Director, Merchandising

Solo Brands is made up of 6 distinctive brands: Solo Stove, Chubbies, ORU Kayak, ISLE, IcyBreeze and TerraFlame. Our company is built around enhancing and creating experiences that form memories and connections to people, places, and the natural world. We offer creative and emotional lifestyle products that help our customers create memories. Solo Brands is about Designing Good, Doing Good and Being Good so it can Create Good one good moment at a time. Good moments. Good memories. Good products. So you can create a good life

About this opportunity: 

Merchandising is a critical function of any product engine and at Chubbies it’s no different. It begins and ends with the consumer as we continually strive to bring exciting and innovative products to them. We’re looking for our next Director of Merchandising to joining our product merchandising team here at Chubbies.

Functionally, the merchandising team has two core responsibilities. First, partnering with the product team to design, develop and invest in a balanced assortment of products. Second, collaborating with cross-functional channel leads to maximize in-season performance by driving sell-through and product marketing.

As the Director of Merchandising for Chubbies, your role is to apply merchandising principles, to develop profitable Consumer Right Assortments (CRA’s) that deliver the right product, at the right place, at the right price, at the right time, and in the right quantity. You’ll have a proven ability to understand the consumer, and most importantly their needs. An ability to recognize trends, capitalize as appropriate, and see beyond to identify “what’s next”.

You will be successful in working cross functionally with the teams to champion the Chubbies experience and bring cross-merchandising to life. You will be an integral part of the Go-To-Market process, delivering presentations, strategies, tools, and guidelines that will help drive the CRA’s, in conjunction with Sales, to our accounts, and the consumer.

The opportunity to help create and drive merchandising excellence is waiting for you here at Chubbies. 

What you expect to work on:

Working with partners across Design, Development, Engineering, and more you’ll have the opportunity to bring premium consumer experiences to life through amazing products. Weaving regional inputs, DTC analytics, data from across the business, and consumer insights will enable you to create compelling product briefs, anchored in financial metrics, that will help guide both the creation process as well as overall lifecycle management of the portfolio. With pricing and profitability at the forefront, your ability to be both deeply analytical yet highly creative, will be key as you help shepherd the Go-To-Market and build alignment across the brand.

As a leader, this individual will shape the merchandising organization to operate via the corporate values and will need to inspire direct reports and leaders across the company to deliver results while sustaining a culture of continuous improvement. Beyond that, leading a team of merchants with varying degrees of category ownership and experience, you’ll be able to contribute to even greater success by helping to train, develop, and advance the any direct reports on the team.

Duties and responsibilities  

• Create a premium consumer experience by Identifying, prioritizing, and framing consumer trends (insights); take regional/channel inputs and weave into the Global product engines to inform and influence the product creation process. Provide qualitative information (trends, color/materials, price/value, performance, innovation needs)

• Create seasonal merchandising briefs and business plans – collaborate cross functionally within the Merchandising team to ensure cohesion; and communicate to Domestic and International teams
• Meet or exceed all fiscal plans for Revenue, IGP, SKU Efficiency, and other financial metrics
• Facilitate Product Lifecycle Management by creating and managing strategies for what products continue and/or what products retire in each seasonal range.
• Leverage PLM and apply the thinking to execute against our Iteration and Extension strategies
• Execute segmentation through profitable consumer right assortments that leverage Category Drivers, Seasonal, and Seasonal Energy products and key programs and meet & exceed account revenue targets
• Build and drive alignment for segmentation and differentiation strategies in the marketplace
• Provide seasonal visual assortment tools to support sales efforts, and partner with them to present and land profitable and consumer right assortments
• Execute and ensure a flawless Go-To-Market process
• Drive relevant assortment for Key Accounts and strategic partners together with local markets
• Develop cost matrix/pricing matrix for all seasonal pricing
• Partner with Merchandising team to ensure all relevant and accurate information is housed in the internal systems, continually updated and accurate in near real time
• Create seasonal forecasts by partnering cross-functionally with the Planning and Operations team, ensuring forecast accuracy, and influencing the overall inventory buys
• Understand the metrics of SKU Efficiency, how to manage, analyze and control in a way that delivers the right number, in the right places, at the right time to drive growth
• Lead portions of the global milestone meetings, in addition to regional trade shows and market visits
• Deliver all assigned projects on time, in full, and while maintaining high quality standards
• Responsible for the training and development of all members of the merchandising team. For junior members, this includes fundamental merchandising skills. For more senior members, this also includes management skills.

Benefits:

• 7-10 years of merchandising experience for a vertical brand (digital experience a plus)
• Experience managing managers as well as entry level independent contributors
• Deeply analytical yet highly creative (excel/analysis skills need to be A++)
• Has worked regularly with creatives, giving constructive feedback
• Experience building processes, tools, and training others to use them
• Highly collaborative, inspires others to achieve positive outcomes
• Experience with simultaneously managing strategy & extreme detail
• Experience contributing to an open-to-buy process
• A passion for product and our brand and customer

Benefits:

• Competitive Salary
• Unlimited PTO for most corporate roles, accrued for others 
• Medical, dental, and vision benefits for employees
• 401(k) with 3% match 
• Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Flexible spending account 
• Generous employee discount 
• Priceless opportunity to work with the coolest team ever!
  

Inclusion Clause

At Chubbies, we don’t believe in just celebrating the weekend, we celebrate different voices, perspectives, and backgrounds. We stand against discrimination based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, veteran status, or disabilities. It is our commitment to creating an inclusive environment for all employees while we chase that Friday at Five feeling.

Even if you don't qualify or have specific experience in every facet of this role this job description may not be inclusive of all assigned duties, responsibilities, or aspects of the job described. We encourage you to apply for any role you're personally interested in & excited to drive positive change at Chubbies!

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