Product & Category Planning Leader

Our Story So Far

Twelve years back, Lenskart was started by a 26-year-old entrepreneur - because he wanted to solve the problem of preventive blindness. We had humble beginnings - we spread awareness about eyecare, we took orders for eyeglasses online and shipped them to customers from a warehouse that was the size of a modern-day conference room. As of today, little by little, Lenskart has served 40 Million people across the globe - helping them see better and lead better quality lives. Simultaneously, we’ve also built ourselves up to be Asia’s largest eyewear company. We have 10,000+ Lenskartians worldwide, more than 1500 omnichannel stores across 175 cities in India, Singapore and Dubai and we are shipping a pair of eyewear every 2.5 seconds, from the world’s most automated eyewear factory! In 2022, Lenskart partnered with Owndays and took a majority stake in the Japanese-owned eyewear player that has a deep presence in Asia. With this partnership, we have added an additional 400 stores and extended our reach to 13 countries.

Our Key Investors

Softbank, ADIA, Kedaara Capital, Steadview Capital, Premji Invest, Temasek, Holding, KKR, Alpha Wave Ventures, Bay Capital

You: In Our Next Chapter

We’ve come a long way but we’re not there yet. “Good is not good enough,” you’ll hear Lenskartians say that often. Our aim is to serve One Billion eyes by 2025 globally. And in this journey, we want to go beyond vision correction to transform the way people see and experience the world. That’s our new purpose - and we can only get there through cutting-edge technology and exceptional people. To realize this vision in the next 3 years, Lenskart’s strategic focus areas are technology, supply chain & manufacturing, talent density and consumer experience. We will also heavily focus our efforts on international expansion, M&A, and taking a bet on entrepreneurial talent. Lenskart is on an expansive growth trajectory and we are growing existing categories exponentially, developing new categories, entering into new channels and geographies every quarter. We are looking for passionate & driven leaders to support business growth & act as a central brain for all of the categories & driving exponential business growth through product levers. Implement planning excellence to improve profits & steer growth across all channels (Offline, Online, Home, etc.). By giving customers more of what they want - low prices, vast selection, and convenience, comfort, style - Lenskart continues to grow and evolve as a world-class eyewear platform and this role will help strengthen the Lenskart promise to consumers. In this role, you will get the opportunity to make a genuine impact in the eyewear industry in India and what make eyewear more accessible to masses. As a category leader, bring about inflection in consumer behavior towards eyewear as a category, so that eyewear doesn't remain a utility product but a high frequency, multiple ownership purchase in-turn improving CLTV of repeating consumers.

Key Responsibilities

Drive business through buying and planning consumer backwards/ consumer relevant product assortment, higher buying frequency and multiple ownership to achieve exponential sales growth across Channels:

1) Drive consumer backwards merchandising strategy to deliver consumer relevant products. Give consumers what they want: faster and better than anyone.

• Set new benchmark in eyewear industry in terms of stylist and trendy eyewear.

• Set new benchmark in eyewear industry in terms of innovation, comfort, quality and features which solve real consumer problems eg. Non-breakable eyewear.

• Solve hard and difficult problems for consumers with different and niche needs eg. turban eyewear.

• Upgrading the behaviours of consumers in eyewear category for high frequency purchases.

2) Gain share in under-leveraged categories/ attracting new customers to Lenskart.

3) Drive ease of product selection and discovery for different consumer segments in store and online.

4) Category planning (e.g. planning for right width, depth, OTB, category gaps & range planning, inventory management, right mix of core/ fashion, attribute groups, etc.)

5) Buying:

• Seasonal product assortment across all channels (& support different geographies)

• Working closely with vendors & in-house design teams to ensure constant inflow of innovation.

• New designs aligned with pulse of consumers including trend forecasting, consumer insights etc.

• Re-ordering of high selling lines & ensuring sufficient DOH.

6) Successful collection launches & store assortment planning (eg. What products to send to which type of stores without over-spreading, working closely with Marketing, Brand and training teams for success of new launches)

7) Daily trade to maximise ROS:

• Actively managing product life cycle (PLC), store spread and discounting to maximize sales (eg. ensuring spread of high selling products, slow movers to discontinue from buying, when & what to put on liquidation etc.)

• Support campaigns (online/ marketing/ others) to boost category sales.

• Product trainings to store staff.

• Recommendations on right product pricing.

8) Drive margins, inventory control and quality promise

• Manage product costing in line with margins.

• Minimize returns and NPS detractors due to product quality.

Ideal candidate

• Desire to build a world class organization ground up and work in a fast paced, rapidly evolving environment.

• Strong consumer centricity to pick the pulse of the market/ fashion trends.

• High degree of ownership, who can work collaboratively across teams and drive impact.

• Data and detail oriented.