What does a Product Development Lead do?

You will lead the company’s consumer goods product strategy, driving ideation, development, and the launch of new products while optimising and improving existing product lines. This includes identifying market opportunities, defining detailed product specifications, partnering with our sourcing team an develop great products, and ensuring they are launched successfully. In addition, you will work closely with cross-functional teams operations, trading and the senior leadership to align efforts with strategic business objectives and ensuring a seamless transition from concept to market-ready, profitable products.

Roles & Responsibilities

1. Product Vision and Development:

• Own the end-to-end process from identifying market opportunities to product launch.

• Develop a product roadmap informed by market trends, customer insights, and competitor analysis, leveraging data analytics tools, market research tools and AI for market trend and product analysis.

• Define product specifications and features that align with identified market needs, ensuring they support the brand’s strategic goals and competitive positioning.

• Translate market insights into actionable product specifications, including target features, quality benchmarks, pricing, and go-to-market strategies.

• Identify opportunities to iterate, refine, and enhance current products to better meet customer needs, address gaps, or add new variations to extend the product lifecycle and boost portfolio profitability.

2. Collaboration and Alignment:

• Lead the product ideation process, owning all stages from concept to market launch.

• Partner with the Product Sourcing team to ensure product specifications are correctly understood and communicated with our manufacturing partners, both OEM and ODM options are reviewed, and proposed products meet our strict quality criteria and customer expectations.

• Validate prototypes and final products with both internal and end-user testing to ensure they meet customer expectations and market demands.

• Provide robust business cases for new product opportunities to stakeholders, outlining market potential, financial projections, and strategic alignment.

• Work with the Senior Leadership Team, Trading, and Operations teams to to ensure a smooth execution from product ideation to creating compelling product pitches for internal approvals and go-to-market success.

3. Lifecycle Management and Performance:

• Oversee the product lifecycle, ensuring continuous improvement, SKU transitions, and profitability optimisation.

• Track and report on product performance against benchmarks, refining strategies for future launches.

4. Brand and Market Innovation:

• Align product opportunities with brand strategy and drive innovation by developing products that meet customer needs, address market trends and build brand value.

• Conduct profitability evaluations and competitor analyses to identify opportunities and maintain a competitive edge.

5. Team Leadership:

• Lead and manage the Product Team, ensuring alignment with commercial objectives, market trends, and strategic priorities.

• Foster a collaborative and high-performance culture, supporting the team in delivering exceptional results.

Our ideal candidate would be someone who...

• Preferred 10+ years of experience leading product management and development in consumer goods, with expertise in e-commerce or retail.

• Proven ability to build and maintain a long-term product opportunity pipeline.

• Demonstrated expertise in identifying market opportunities and defining detailed product specifications for ODM and OEM development.

• Proven experience collaborating with sourcing teams to translate market insights into actionable product specifications and deliverables of the highest quality.

• Strong analytical skills, leveraging customer insights and data-driven strategies to create differentiated products, develop sales strategies, and track performance.

• Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams, drive product strategies, and optimise portfolios using market data and economic evaluations.

• Exceptional project management and organisational skills to prioritise tasks, streamline processes, and ensure timely delivery.

• Proven track record of collaborating with marketing teams to shape effective go-to-market strategies.

• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with experience collaborating across international teams.

• Proficiency in market analysis, cost evaluation, and reporting using tools like Excel and other data platforms.

• Deep understanding of competitor benchmarking, customer preferences, and industry trends, with a track record of aligning brand and market strategies with stakeholders.

One Retail Group

One Retail Group is an international online retailer, brand owner, and marketplace specialist. Our story is humble, growing from a single product launched in 2013, we now own multiple brands in the home appliance, lifestyle and personal care categories. Our future is exciting as we strive to launch onto new platforms and expand our operations even further across the globe.

We work at pace, we learn fast, where necessary we fail fast. This role will provide you with the chance to leave your mark and make a difference to a very exciting company. We’re proud of our collaborative team and continued high standards as we work together to achieve our shared ambitious goals.

Benefits

Apart from working with great people and enjoying a fast-paced, fun, diverse, collaborative, and supportive culture, you’ll also receive:

• Access to our Bupa Healthcare Cash Plan (post probation)
• 33 days of annual leave (inc. UK Bank Holidays).
• Employee discounts on all our brands
• Access to our Cycle to Work scheme via CycleScheme
• Quarterly team socials (recent events include a speedboat trip on the Thames, cocktail making, and roller disco)
• Bagel Tuesdays, and fresh fruit through the week