MM / SMM Apparel

Location: Tirupur

Reporting To: Divisional Merchandising Manager

Team: 4 Assistant Merchandising Managers

Role Overview

We are looking for an experienced Merchandising Manager / Senior Merchandising Manager – Apparel to lead merchandising operations from Tirupur.

This is a key leadership and execution role with responsibility for managing a team of four Assistant Merchandising Managers while maintaining strong control over customer requirements, costing, product development, factories, production and delivery.

The ideal candidate should have deep knowledge of the Tirupur knitwear sourcing ecosystem, strong exposure to international retail customers and the ability to independently resolve commercial and operational challenges.

This is not a desk-based people-management role. We are looking for someone who is comfortable getting directly involved with factories, suppliers and production teams whenever execution requires it.

Key Responsibilities

• Independently manage end-to-end merchandising operations for assigned apparel customers from development and costing through bulk production and shipment.
• Lead, mentor and drive accountability across a team of 4 Assistant Merchandising Managers.
• Own critical-path / T&A management and ensure timely completion of sampling, approvals, production milestones and shipments.
• Drive product costing and negotiate effectively with factories, mills and suppliers to achieve competitive pricing and targeted commercial outcomes.
• Work closely with factories on capacity planning, production allocation, delivery commitments and issue resolution.
• Maintain strong relationships with factory owners, merchandising teams and key suppliers across the Tirupur ecosystem.
• Proactively identify risks relating to cost, quality, capacity and delivery and intervene before they impact customers.
• Coordinate closely with Quality, Technical, Production and other cross-functional teams to ensure smooth order execution.
• Ensure clear and timely communication with international customers and internal stakeholders.
• Support sourcing and vendor-development initiatives based on product capability, price requirements, capacity, compliance and delivery performance.
• Maintain strong execution discipline across the team and ensure merchandising systems, order trackers and customer portals are updated accurately.
• Personally visit factories and intervene in production or delivery situations whenever required.

Candidate Profile

• Significant experience in apparel merchandising / global apparel sourcing, ideally with a reputed buying house, liaison office, sourcing organisation or trading company.
• Strong experience in the Tirupur knitwear / circular-knits ecosystem.
• Established relationships with good-quality factories and suppliers in Tirupur and surrounding sourcing clusters.
• Strong exposure to EU and/or US retail customers.
• Experience servicing value retail / discount to mid-market customers would be highly preferred.
• Strong expertise across costing, product development, sourcing, supplier management, production follow-up and delivery management.
• Demonstrated experience managing merchandising teams.
• Strong commercial and negotiation skills with an understanding of margins and price architecture.
• Ability to manage multiple factories, styles and customer priorities simultaneously.
• Strong stakeholder and factory-management capabilities.
• Hands-on, proactive and solution-oriented with a strong ownership mindset.

Preferred Background

Candidates currently or previously working with established global buying houses, sourcing organisations, liaison offices or similar professionally managed apparel sourcing businesses will be strongly preferred.

We are particularly interested in candidates who combine strong customer-facing merchandising capability with deep on-ground knowledge of the Tirupur supplier base and who are comfortable operating in a value-focused international retail environment.