Franchise & Wholsesale Trading Manager in London

Who we are: Agent Provocateur, founded in 1994 in Soho, is a pioneering luxury lingerie brand known for fearless femininity and boundary-pushing design. Created by women and made for everyone, it uses exclusive fabrics, intricate details and bold storytelling to redefine empowered sensuality. With a global presence and boutiques in London, New York, LA and Paris, its decadent collections continue to challenge convention.

Purpose of the post: Responsibility for management of Franchise and Wholesale partnerships. Ownership of end-to-end processes across onboarding new partners and channels, sales and presentation of new collections, fulfillment of orders, trading and planning. Owner of the relationship between Agent Provocateur and Franchise Partner/Wholesale Customer. Brand Ambassador and key interface between Partner and Agent Provocateur internal teams.

Main duties and responsibilities:

• Trading, Planning & Assortment Management: Proactively work with each Franchise Partner to review sales and stocks. Support partner to ensure they meet their seasonal and annual sales targets and planned sell through’s. Review of Franchise weekly sales. Compile the weekly trade summary to the wider business. Highlight actions within weekly trade to the Head of Franchise & Wholesale. Build seasonal Open to Buy Plans and work with Partners to agree and work to aligned planning frameworks. Build and maintain knowledge for each Franchise market understanding sales mixes across business metrics, for eg Category and Seasonality. Constant review of weekly sales at size and product level. Proactively ensure re-orders are maximised through effective review of weekly sales. Maintain department KPI to ensure re-orders are fulfilled. With the Head of Franchise & Wholesale, review of Partner Forward Orders to ensure they align to seasonal plans and metrics. Maximise the opportunity across categories and collections. Propose actions to orders to protect the opportunity. Working with the AP Merchandising team and Partner, build opening stock packages for new territories outside of Forward Orders. Ensure opening packages are optimised to realise each opportunity. Ensure Brand consistency via visual display and web placement. Work with the Agent Provocateur Visual Merchandising team to support this. Drive weekly, quarterly and/or seasonal trade reviews with Partners and Wholesale customers. Identify actions to drive sales and relationships. Maintain commercial acumen behind all actions and decisions made. Regularly visit Partner stores and regions to support relationship management and drive sales.
• Selling Campaign & Critical Path Management: Full management of order system JOOR, including seasonal digital collection presentation, order import and end/in-season reporting. Manage and support the critical path selling campaign process. Commercially, manage the process of selling, to ensure we sell collections via sample sets showcasing product in its optimum. Effectively present and sell our collections to set up for success and meet agreed sales targets.
• Order & Delivery Management: Seasonal order book management for Partners via our in-house order systems. Oversee process of order confirmations, invoices, debits and credits. Oversee allocations for Partners, ensuring 100% fulfilment. Daily review of available stock working to collection and shipping parameters. Responsible for proactively ensuring there are no shortfalls or stock loss. Minimise any excess stock to identify and action accordingly. Manage weekly review of the stock. Communication of deliveries, delays and updates back to Partners on an ongoing basis. Oversee dispatches to partners ensuring on time handovers/deliveries. Ensure all export documentation is compliant to the Country of delivery. Oversee invoicing process for Partners. Ensure all invoices are accurate and sent on time, in accordance with financial calendars. Liaison between Credit Control and Finance teams to facilitate accurate and timely shipments within credit limits. Internal liaison with Logistics team and direct liaison with warehouses located in EU, US and UK. Oversee and manage the weekly order status report updating the Head of Franchise & Wholesale of any changes. Via the weekly delivery meeting, identify any delivery changes to determine best course of action to minimise loss to orders.
• Other: Support marketing activations and seasonal plans. Work closely with the Retail & Partnerships Marketing Manager to ensure we maximise opportunities with Franchise Partners and share best practice. Liaison with product teams, sharing detailed seasonal product feedback. Update the wider business as and when required. Review of the Department Inbox and Joor networking tool to highlight and follow up on potential stockists and Franchise requests. Maintain Franchise Guideline packs and practice governance, where possible, to ensure Partners are adhering to framework. Maintain department guides and manuals to support the internal, best practice of the team. Supervision, management and development of the Sales Executive. Assign tasks and priorities to effectively manage deadlines, execution of standards and productivity. Share best practice within the Franchise & Wholesale team leading with example and offering development/training where relevant. An excellent communicator, able to get best out of internal and external relationships.

Benefits: 25 days annual leave entitlement, plus bank holidays each year. Generous staff discount across a variety of brands. Auto-enrolment into the company pension scheme. Cycle-to-work scheme. Seasonal ticket loan. Charity time-bank scheme. Ability to purchase additional annual leave.