aligned with company objectives and market opportunities * Communicate with Brands regularly to ensure projects are developed and delivered on time * Identify all viable sales opportunities * Report on progress to the upper management * Develop engaging sales presentations backed by relevant data and case studies * Work with marketing and customer service teams to ensure all client issues get resolved efficiently **Omnichannel and Marketing** * Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams * Coordinate with relevant teams on brand activation for Ecom visibility, content, and instore animations. Attend the weekly meeting to set M+1 priorities * Securing optimized brand assets for activations * Secure samples and gift quantities for ecommerce activations (GWP, PWP…) * Select brand participation for PR events 3 times a year as per Sephora guidelines (gifting, stand…) * Coordinate with PR on annual seeding and PR plans with brand partners * Ensure timely implementation of digital campaigns * Secure samples and gifts quantities for CRM activations and ensure timely implementation * Define products to be highlighted in CRM emailers, in line with category priorities * Coordinate and align with social team on calendar priorities and activations such as competitions, gifts, etc. * Attend and participate in weekly omni and marketing meetings **Ecommerce** * Define Ecommerce related assortment for Skincare category and ensure assortment’s update communication to all stakeholders * Ensure balanced e-store representation of brand and SKU launches * Liaise with Ecommerce team for marketing support (assets, activations…) and ensure its timely delivery from third parties * Provide regular and timely updates on the digital activations and opportunities that occur on a monthly and repeated basis. * Secure online exclusivities and pre-launches from brand and ensure successful implementation. **Communication & Reporting** * Prepares monthly category and brand performance KPI’s defined by management * Tracks monthly brand budgets by country and by store * Regular meetings and communication with brands to align on brand performance and build constructive and transparent communication. * Ensure correct budget tracking and timely reinvoicing **Strategy** * Lead the development and execution of CRM strategy and function, including data gathering and quality, database understanding, targeting, marketing deployment and loyalty program enhancement and management. * Evolve and optimize email, direct mail, SMS and touchpoint strategy to maximize customer loyalty and drive retention * Evolve loyalty program to be a powerful loyalty driver that is consistent with the vision of the brand * Drive strategic