Paka Apparel Product Merchandising Manager Boulder, CO · Full time Company website

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Founded in Peru, our mission is to create natural, all-purpose clothing for people who love the outdoors. We’re doing this by innovating with alpaca fiber and other materials that are healthier for people and the planet, so that consumers can connect to our natural world, make more conscious choices, and support the communities where our products come from.

About the Role

Title: Product Merchandising Manager

Reports to: VP of Product 

Location: Boulder, CO

PAKA offers a competitive benefits package designed to support your health, flexibility, and long-term well-being. Benefits include 100% employer-paid individual healthcare, dental and vision contributions, a 3% 401(k) match, a $100 monthly wellness benefit, a $1,000 annual PAKA product stipend, and unlimited PTO.

Position Summary

We are looking for a highly organized, commercially minded Product Merchandising Manager to join our product team. As PAKA’s Product Merchandising Manager, you will shape seasonal product strategy, build compelling assortments, and guide the line from early concept through launch and post-season hindsight.

You will partner closely with Design, Product Development, Sourcing, Planning, Marketing, Ecommerce, and Sales to ensure every product reflects PAKA’s brand vision, serves the Global Explorer, and delivers against revenue, margin, quality, and timing goals. This role requires equal strength in product intuition and analytical thinking, with the ability to turn customer insight, marketplace opportunity, and business performance into clear product direction.

Your job is to build focused, profitable assortments that establish PAKA as the world’s leading natural fiber adventure apparel brand. Every seasonal line should help our customer travel lighter, own fewer things, and move seamlessly from adventure to everyday life.

Note: this is a hands-on product role. You will need to move comfortably between strategy and execution, maintain command of line details, and drive decisions across the full product lifecycle.

Role Responsibilities:

Product Strategy & Seasonal Assortment

• Build and manage seasonal product assortments aligned to PAKA’s brand strategy, customer needs, category opportunities, and revenue goals.
• Develop and maintain line plans, category architecture, assortment breadth and depth, color and size strategies, and product lifecycle recommendations across seasonal and core products.
• Translate company and product strategy into clear product briefs that define the customer need, use case, competitive context, target price, margin objective, and commercial opportunity.
• Balance innovation, franchise growth, core continuity, and newness to create a cohesive assortment with clear choices and productive SKU counts.
• Create and present seasonal assortment strategies, visual line plans, and product recommendations to leadership and cross-functional partners.

Business Analysis & Commercial Performance

• Analyze weekly, seasonal, and historical sales performance using revenue, units, sell-through, gross margin, return rate, inventory productivity, and SKU-level results to identify opportunities and risks.
• Lead pre-season planning and post-season hindsight, translating performance insights into actionable recommendations for future assortments, pricing, color, and category investment.
• Own SKU productivity analysis and recommend adds, drops, carryovers, extensions, and exits to improve assortment clarity and financial performance.
• Monitor consumer feedback, product reviews, channel insights, and marketplace trends to identify unmet needs and inform product opportunities.
• Partner with Planning and Finance to align line architecture, style counts, forecast inputs, and margin expectations with business targets.

Pricing, Margin & Product Viability

• Develop pricing architecture and recommended retail prices that reflect PAKA’s premium positioning, competitive landscape, customer value, and margin objectives.
• Partner with Product Development and Sourcing to evaluate cost, margin, minimums, lead times, and commercial viability throughout development.
• Identify margin or pricing risks early and guide cross-functional trade-off decisions while protecting product intent, quality, and customer value.
• Maintain a clear point of view on good-better-best pricing, opening price points, and category price ladders.

Cross-Functional Product Creation & Execution

• Partner closely with Design and Product Development from concept through commercialization to ensure products meet customer, aesthetic, quality, margin, and timing objectives.
• Participate in product reviews, fittings, risk reviews, and milestone meetings, bringing a clear commercial and customer perspective to decisions.
• Collaborate with Sourcing, Materials, and Production to support commercialization, resolve product risks, and maintain seasonal execution.
• Drive product calendar discipline and milestone adherence, proactively surfacing dependencies, decisions, and risks that could affect launch readiness.
• Ensure product information, line lists, pricing, naming, attributes, and system data are accurate and current across merchandising tools and cross-functional handoffs.

Go-to-Market & Product Storytelling

• Partner with Marketing, Ecommerce, Creative, and Sales to translate seasonal product strategy into clear launch priorities, product stories, channel assortments, and customer-facing education.
• Provide product hierarchy, key-item focus, feature-benefit language, and assortment context to support campaigns, site merchandising, wholesale, and internal selling tools.
• Ensure go-to-market plans reflect product availability, seasonal flow, customer use cases, and the strategic role of each product in the assortment.
• Present product strategy and performance insights with clarity, confidence, and a strong point of view.

Consumer, Market & Competitive Intelligence

• Start with our customer: use a curious mindset to turn consumer feedback, behavior, and unmet needs into product and assortment recommendations.
• Research macro trends, competitive brands, outdoor and lifestyle markets, natural fiber innovation, pricing, and emerging customer behaviors.
• Maintain a continuous view of the competitive landscape and share relevant insights that can shape future category and product direction.
• Bring outside inspiration and commercial awareness into the organization while keeping PAKA’s point of view distinct and ownable.

YOU ARE:

• Relentlessly curious - constantly seeking customer, product, market, and business insights without waiting to be asked.
• A strong product thinker with commercial instincts and an acute eye for assortment, color, price, and detail.
• Analytical and comfortable using data to make decisions, while knowing when judgment and product intuition matter.
• Passionate about natural fibers, sustainability, impact, and creating products with purpose and soul.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and able to manage multiple priorities across a fast-moving seasonal calendar.
• Comfortable in ambiguity and able to bring clarity, structure, and forward momentum to complex decisions.
• A collaborative, low-ego partner who builds trust across Design, Development, Sourcing, Planning, Marketing, Ecommerce, and Sales.
• An excellent written and verbal communicator who can tailor the message to the audience and influence stakeholders.
• Comfortable presenting to internal and external partners and defending a point of view while receiving feedback with grace.
• Able to work effectively with remote partners across multiple time zones.

Position Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in Product Merchandising, Product Line Management, Buying, or a related role; experience in apparel, outdoor, performance, lifestyle, or consumer products strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience building seasonal assortments and line plans across multiple categories, including management of style, color, size, pricing, and product lifecycle decisions.
• Strong understanding of retail math and merchandising metrics, including sales, sell-through, gross margin, initial markup, inventory productivity, and SKU performance.
• Experience partnering with Design, Product Development, Sourcing, Planning, and Marketing through the full product creation and go-to-market process.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets; experience with PLM, ERP, merchandising, planning, or business intelligence tools preferred.
• Ability to synthesize complex information into clear recommendations, presentations, and decision-ready materials.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Merchandising, Business, Marketing, Fashion, or a related field.
• Experience in a high-growth, entrepreneurial, or founder-led brand environment is a plus.
• Travel as required for research, market visits, development, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Conversational Spanish is an asset.

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PAKA is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to any characteristic protected by law. Reasonable accommodations are available during the application process upon request.