Category Manager
WHITES
Total years of experience :16 years, 0 Months
Handling Personal Care, Wellness, Health & Beauty Products.
Responsibility of Sales, Margin & Inventory.
Creating a Destination zone for the Customer.
Introductions of New Categories / Brands / Vendors.
Closure of Annual Contracts with Vendors which includes the turnover, margins and related business decisions.
Forecasting of Sales & Inventory - Monthly, Quarterly, Half yearly & Annual.
Margin Forecast - Fixed, Progressive & Other Income.
Sales Forecast - Store Wise / Vendor Wise / Brand Wise.
Maintaining Healthy Inventory (Range Management) - Stock Cover / Returns or Stock Swapping/ Ensuring Right Sku Selection / MBQ Setting / Utilization of OTB (70/30)/ Availability based on effective communications and cooperative relationships with vendors.
Expand successful product lines and implement successful exit strategies for unsuccessful or unpopular SKU.
Planning Marketing activities for the year, including events & Festivals.
Design the promotion and events to boost the sales and target achievement.
Buying, ranging and managing product lines based on demand.
Hands-on Experience in coordinating and negotiating with suppliers in order to ensure fair pricing.
Accountable for maximizing customer value through ranging, pricing, & promotion in line with the overall category & company strategies
Implementing Promotion Strategies and identifying opportunities of incremental sales of the existing products.
Developed and executed Strategies for merchandise assortments
Regular range review of the existing products. (Non-Moving / Slow Moving/ Fast Moving)
Weekly Target vs. Achievement & Analysis of Promotional products.
Stock evaluation and analysis.
Develop & implement relevant strategic plans for category development in line with company strategies.
Annual budgeting and forecasting.
Review and monitor top/ bottom lines in terms of sales and profits.
Attainments:
Consistently achieved the Sales Targets up to 110% for 2015-16 / 100% for 2014-15 & 2013-14 and reduced the stock from 6 months cover to 30-45 days across 2015-16.
Consistently played a major role in achieving the margin target of 100% last 4 years.
Managing sourcing & new vendor introduction.
Handling vendor database, supervising sales budget, organizing promotional activities & finalizing offers.
Overseeing range & SKU planning, sub category introduction.
Supervising catalogue planning & additions, showcasing products, managing order fulfilment & sustaining the TAT.
Finalizing prices, overseeing sales and promotion planning.
Resolving issues, rendering business intelligence and sourcing new business opportunities.
Conceptualising strategies to improve current catalogue with in-dept hierarchy
Involved in buying and merchandising tech. & Gaming products (IT, Digital, Audio, GPS Devices, Consoles, Softwares & Accessories), range & SKU planning.
Introduced sub categories, implemented new formats and established norms.
Oversaw visual merchandising, sourcing and new vendor evaluation.
Coordinated with the back office & stores and handled the sales budgeting.
Organized the promotional activities and finalizing offers and liquidated plan roll - outs.
Handling store planograming & set-up along with visual merchandising.
Arranging Gaming Challenges, and Lauch Events and managing sourcing & new vendor introduction, vendor database management,
Coordinating with back office & stores for stock in and roll out and supervising the sales and margin budgets.
Attainments:
Successfully achieved the sales upto 102% for 2010 - 11 and reduced the stock from 6 months cover to 3.2 months across 2010 - 11.
Played a major role in achieving the margin target of 96%.
Honoured with the Merit Award for exceptional contribution in the year 2010 - 11.
Effectively started new stores at Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Chennai & Bangalore
Functioned as In-charge of big corporates such as Metro throughout India, Staples in Bangalore and More Mega Hypermarket in Bangalore.
Handled the stock replenishment levels in all stores and merchandized stocks in respective stores.
Coordinated with the Branch Managers of Mumbai and Hyderabad for orders and sales.
Organised promotional events and finalized offers and training across stores to improve product knowledge
Coordinated with the Branch Mangers for Visual Merchandising
Attainments:
Successfully organized and coordinated several promotional activities which resulted in achieving huge sales.
Efficiently handled the clearance of the old stocks and increased the total turnover of the company
Oversaw the merchandizing products in respective stores and conducted promotional activities.
Involved in planograming of respective categories in stores and replenishing stocks throughout.
Checked the stock levels (old stocks) and coordinated for payments with the vendors.
Collaborated with the Department Managers & Supervisors in the respective stores.
Managed the sales team during the promotional activities and conducted research / analysis of competitor’s products, sales and pricing.
Attainments:
Successfully achieved targets upto 150% in Q4 - 2008 and efficiently cleared old stocks worth Rs. 20 lacs.
o Received the Jo Jeetha Wohi Sikandar for achieving the target 150%.
Capably increased the revenue growth and margin growth upto 18%.
Dexterously started new stores across Bangalore & Hyderabad.