: Category Manager

Function: Category Management

Role: Category Manager - Watches

Experience: 7–10 Years

Location: Mumbai

Employment Type: Full time

Role Purpose

The Category Manager will be responsible for driving the overall business performance of the assigned category, with end-to-end ownership of topline growth, profitability, marketing income, brand relationships, site merchandising, customer experience, and seller performance.

The role requires a strong commercial mindset combined with a deep understanding of e-commerce, category dynamics, consumer behaviour, and merchandising. The incumbent will work closely with brands and internal cross-functional teams to identify growth opportunities, improve category performance, strengthen the brand portfolio, and deliver a seamless customer experience.

Key Responsibilities

1. Category Performance & Growth

- Own the overall business performance of the assigned category and deliver against monthly, quarterly, and annual topline and bottom-line targets.
- Develop and execute category growth plans based on business priorities, consumer trends, market opportunities, and brand performance.

- Monitor sales trends, growth rates, conversion metrics, ASP, discounting, margins, and other key commercial indicators to identify opportunities and performance gaps.
- Drive corrective interventions across assortment, pricing, promotions, visibility, merchandising, and inventory to improve category performance.
- Identify new revenue and growth opportunities through category expansion, new brand additions, exclusive propositions, and improved customer penetration.

- Conduct periodic business reviews to track performance against plans and ensure timely execution of agreed actions.

2. Marketing Income & Commercial Management

- Own and achieve monthly marketing income targets for the category.
- Drive brand-funded campaigns and commercial initiatives while ensuring timely collections and optimum return on marketing investments.

- Generate incremental income through brand contributions for campaigns, coupons, internal schemes, visibility opportunities, exclusive launches, and other commercial initiatives.
- Work closely with brands to build joint marketing plans aligned with category priorities and key commercial events.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of brand-funded initiatives and optimize investments based on business impact and ROI.

- Ensure proper tracking, documentation, and closure of marketing income commitments.

3. Brand Relationship Management

- Build and maintain strong, strategic relationships with key brands and partners within the category portfolio.
- Act as the primary business partner for brands, driving alignment on growth plans, assortment, pricing, promotions, marketing, inventory, and operational performance.

- Conduct weekly and monthly business reviews with brands, sharing performance insights, business opportunities,



and clear action plans.
- Drive brand growth by identifying performance gaps and jointly developing interventions to improve sales, visibility, conversion, and customer engagement.
- Manage brand expectations through timely responses to queries, operational concerns, and escalations.

- Lead initiatives around exclusive launches, collections, collaborations, and brand-led activations to strengthen differentiation and customer engagement.
- Identify and onboard relevant new brands and propositions that strengthen the overall category portfolio.

4.

Assortment, Pricing & Category Planning

- Build and maintain a relevant and competitive assortment aligned with customer demand, category trends, and business objectives.
- Identify assortment gaps across brands, price points, styles, and customer segments and work with partners to address them.

- Monitor competitor assortment, pricing, promotions, and market trends to maintain category competitiveness.
- Work with brands and internal teams to ensure the right depth of inventory across key products and commercial periods.
- Drive pricing and promotion strategies that balance customer value, category competitiveness, growth, and profitability.

- Identify opportunities to improve the overall category mix through high-growth, high-margin, exclusive, and differentiated propositions.

5. Site Merchandising & Customer Journey

- Own the customer journey across category pages, ensuring high visual quality, discoverability, relevance, and a seamless shopping experience.
- Regularly review the site for quality issues, broken links, incorrect listings, pricing or discount discrepancies, and merchandising errors and ensure timely resolution.

- Plan and optimize wireframes, banners, landing pages, navigation, product placements, and calls-to-action based on customer behaviour and business priorities.
- Ensure key brands, products, campaigns, and launches receive appropriate visibility across relevant customer touchpoints.
- Monitor and improve critical digital metrics including visits, CTR, Add-to-Cart %, bounce rate, and conversion rate through targeted interventions.

- Use customer and business insights to continuously improve product discovery, category navigation, and overall shopping experience.

- Analytics & Business Insights

- Analyse category performance across sales, traffic, conversion, inventory, pricing, discounting, marketing, and profitability metrics.
- Develop actionable insights from data and translate them into clearly defined business interventions.





- Track performance at category, sub-category, brand, and product levels to identify growth opportunities and areas requiring intervention.
- Create regular dashboards and business reviews highlighting performance, challenges, opportunities, and action plans.
- Use historical trends, customer behaviour, competitive insights, and upcoming events to support category forecasting and planning.

8. Cross-Functional Collaboration

- Work closely with Marketing, Merchandising, Planning, Finance, Operations, Catalogue, Product, Technology, and Customer Experience teams to deliver category objectives.
- Coordinate campaign planning and execution across internal teams and external brand partners.

- Partner with Product and Technology teams to identify and resolve customer journey or platform-related issues affecting business performance.
- Collaborate with Finance and relevant stakeholders on commercial reconciliation, marketing income, collections, and profitability.
- Ensure timely execution of key category initiatives by driving alignment and accountability across stakeholders.

Education & Experience

- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Business, Fashion Management, Retail Management, Marketing, or a related discipline.
- 7–10 years of relevant experience in Category Management, Buying, Merchandising, Retail, Marketplace, or E-commerce.

- Strong experience in managing category P&L;, revenue targets, brands, assortment, pricing, and promotions.
- Experience working with fashion, apparel, lifestyle, or Indian Wear categories would be advantageous.
- Strong understanding of e-commerce customer funnels and digital merchandising metrics.

- Demonstrated experience in managing external brand relationships and cross-functional internal stakeholders.

Key Skills & Competencies

Business & Category Management

- Category P&L; Management
- Revenue & Profitability Management
- Category Strategy & Planning
- Assortment Planning
- Pricing & Promotion Strategy
- Marketing Income Management
- Commercial Negotiation
- Brand & Seller Management

E-commerce & Analytics

- Site Merchandising
- E-commerce Funnel Management
- Conversion Optimization
- Customer Journey Optimization
- Business Analytics & Data Interpretation
- Inventory & Seller Performance Management
- Campaign Performance Analysis

Leadership & Behavioural Competencies

- Strong commercial acumen and ownership mindset
- Analytical and data-driven decision-making
- Strategic thinking with strong execution orientation
- Excellent stakeholder and relationship management
- Strong negotiation and influencing skills
- Customer-first approach
- Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment
- High attention to detail and operational rigor
- Strong problem-solving and decision-making capability
- Ability to collaborate effectively across functions and drive closure

📌 Category Manager - Watches (Mumbai)
🏢 Tata CLiQ
📍 Mumbai