Promotions & Merchandising Manager - Cross Border

Takealot.com, South Africa’s leading online retailer, is looking for a highly talented Promotions and Merchandising Manager - Cross Border to join our team.

We are a young, dynamic, hyper-growth company looking for smart, creative, hard-working people with integrity to join us!

Think you’ve been challenged before? Think again!

• Scale: Over 4 million happy shoppers shop online on takealot.com and 2.7 million on Mr D. Show them what you can do.
• Learn: We work with the best of the best. Work alongside leaders and upskill in record time.
• Grow: Expand your career in the fast-growing Takealot Group: Takealot.com and Mr D. We like to promote from within: Here's your chance.

Purpose of the role:

The Promotions and Merchandising Manager is responsible for developing and executing a clear merchandising strategy for the Cross Border business unit. The role drives promotional share of GMV and promotional conversion rate optimisation, ensuring that Cross Border deals are sourced, vetted, positioned, and promoted effectively across the Takealot platform. This is a hands-on, commercially driven role that sits at the intersection of sales, marketing, and trade optimisation bridging the gap between seller deal supply and customer- facing merchandising to unlock GMV growth.

Key Responsibilities:

Merchandising Strategy

• Develop and own the Cross Border merchandising strategy and promotional calendar, aligned to seasonal peaks, category priorities, and business unit GMV targets.
• Define and track promotional share of GMV as a core performance metric, with clear targets and improvement plans.
• Analyse promotional conversion rates across deal types, categories, and merchandising placements; identify and action opportunities to improve performance.
• Use platform data (pageviews, conversion, AISP, search trends, lead-time share) to inform deal selection and merchandising positioning.

Deal Sourcing & Vetting

• Source deals from Cross Border sellers and aggregator partners, building a pipeline of promotional inventory ahead of seasonal and campaign windows.
• Vet and qualify deals for margin contribution, product quality, compliance, and customer appeal before inclusion in promotions.
• Negotiate promotional terms pricing, rebates, cash-back, sell-through bonuses within the established promotional framework.
• Maintain a deal pipeline and tracking system that provides visibility on upcoming promotions, deal quality, and expected GMV contribution.

Deal Positioning and Placement

• Position vetted deals into relevant existing promotions and merchandising pages across the Takealot platform.
• Ensure Cross Border products are represented in category-specific and seasonal promotional pages, themed campaigns, and front-store placements.
• Optimise deal visibility through effective titling, imagery, categorisation, and page positioning.F
• Monitor deal performance post-launch and adjust placement and promotion mechanics based on results.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with the marketing team to create bespoke promotions and merchandising solutions tailored to
• Cross Border product characteristics (lead-time, unbranded assortment, value positioning).
• Collaborate with the trade optimisation team to develop and test merchandising formats, landing pages, and promotional mechanics that drive conversion for Cross

Border Products.

• Work with the sales team to identify merchandising opportunities within seller and aggregator portfolios that support GMV growth.
• Coordinate with operations on promotional stock readiness, lead-time communication, and customer expectations for cross-border fulfilment.

Sales Support

• Support the sales team in growing GMV through merchandising-led initiatives — deal curation, promotional calendar alignment, and category-level campaign planning.
• Provide data and insights to the sales team on promotional performance, deal quality, and merchandising opportunities within their portfolios.
• Partner with BDAs to identify high-potential products and sellers for promotional inclusion.

Minimum Required Qualification

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (Business, Marketing, Commerce, or similar).

Minimum Required Experience

• 2–3 years experience in a sales and marketing-related role and/or ecommerce.
• Strong analytical capability — comfortable working with data, dashboards, and performance metrics to drive decisions.
• Data-savvy — proficient in spreadsheet analysis, comfortable with platform analytics tools, and able to translate data into merchandising actions.
• Proven ability to work independently and take ownership of initiatives end-to-end.
• Strong collaboration skills — able to work effectively across sales, marketing, and operations teams.

Minimum Required Competencies

• Experience in ecommerce (marketplace, retail, or platform environment).
• Experience with promotional planning, deal curation, or merchandising in a consumer-facing business.
• Familiarity with Cross Border trade dynamics — lead-time fulfilment, international sellers, and unbranded/value assortments.
• Exposure to aggregator or multi-seller deal sourcing.

Skills, Knowledge & Abilities 

• Commercial acumen — understands margin, pricing mechanics, and the levers that drive GMV. Analytical thinking — uses data to identify trends, test hypotheses, and make evidence-based decisions.
• Ownership and initiative — drives outcomes without needing constant direction.
• Stakeholder management — builds productive relationships across functions and with external partners.
• Attention to detail — ensures deal quality, compliance, and positioning are consistently high.
• Adaptability — thrives in a fast-paced, evolving business unit environment.

 

Let’s talk about life @ Takealot Group

• The power is in your hands: We offer a market-related Total Remuneration Package that allows full flexibility according to your needs. Go on, be the master of your own destiny.
• No doors: We aren’t fans of stuffy offices or siloed work environments. See someone you like? High five, collab, and make something great.
• Remote working: Love water cooler chats and working from home? Takealot.com offers a hybrid working model for the best of both worlds.
• Mentorship programme: We aren’t kidding when we say the people with the best people win. Now’s your chance to be one of the best by learning from the best.
• Naspers Tech Community & Online Learning: Share ideas and grow with global industry leaders who are all just a Slack message away. Love to learn? Up-skill with free access to courses on MyAcademy, Udacity, Coursera, and more.
• Good times: Get to know the other extraordinary minds at takealot.com during regular social events and out-of-office activities (think hikes, think mini-golf, think good times).
• Staff discount. Millions of products across 28 departments. What more could you ask for?
• Birthday leave: Cake Day all the way. Enjoy your day off - you deserve it. 
• Right tools, right job: Mac or Windows, two monitors or one. Whatever your preference, you’ll work on the latest tech of the latest tech.
• Help when you need it most: Confidential counselling, legal support and financial guidance, for free, anytime, anywhere.
• Free parking: No more 5km fun runs to your desk (unless you want to).

Like what you see? 

If you meet the above, you are an Extraordinary Mind. Apply today!!

Takealot is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applicants from previously disadvantaged groups and people with disabilities will be given preference.