Senior eCommerce Product Manager

Music is Universal. Its the passionate and dedicated team at Universal Music who help make us the worlds leading music company. From A&R to finance, legal to digital sales to marketing, Universal Music is the place to grow and develop your career within a truly commercial and innovative business that leads in everything it does.

Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, age, marital status, background, pregnancy or caring responsibilities. We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought within our teams and are fully committed to embracing the talents of people with autism, dyslexia, ADHD and other forms of neurocognitive variation. We will always seek to make appropriate adjustments to recruitment, workplaces and work processes to be fully inclusive to people with different needs and working styles. If you need us to make any reasonable adjustments for you from application onwards, including alternatives to the online form or to disclose a neurocognitive condition, please email.

The Role

UMUK value e-Commerce as a key foundational channel to connect artists and fans. This is a key role within a UMUK label to drive their eCommerce merchandise product strategy. You will work closely with all areas of the label and artist management to identify, manage design briefs & outputs, produce and develop profitable merchandise collection ranges and deliver eCommerce product and marketing strategies that grow revenue across a diverse roster of eCommerce stores.

Using your buying and merchandising experience, develop the merchandise collection with label and central creative teams delivering high quality and sustainable products in line with fashion & seasonal trends. You will oversee the development and critical path of the merchandise ranges, working with creative teams and suppliers ensuring products are delivered on time and in line with the production critical path. You will deliver focused, profitable and innovative e-Commerce product strategies for each artist, all in line with eCommerce best practice and deliver the best possible customer experience.

This role is unique in that it has creative, commercial and operational elements. The day to day will be varied, fast paced and often high pressure but always rooted in developing products in line with the labels commercial strategy and achieving an exceptional fan experience that is authentic to our artists and their fans.

Key Responsibilities

• Be the point of contact for Artist teams with all things merch collection related.
• Deliver effective e-commerce strategies across collection ranges over a wide range of frontline and catalogue artists using your deep knowledge on garments and development techniques.
• Confidently pitch and present in eComm merch artist deals direct with the artists looking for opportunities with every artist from developing to established.
• Work with the artists, label A & R, creative teams, the N1 Creative team and 3rd party merchandisers to develop artist collection ranges acting as the central point of contact across teams.
• Work with creative teams (internal and external) to project manage, advise on design and create collection ranges in line with artists design aesthetic and key seasonal trends - in line with UMUK suppliers production capabilities.
• Oversee trend analysis, range planning and category development including mood-board creation to support strategic product planning across multiple artists stores.
• Manage product sampling, coordinating product shoots and utilising project management tools for tracking and briefing relevant teams.
• Drive projects forward proactively taking ownership of critical paths and confidently escalating when timelines are tight.
• Build a buy matrix to manage forecasting quantities per collection, sell thru, ROS margins and effectively top up / promote out of stock.
• Analyse and report on collection effectiveness, steer when items need to be repushed and shot, communicating with the marketing teams around CRM organic and paid activity to help sell the product.
• Engage in research with the N1 Creative with regards to new suppliers to onboard into the business & discuss effectiveness of current ones.
• Work with our N1 Creative and suppliers to source appropriate blanks for merchandise, create samples and manage a production critical path to ensure that product is manufactured and delivered to our warehouse on time.
• Manage collection production workflow to include estimating, arranging visuals for approval, pre-production sampling if required, delivery of print files to printer, oversee production and ensure timely project delivery.
• Run an efficient P&L that meets the labels / artists requirements working with the N1 Creative production team to drive the best prices and margins possible for the products within the collection.
• Work with N1 Creative to ensure the D2C collection calendar is up to date and meets the years growth KPIs around collection drops and revenue.
• Attend weekly trade & calendar planning meetings with the N1C team and initiate any additional production / design meetings needed in order to deliver projects on time.
• Manage the labels eCommerce always on merchandise collection strategy ensuring artist stores remain active outside of the traditional album pre-order and release cycle.

Skills and Experience

• Experience in eCommerce specifically in fashion / apparel buying & merchandising.
• Confident leading projects from concept to delivery with the ability to present and share ideas with internal and external teams.
• Strong relationship building skills with the ability to make decisions and push projects forward.
• Proactive attitude and comfortable with both creative merchandise development and administrative project management.
• Exceptional project management skills.
• Highly proficient with Microsoft Excel.
• A demonstrable ability of eComm brand management and the ability to be agnostic specifically developing always on or evergreen and merchandise collection ranges.
• A passion for music and fashion and as it relates to apparel / merchandise.
• The successful candidate will have a demonstrable creative strategist mindset to project manage engaging products for artists.
• Ability to manage production critical paths with tight deadlines and support design and creative teams with timelines to get merchandise printed on time.
• A strong knowledge of a wide range of on-trend printing techniques with an understanding of D2G dye sublimation, cut and sew & screen print processes.
• Blanks and suppliers in the music / fashion / merchandise space.
• Experienced in handling digital files with good understanding of composition required for digital litho and screen print (CMYK spot colour).
• Strong understanding of core eCommerce best practice focused on achieving an amazing fan experience.
• A Commercial & analytical approach to business adept at working and achieving revenue and additional KPIs.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, ability to speak confidently in meetings.
• Ability to liaise with third parties, initiate and fulfil initiatives in a proactive manner.
• A solid understanding of performance marketing and using a marketing channel mix to drive e-Comm sales.
• Knowledge of Google Analytics and or other major analytics platforms to track performance.

Desirable

• Experience of label / merchandise brand management.

Just So You Know

The company presents this job description as a guide to the major areas and duties for which the jobholder is accountable. However, the business operates in an environment that demands change and the jobholders specific responsibilities and activities will vary and develop. Therefore, the job description should be seen as indicative and not as a permanent definitive and exhaustive statement.