Manager - D2C Category Growth

About Zouk:

Zouk is a 100% Vegan, Proudly Indian D2C brand specializing in bags, wallets, and accessories. We are on a mission to build an iconic global consumer brand from India by delivering exceptional products and nurturing the best consumer brand team. Backed by Stellaris Venture Partners, Titan Capital, Aavishkaar Capital and the founders of Beardo and Mamaearth, Zouk is a seed-funded, profitable business experiencing rapid growth.

Our products have been featured on platforms like Netflix, CNBC TV18, ELLE, and Cosmopolitan, and we have over 15 lakh happy customers worldwide. We sell through our website and leading marketplaces like Amazon and Myntra, with our website contributing the bulk of our sales.

Website: www.zouk.co.in

Role Overview:

Zouk is looking for a Manager - D2C Category Growth to own the commercial planning and category growth agenda for our D2C business. This is not a traditional category-management or e-commerce operations role; it sits at the intersection of revenue, profitability, inventory, pricing, performance marketing, category mix, merchandising and new product launches.

The role will continuously answer a few critical commercial questions: What should we sell? What should we scale? At what price? With what inventory? And at what level of marketing investment? You will work closely with the D2C Head and partner with Performance Marketing, Supply Chain, Product, Retention, Brand and Category teams to translate business targets into clear commercial actions.

We are looking for someone who enjoys getting deep into data but, more importantly, knows what decisions to make from it.

Key Responsibilities:D2C Revenue & Commercial Planning:

• Translate the annual D2C plan into monthly, weekly, category and product-level revenue plans.

• Own the D2C commercial rhythm, continuously identifying risks and opportunities against plan.

• Lead the commercial side of the 1+3 month rolling S&OP process, translating demand expectations into inventory requirements.

• Determine category and product priorities based on demand, inventory, margins, seasonality and business priorities.

• Translate revenue ambitions into traffic, media-spend and ROAS requirements in partnership with Performance Marketing.

• Diagnose gaps against plan and build quantified recovery plans rather than simply reporting variances.

D2C P&L & CM2:

• Drive D2C growth with accountability for both revenue and CM2.

• Understand how gross margin, discounts, performance-marketing spend, pricing, category mix and promotions interact to determine contribution.

• Identify categories, SKUs and interventions creating or diluting CM2.

• Recommend where Zouk should increase investment, pull back, change pricing, alter promotions or shift the product mix.

• Evaluate commercial decisions on incremental contribution - not revenue alone.

Category & Portfolio Growth:

• Identify categories and hero products with the potential to scale materially on D2C.

• Build category growth plans across inventory, performance marketing, pricing, offers, bundles and merchandising.

• Determine which categories should be accelerated, maintained, fixed or deprioritised.

• Track category and SKU productivity including sales velocity, margin, inventory cover, sell-through and availability.

• Identify missed revenue opportunities caused by stock-outs and opportunities to monetise excess inventory without destroying margin.

AOV, Pricing & Mix:

• Own the commercial agenda for improving AOV and basket quality.

• Develop interventions across pricing, premiumisation, bundles, cross-sell, upsell, threshold mechanics, promotions and product mix.

• Design commercial experiments with clear hypotheses and measurement frameworks.

• Evaluate the interaction between AOV, conversion and CM2, rather than optimising any one metric in isolation.

• Scale successful interventions and stop those that generate revenue without sufficient incremental contribution.

NPD & New Launch Commercialisation:

• Represent D2C in the new-product planning process.

• Build commercial plans for launches covering revenue ambition, demand, inventory, pricing, merchandising and marketing requirements.

• Track launch performance at SKU/category level.

• Identify winning products early and create plans to scale them.

• Build the contribution of successful new launches to D2C revenue.

Commercial Merchandising:

• Own the commercial logic behind what Zouk surfaces across the website.

• Determine which categories, collections and SKUs deserve greater visibility based on inventory, economics and growth priorities.

• Ensure launches, hero products and category priorities translate into storefront visibility.

• Work with Product and Listing teams on execution without owning catalogue operations.

Cross-Functional Commercial Leadership:

• Act as the commercial connecting point across D2C, Performance Marketing, Supply Chain, Product, Retention, Brand and Category teams.

• Translate analysis into specific asks and actions for each function.

• Run disciplined weekly and monthly commercial reviews around revenue, profitability, inventory and category performance.

• Challenge assumptions with data and drive decisions through to execution.

What Success Looks Like:

Success will ultimately be measured by your ability to improve the quality and predictability of D2C growth.

Core measures include:

• D2C Net revenue vs plan

• CM2 vs plan

• AOV and basket mix

• Performance of priority categories and hero SKUs

• NPD contribution to D2C revenue

• Forecast accuracy and quality of commercial recovery plans

Who Are We Looking For?:

We are looking for someone with approximately 3 - 5 years of experience, ideally in e-commerce, D2C, digital category management, commercial planning or a related business role.

We care more about the scale and quality of decisions you have owned than the exact number of years.

You should have:

• Exceptional analytical ability and comfort working with large datasets.

• Advanced Excel capability.

• Strong understanding of P&Ls.

• Experience working with revenue, pricing, promotions, assortment or category economics.

• Strong commercial judgment - the ability to choose between competing growth opportunities with imperfect information.

• Structured problem-solving ability.

• The ability to move from analysis - insight - decision - action - measurement.

• Confidence working across teams and challenging assumptions with data.

Nice to Have:

• Experience in fashion, lifestyle, accessories, beauty or another assortment-led consumer category.

• Experience in a scaled D2C brand or large e-commerce marketplace.

• Working knowledge of performance-marketing economics and the relationship between spend, ROAS, revenue and contribution.

• Shopify or similar commerce-platform experience.

• GA4 or other digital analytics experience.

• Experience with demand planning or S&OP.

• Experience launching and scaling new products.

What Makes Someone Exceptional in This Role:

An exceptional candidate can look at a business that is behind plan and go beyond explaining what happened.

They can determine:

• where the revenue gap can realistically be recovered;

• which categories have the inventory and economics to absorb additional demand;

• where marketing investment should increase or decrease;

• where pricing or promotions need to change;

• which products should receive greater storefront visibility;

• which inventory bets should be increased;

• and what each intervention should contribute to revenue and CM2.

They can quantify those choices, explain the trade-offs clearly and mobilise multiple teams to execute them.

Over time, this person should be capable of being given a D2C revenue and CM2 target and independently determining the commercial actions required to deliver it.

Why Join Zouk?:

Own meaningful commercial decisions in a rapidly scaling Indian consumer brand, across revenue, profitability, category growth, inventory and marketing investment. Work closely with senior leadership and multiple functions to directly shape how the D2C business grows. For a strong performer, this role offers a clear path towards broader D2C and P&L leadership.

Job Details:

Work Timings: Monday to Friday with 4th Saturdays working

Vertical: D2C

Reporting To: Director, Brand Marketing & D2C

Location: Chembur, Mumbai