Head Of Online Trading Full Time

Head Of Online Trading Jobs in UAE

The Role

The Head of Online Trading has overall responsibility and oversight of all digital platforms for a brand, including direct to consumer (DTC) websites, apps, and BTB marketplaces. This role involves steering the online trading team’s direction and activities, which encompass online product merchandising, category management, taxonomy, and content. This role fully owns the entire online customer experience from browsing to fulfilment, developing, and executing the e-commerce strategy, driving sales to meet financial and business goals, to ensure the brand’s growth and transformation of the customer’s end to end journey, all while leading operation and performance across multiple channels.

The role owns the P&L, strategy, budget planning and host brand relationship from a digital point of view to ensure that we operate a best-in-class customer experience which is focused on growth and commercial performance.

The Head of Online is also responsible for collaborating and curating sophisticated and multi-faceted conversion initiatives across DTC properties and will partner with other business leads within Brand, eCommerce, Marketing, and across the wider organization to ensure that targets are consistently met or exceeded and to always achieve the correct brand/commercial balance creating a customer centric culture.

Key Performance Areas

The Head of Online trading will build, develop, and nurture a team of traders, category managers and online merchandisers and establish best practice working processes and deliver tooling to drive results.

• Collaborates with the Brand VP to ensure the overarching omni commercial and customer strategies are effectively integrated and executed and sets the vision for the digital growth strategy.

• Assume overall responsibility for the brand’s online P&L, driving revenue, and controlling costs to ensure profitability, financial stability, and sustainable growth.

• Own the digital host brand stakeholder engagement for online strategies and plans, working to create mutually supportive working relationships.

• Lead and operationally manage eCommerce merchandising, content management, and online trading cadence across multiple platforms including DTC and BTB channels.

• Drive conversion and trading performance in all digital environments, ensuring alignment with promotion margin, sell-through objectives, and overall business omni strategy.

• Foster a highly analytical and dynamic approach to strategic planning, event management in real time trade environment and decision-making based on data, insights, and research.

• Enhance the customer journey by identifying conversion improvement opportunities, working with the central teams on testing visual solutions, and delivering effective CRO enhancements to the business.

• Co-develop with planning online trading calendars, drive campaign delivery, and establish online seasonality best practices alongside retail teams.

• Responsible for the end-to-end digital customer journey, scans for new technology trends, opportunities, and ensure the adoption of best-in-class solutions and trading platforms that are tested, resilient, optimized, and secure.

• Manage and develop Online Trade teams, promoting a performance-driven culture with continuous experimentation, learning, and cross-team collaboration.

• Drive site conversion and average order value through merchandising strategies based on customer site search, personalization, upsell and cross sell, relevancy of products, and targeted offers.

The Responsibilities

E-Commerce Strategy

• Develop and oversee the implementation of the e-commerce strategy for a major brand, including long-term planning, optimal assortment and inventory planning, and the establishment of performance tracking metrics to enable real-time decision making to drive sales and achieve profit targets.
• Co-own the strategy and drive the delivery of the digital trading function for the group, ensuring conversion optimization and collaboration with brand teams to meet strategic and tactical objectives.

Trading eComerce and Marketplace

• Co-own the strategy and drive the delivery of the digital trading function for the brand.
• Conversion optimisation in all forms.
• Assumes overall responsibility for a major brand’s P&L, driving revenue and controlling costs to ensure the digital entity of the brand remains profitable, financially stable, and capable of sustaining growth over the long term.
• Responsible for forecasting across all eCommerce KPIs and working with all areas of eCommerce and brand teams to deliver aggressive, accurate and achievable plans and budgets.
• Provide daily/weekly/monthly trading updates and reports, chair digital trading meetings, and drive the delivery of optimal online inventory.

Host Brand Management

• Lead the development and implementation of stakeholder engagement strategies and plans for the host brand to identify relevant stakeholders, create mutually supportive working relationships, and ensure that each stakeholder has an appropriate share of voice on local decision making.
• Build the site calendar of trading events with trading leads and co-create content experiences, stories, and promotions across the digital and omnichannel environment.

Digital Channels and Technology Management

• Develop strategy for the company’s digital channel architecture and digital integration in an omnichannel model, supporting all underlying business units and global enterprise digital presence.
• Be the lead business stakeholder for online trading systems and processes, delivering the correct tooling and ensuring clear planning, testing, and successful deployment of projects.
• Drive sustainable, profitable sales growth and achieve a consistent and granular view on profitability.
• Develop critical components of the digital roadmap, integrating insights from tracking and reporting to guide future focus and commercial opportunity.

Customer Centricity and CX Implementation

• Determine delivery strategy for customer experience (CX) and differentiating customer initiatives, working as a strategic partner with marketing and demand generation to ensure that marketing plans include demand generation activity for CX offerings.
• Manage the digital customer experience/journey to maximize conversion and promote the ‘voice of the customer’ across all business units.

 The Requirements:

• Substantial experience 5+ years in a strategic trade performance and or merchandising role with a proven record of success and delivery.
• 3 to 6 years’ experience in managing and developing effective teams.
• A true customer champion who understands how to successfully drive maximum value from a digital shopping environment whilst balancing the needs of an omnichannel operation/business.
• Able to influence, create strategy and manage host brand, clients, and stakeholders.
• Excellent understanding of all digital KPIs controlling costs and driving commercial gains
• Thorough understanding of all trading tooling and commerce engines
• Experience of MENA markets.

The Competencies:

• Data Driven: uses multiple analytical tools to report and track success/failure.
• Commercially Astute: achieves targets and objectives to stay ahead of competitors.
• Great Communicator: shares information in a clear and concise manner to influence stakeholders and colleagues.
• Customer focused: finds solutions to customer shopping challenges, recognizes the importance of the digital journey.
• Organized: skilled at interpreting customer behavior and responding to it, finds opportunities to improve at every level of the customer shopping journey.
• Pulls the plan together: leads and collaborates internally within brand and digital division by pulling together actions into an effective and cohesive plan and works with all colleagues to deliver.
• Maintain an expert level of knowledge of all related activity and be always aware of industry and competitor developments and innovations.
• Constantly look for new opportunities and regularly makes suggestions to improve performance, process, and customer touchpoints.