Free People Divisional Merchandise Manager - Accessories

About the Role

The Divisional Merchandise Manager (DMM) is responsible for growing sales volume and profit for assigned merchandise categories. This role influences buyers to translate customer insights, competitive information, and fashion knowledge into actionable strategies that drive category-specific growth and profitability. The DMM ensures the quality of team output and fosters collaboration between internal talent and external partnerships to deliver unique products that align with the Anthropologie shopping experience. The role requires strong fashion intuition to direct merchandising decisions.

Responsibilities

• Profit Planning: Strategize sales and profit growth for managed categories. Analyze annual category growth, present sales potential to leadership, and drive bottoms-up planning by prioritizing and allocating budgets. Provide category-specific direction to buyers and review assortment plans to ensure correct fashion positioning.
• Product Design and Development: Bring a customer and market perspective to the design process to ensure commercially viable line recommendations. Collaborate with design and production leadership to share market trends and foster a relationship that leverages both market and design expertise.
• Sourcing and Production: Coordinate with production to facilitate planning needs. Develop and monitor sourcing and production strategies for private label and market vendors.
• Marketing: Identify marketing and promotional opportunities for assigned categories. Partner with the Art Department and Creative team to develop marketing, packaging, and promotional plans. Collaborate with the marketing team to create product narratives that resonate with customers and drive traffic. Determine the optimal mix of market and private label products to ensure a customer-oriented final assortment.
• In-Store Merchandising: Actively determine in-store product placement, prioritize merchandise for optimal customer response, and align with the creative team. Communicate priorities to the field through seasonal overviews, store visits, and weekly operations meetings.
• OTB/Inventory Management: Manage categories in-season by synthesizing business analysis and developing recommendations to increase sales, improve margins, optimize inventories, and decrease markdowns.
• Team Development: Coach and mentor buyers to maximize market resources, margins, and product timeliness. Facilitate the development of new vendors and manage vendor lifecycles. Provide regular performance feedback and annual evaluations to develop promotable talent.

Qualifications

• Entrepreneurial spirit with an owner’s mindset.
• Ability to recognize and capitalize on emerging trends early in their lifecycle.
• Skill in translating market insights into actionable assortment and buying strategies.
• Creative thinking to navigate and manage changing paradigms.
• Deep understanding of the Anthropologie customer and shopping experience, ensuring the final category edit aligns with brand expectations.
• Ability to gather, assimilate, and apply customer-specific information.
• Capacity to transition from strategic planning to execution.
• Strong financial acumen and numerical proficiency to achieve tactical objectives.
• Ability to develop and communicate a business vision that drives bottom-line performance.
• Leadership skills to delegate, direct, and provide clear guidance to buyers.
• Personnel skills to lead, develop, and coach teams, recognizing the importance of team-building to company success.
• Ability to develop partnerships with other functional heads.
• Proficiency in collecting, analyzing, packaging, and presenting information to leadership for informed decision-making.

Benefits

URBN offers comprehensive perks and benefits, including:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Paid time off (PTO).
• Generous employee discounts.
• Retirement savings plans.
• Additional benefits may vary by location and employment status.

For more details, visit www.urbn.com/work-with-us/benefits.