Director of Merchandising

Who We Are: At Three Bird Nest, we are looking for people with a strong work ethic who are motivated to be part of a hardworking and dedicated team. Three Bird Nest's mission is "To inspire you to discover and express your authentic self through style." We look to our team to help us drive our mission and bring our customers a brand they can resonate with, from the Boho styles we select, the way we package and ship out our product, and the customer experience we provide. Each department has a hand in who we are as a company. We strive to have a workplace that lives our company's core values of being authentic, providing our customers with a boutique experience, creating a sense of community, and encouraging creativity. If you are looking for a company focused on building an engaging and team-oriented culture, Three Bird Nest might be the place for you.

About the Role

The Director of Merchandising owns the curation of the total Three Bird Nest assortment across Own Brand and Wholesale, and is accountable for the sales, margin, and KPI performance it delivers. This is a role that blends the art and science of merchandising in the truest sense: it calls for someone with a sharp product eye and rich product development knowledge who is, in equal measure, deeply analytical and able to build their own tools to mine a large, SKU-intensive assortment for opportunity in a high-growth business.

We are looking for a rare combination. The right person can move fluidly from fabric, wash, and garment construction to an open-to-buy forecast, translate the key takeaways from raw data into clear, quantifiable category and product strategies, and then drive those strategies to execution cross-functionally. They are a self-starter who thrives in a remote, fast-paced environment, loves working with physical product, and is comfortable making high-volume product decisions at pace and defending the trade-offs behind them. They are organized, efficient, and happy to be a "do-er" on a small and scrappy team. They are also a motivating leader with a proven track record of building strong working relationships with direct reports, removing obstacles for them, and challenging them to grow.

What You'll Own

Product & Category Strategy

• Oversee curation of the total 3BN product assortment, managing product count, sales, margin, receipt budgets, IMU, Own Brand contribution, and other KPIs.
• Partner with the Chief Merchandising Officer to set seasonal and monthly product strategy, deciding where to accelerate, grow, maintain, or launch by category and the supporting tactics within each.
• Own seasonal line planning and growth strategy, partnering with planning on new and carryover product count and productivity targets and creating the framework for how those targets will be reached (e.g., category/bucket/attribute breakdowns, franchise expansion vs. new/trend).
• Facilitate the successful launch of new categories and subcategories alongside marketing, managing from ideation through launch day and iterating on learnings quickly.

Product Development & Buying

• Strategically allocate line plan by category across Own Brand and Wholesale, building on the strengths of each business segment to maximize sales and margin for newness and hit overarching company KPIs. Partner with the product team on execution to ensure that key strategies, initiatives, and trends show up holistically across both business segments.
• Oversee all Own Brand product development while managing several categories and projects directly. Initiate new development with suppliers directly via trend boards and line plans. Give clear feedback on samples to a sourcing counterpart or directly to manufacturers, negotiate cost, approve, and move a high volume of new product to purchase order stage at a rapid pace.
• Oversee Wholesale buying. Create wholesale product strategies and work with the buying team to select pieces from line sheets and at trade shows/vendor meetings that hit our customer's aesthetic, meeting newness targets and placing thoughtful depth-of-buy bets.
• Manage relationships with a large base of third-party vendors, negotiating cost and delivery timing to meet business needs.
• Partner with planning to keep inventory at optimal levels and manage monthly newness within an OTB target.

Analytics, Insight & Reporting

• Mine a large, SKU-intensive assortment for overarching wins and opportunities in product selling, and translate them into category and product strategies that drive profitable growth.
• Build ad-hoc tools and reports that merge and aggregate sales and inventory data from different systems, then present findings clearly and concisely with actions and recommendations to implement cross-functionally.
• Develop and communicate monthly product performance hindsight and action plans.
• Own product attribute maintenance, reporting, and insights, and own MSRP and IMU across the business.

Lifecycle & In-Season Management

• Lead cross-functional action plans to react to weekly beats and misses, maintaining and continually reassessing key product groupings with planning.
• Monitor and proactively manage product lifecycle across the entire assortment: create growth plans for new products that hit, get ahead of declining styles to ensure replacements are on deck, and evaluate when to sunset products. Partner with planning on optimal assortment structure by category, bucket, and attribute.

Go-to-Market & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Serve as the key product point person for the go-to-market calendar, promotional calendar, and site merchandising opportunities: identify and communicate key newness, top carryover, and inventory clogs to be marketed, supporting the broader marketing/site team with the necessary product knowledge.
• Partner with marketing and site merchandising on a pre-season strategy that executes business initiatives and gives sufficient visibility to the products with the highest sales plans, pivoting in-season as needed to drive results.
• Partner with planning to manage assortment by category within the OTB budget; contribute to and action against a product-level forecast.
• Oversee the product deliverables of transitioning significant business to an international supply chain, spanning strategy, process, product development, and timeline.

Team Leadership

• Lead, mentor, and develop the product development and buying team, removing obstacles for them and quarterbacking the successful execution of the product strategy.

What You Bring

The Merchant-Analyst Combination

• A merchant who is deeply analytical, with a proven ability to build tools and reports in Excel and AI (such as Claude) that merge and aggregate raw data from different sources into usable views they can articulate and stand behind.
• A self-starter who digs into data independently and presents findings back clearly and concisely, always paired with concrete actions and recommendations.
• Highly skilled at getting to the answer when the approach isn't clear-cut: a wizard with Excel formulas to bring together and analyze data across multiple systems, or highly skilled at using AI to aggregate the data needed quickly and cleanly.
• Able to clearly articulate and defend the core trade-offs of driving a retail business: assortment size versus productivity, sales-to-stock contribution, unit-sales drivers versus margin drivers, and how to balance discounts and markdowns with maintaining an optimized margin.

Product, Trend & Development

• Rich product development experience and a strong understanding of trend and design, comfortable working with fabrics, washes, and various garment construction techniques across both apparel and accessories (jewelry experience preferred).
• A proven ability to manage product development independently in a remote environment that leverages supplier design capabilities: communicating with a sourcing counterpart or manufacturers directly, reviewing CADs, selecting colors/materials, negotiating cost, approving, and moving high product volume at a rapid pace.

Leadership

• Extensive team leadership experience and a proven track record of fostering strong, close working relationships with direct reports while also challenging them directly and helping them learn and grow in an ever-changing business.
• A strong, effective presenter who is skilled in storytelling around business results and can clearly articulate strategies and the wins and opportunities from those strategies, aligning presentation materials and talking points to the needs of different audiences.
• A diligent problem-solver with the curiosity, drive, and relationship-building skills to consistently find better and more efficient ways for the team to work and roll them out.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in merchandising, business, fashion, design, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 8+ years of experience in merchandising, buying, and/or product development, including 3+ years leading and developing a team.
• Hands-on experience across both product development and buying, ideally in women's apparel and accessories; jewelry experience preferred.
• Demonstrated experience managing to an open-to-buy budget and working with product-level forecasts.
• Advanced Excel skills (complex formulas, pivot tables, multi-source data analysis) and comfort building reports and tools; experience using AI tools to aggregate and analyze data strongly preferred.
• Proven vendor negotiation and management experience, including with overseas suppliers and international supply chains.
• Experience in a high-growth ecommerce, DTC, or omnichannel retail environment.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to tailor a message to different audiences.
• Able to work effectively in a fully remote environment and to travel as needed for trade shows, vendor meetings, and sample reviews.