Business Development Manager - Freight Forwarder in Southampton

Do you have experience in freight forwarding sales, logistics solutions, or eCommerce fulfilment? Are you commercially driven, highly organised and motivated by identifying new business opportunities, developing customer relationships and converting tailored logistics solutions into long-term commercial partnerships?

We are looking for a proactive and customer-focused Business Development Manager to join our Freight Forwarding and eCommerce Logistics team. This role will play a key part in driving business growth across freight forwarding, customs, fulfilment, and warehousing services by developing new sales opportunities, managing customer relationships, and supporting long-term commercial success.

Working closely with Operations, Client Services, and the wider commercial team, you will help deliver tailored logistics solutions across air, sea, road freight, customs brokerage, and fulfilment services.

Your key responsibilities will be to:

• Source and develop new business opportunities through proactive sales activity and collaboration with Operations teams.
• Research, identify and qualify prospective customers within target markets.
• Build and manage a structured sales pipeline using CRM systems.
• Arrange meetings and calls with prospective customers to understand their logistics requirements and provide tailored solutions.
• Develop tailored proposals and presentations that address customer needs, service requirements and commercial objectives.
• Support the preparation and presentation of competitive multimodal pricing solutions.
• Monitor market trends, customer requirements and competitor activity to help identify new business opportunities.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with prospective and existing customers.
• Support customer retention and identify opportunities to grow existing accounts.
• Act as a key point of contact for customer enquiries and quotations across Air, Ocean, EU Road, Brokerage, Fulfilment and Warehousing services.
• Contribute to commercial growth strategies focused on profitability and customer service.
• Support marketing and networking activity including LinkedIn engagement and trade events.
• Prepare sales reports and pipeline updates for the Commercial Director.
• Build relationships with third-party suppliers and service providers to support competitive solutions.
• Support achievement of agreed sales targets and business objectives.

The ideal candidate will have:

• Experience in freight forwarding, logistics, supply chain, or internal sales roles with the ability to identify and develop new business opportunities.
• Strong understanding of multimodal freight services including air, sea, and road freight.
• A proactive approach to prospecting, negotiation and consultative selling.
• The ability to interpret customer, market and competitor information to identify trends and opportunities.
• Experience managing sales pipelines, quotations, and CRM systems.
• Confident communication skills with the ability to build credibility and maintain effective relationships with customers and colleagues.
• Commercial awareness with a clear focus on customer service, revenue growth and profitability.
• Ability to work collaboratively across sales, operations and customer service teams.
• A well-organised and structured approach, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and follow opportunities through to completion.
• Experience within eCommerce, FBA fulfilment, customs, or warehousing environments would be beneficial.

Benefits:

• In addition to the salary advertised, this role offers the opportunity to increase overall earnings through a bonus scheme linked to agreed sales targets and business growth.
• 25 holiday days per year plus 8 statutory days, increasing to 26 days after two years' service and 27 days after four years' service.
• Membership of the Company Group Life Assurance Scheme which is currently three times annual salary.
• The Company operates a Group Personal Pension Plan which complies with current Workplace Pension legislation.
• Enrolment into the Health Shield Cash Plan after successful completion of probation period.
• Free on-site car parking.
• Length of service awards.
• Enhanced maternity / paternity pay with qualifying service.

If you are interested in this exciting opportunity and believe you have the appropriate skills and experience, we'd love to hear from you. Please click apply and you will be taken to our careers page to complete your application.