UNDP Shop E-commerce Manager (Office Based) [Open to Tiers 0, 1 and 2]

Tier Decription
Tier 0: UNDP/UNCDF/UNV IP staff holding permanent (PA) and fixed-term (FTA) appointments, whose contracts will be terminated or not renewed during 2026
Tier 1: Other UNDP/ UNCDF/ UNV staff holding permanent (PA) and fixed term (FTA) appointments (defined as “internal” candidates)
Tier 2: UNDP/ UNCDF/ UNV staff holding temporary appointments (TA), personnel on regular PSA contracts, and Expert and Specialist UN Volunteers
Tier 3: All other contract types from UNDP/UNCDF/UNV and other agencies, and other external candidates”

Office/Unit/Project Description

The Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA) is responsible for positioning UNDP as the world’s leading global development network, promoting its global authority and thought leadership on sustainable development and the interconnected issues of poverty, inequality, and climate change. BERA leads and supports UNDP in building and nurturing strategic relationships and alliances essential to achieving its mission.

Within BERA, the Advocacy, Marketing and Communications Group (AMCG) leads and manages external communications through strategy, media, digital communications, marketing, branding and global storytelling. The Brand and Marketing Team (B&M) in the Communications Group manages UNDP’s brand and creates marketing products and resources to promote UNDP and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ensuring that messages resonate and gather support from audiences that span from government decision-makers to the general public. It manages the Marketing Services Hub which operates as UNDP’s in-house agency, managing a roster of external experts to produce marketing communications projects for teams and leverage the expertise of the Brand and Marketing team to provide high-quality communication services aligned with the UNDP brand, tone and visual guidelines.

The team also manages the online UNDP Shop https://shop.undp.org/ , a fast-growing initiative that empowers people around the world to promote the SDGs. The UNDP Shop was launched in April 2017 as a pilot with the aim of creating a line of useful products with good design that can help UNDP improve its image and create awareness for the 2030 Agenda and the important work UNDP is doing to help countries reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is a way for the wider public to connect and support UNDP’s work, as well as an excellent marketing opportunity. The UNDP Shop is hosted on Shopify and ships (mostly from the US) to all United Nations Member states. More information on how the Shop operates can be found in our FAQs section https://shop.undp.org/pages/faqs

The UNDP Shop E-commerce Manager is in charge of all operations, logistics, procurement for the UNDP Shop, managing day-to-day supply chain tasks, curating relationships with vendors and corporate (B2B) clients, identifying opportunities and pain points and providing state-of-the-art operations solutions, to improve performance, increase efficiency in product and stock management, drive sales and bulk orders.

Reporting to the Brand & Marketing Specialist of the B&M Team, the selected candidate will act as the UNDP Shop E-commerce Manager, leading on the management, improvement and optimization of all UNDP Shop’s operations and corporate initiatives, including procurement, logistics & shipping. The E-commerce manage will also lead on the B2B strategy, outreach and key account management.

The UNDP Shop E-commerce Manager will lead on all day-to-day operations and manage the marketing aspects related to UNDP’s e-commerce platform by proposing and rolling out initiatives to drive efficiency and increase sales. This will include but not be limited to benchmarking direct competitors, identifying and proposing new and innovative products, exploring options to improve stock management, national/international shipping, Customer Relations Management (CRM). The UNDP Shop E-commerce Manager will also supervise daily order fulfillment operations and champion quality standards for order and return management, ensuring the UNDP Shop Assistant improves speed and accuracy and ensuring timely issue resolution.

Scope of Work

The selected candidate will be required to:

UNDP´s Shop operations Management:

- Lead on ensuring financial viability of all UNDP Shop’s operations and related initiatives

- Set up, manage, present the monthly tracking of P&L, to ensure proper funds management for the Shop

- Set up, manage, present sales analytics tracking on a quarterly, bi-annual and annual basis, ensuring proper tracking and measuring of key sale KPIs, adjusting sale strategies based on insights and ultimately driving ROI for the Shop

- Lead on sustainable procurement practices, including on sourcing products that cause minimal or no environmental impact

- Lead on ensuring adherence to current SOPs and on the development of new SOPs, continuously working towards improving performance, operations, revenue for the Shop

Order Fulfillment:

- Lead on the management of all bulk, corporate (B2B) and customized orders, including from a strategic stand point

- Advise and mentor the UNDP Shop Customer Care and Fulfillment Associate, ensuring smooth and state-of-the-art fulfilment of all regular customer (B2C) orders, returns and related operations

Inventory Management:

- Oversee and support the management of the UNDP Shop inventory, leading on best practices to maintain stock

- Assess existing product management infrastructure and lead on the introduction of any needed innovations in SOPs, tools and services to continuously improve inventory management

- Lead on the improvement of the UNDP Shop products catalogue, managing the concepting, development and sourcing of new products, finding ways to engage in an efficient and collaborative manner with the rest of the team as well as with vendors, from ideation stages to final procurement

Customer Relations Management (CRM)

- Lead on all B2B customer management, ensuring optimal experience and driving customer satisfaction and return

- Oversee and support B2C customer management, ensuring expectations are met and exceeded during the entire order lifecycle and post-shopping experience

- Stay abreast of customer care trends, tools and best practices, driving innovation in customer management, to optimize customer support

- Strategize and manage Market Intelligence to upgrade the CRM infrastructure for profiling and marketing purposes, manage and monitor data bases to identify opportunities for growth and upsell, rollout initiatives to increase sales

- Act as key account manager, managing B2B clients, nurturing the relationship and finding new and creative ways to increase orders and sales

- Strategize and manage B2B outreach, leveraging data and customer intelligence to strategically engage with perspective clients, open the door for new opportunities and collaborations, ultimately generating revenue and growth for the Shop

Reporting and Analytics:

- Lead on qualitative and quantitative reporting monthly, quarterly, bi-annually and yearly, adjusting strategies and approaches based on insights and emerging trends

- Closely monitor and report on financial data, Return on Investment (ROI), conversions as tied to marketing initiatives and new opportunities.

Overall outreach, communications improvements and knowledge management:

- Strategize and lead on the development of new tactics, special initiatives and time-bound campaigns to help drive sales, expand the UNDP Shop market reach and retain customers

- Lead on the management of the UNDP Shop website (front end and backend), including ensuring adherence to SEO best practices, set up and management of product and collection pages, general site updates

- Lead on digital campaign management, from strategy to execution, including through email marketing, Instagram ads and other tactics and tools.

- Facilitate knowledge and capacity building, knowledge sharing and advocacy relevant to the unit.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Institutional Arrangement

The UNDP Shop E-commerce Manager will report to the Brand & Marketing Specialist of the B&M Team. The selected candidate will be required to liaise with external clients and vendors as well as with internal teams as needed. They will also work in close collaboration with the UNDP Shop Customer Care and Fulfillment Associate, providing support and guidance as needed.

Competencies

Core

- Achieve Results: LEVEL 3: Set and align challenging, achievable objectives for multiple projects, have lasting impact

- Think Innovatively: LEVEL 3: Proactively mitigate potential risks, develop new ideas to solve complex problems

- Learn Continuously: LEVEL 3: Create and act on opportunities to expand horizons, diversify experiences

- Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 3: Proactively initiate and champion change, manage multiple competing demands

- Adapt with Determination: LEVEL 3: Think beyond immediate task/barriers and take action to achieve greater results

- Engage and Partner: LEVEL 3: Political savvy, navigate complex landscape, champion inter-agency collaboration

- Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 3: Appreciate benefits of diverse workforce and champion inclusivity

People Management

UNDP People Management Competencies can be found in the dedicated site.

Cross-Functional & Technical Competencies

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT Operations Management

Ability to effectively plan, organise and oversee different parts of corporate operations, simultaneously and in an integrated way, in order to convert the organisation’s assets into the best results in the most efficient way. Knowledge of relevant concepts and mechanisms.

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT Customer Satisfaction/Client Management

Ability to respond timely and appropriately with a sense of urgency, provide consistent solutions, and deliver timely and quality results and/or solutions to fulfil and understand the real customers' needs. Provide inputs to the development of customer service strategy. Look for ways to add value beyond clients' immediate requests. Ability to anticipate client's upcoming needs and concerns.

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT Project Management

Ability to plan, organize, prioritize and control resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals and generate revenue for the UNDP Shop

BUSINESS DIRECTION & STRATEGY System Thinking

Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system.

PROCUREMENT Category management

Ability to segment spend into areas which contain similar or related products enabling focus opportunities for consolidation and efficiency

COMMUNICATIONS Marketing

Ability to communicate the value of a product or service

DATA Data analysis

Ability to extract, analyse and visualize data (including Real-Time Data) to form meaningful insights and aid effective decision making

Minimum Qualifications of the Successful IPSA

Min. Education requirements

Advanced university degree (Master’s Degree or equivalent) in Business, Logistics, Supply Chain Management, Marketing, Administration, Business Management, Communications, Liberal Arts, Political Science or other relevant field is required, or

A first-level university degree (Bachelor’s Degree) in the areas mentioned above in combination with additional 2 years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of advanced university degree.

Min. years of relevant work experience

Minimum of five (5) years (with Master’s degree) or seven (7) years (with bachelor´s degree) of experience in business operations, e-commerce, supply chain management, business management, customer service or retail management.

Required skills

- Proven previous experience managing budget and operations for e-commerce platforms

- Proven previous experience delivering customer service/key account management, including with B2B clients

- Proven previous experience handling orders, stock and inventory including on logistics and international shipping

- Previous experience managing an e-commerce business and platform

Desired skills in addition to the competencies covered in the Competencies section

- Experience within the United Nations System or similar organization,

- International experience in business operations, e-commerce, supply chain management, customer-service and/or another relevant field

- Previous experience managing Shopify-based e-commerce platforms

- Proven experience in using insights to design e-commerce strategies that help drive conversions and generate ROI

- Experience with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

- Experience with Gorgias

- Experience working in retail and marketing

Required Language(s)

Fluency in English is required.

Working knowledge of other UN languages will be considered an asset.

Equal opportunity

As an equal opportunity employer, UNDP values diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate and, as such, we encourage qualified applicants from all backgrounds to apply for roles in the organization. Our employment decisions are based on merit and suitability for the role, without discrimination.

UNDP is also committed to creating an inclusive workplace where all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, are valued, can thrive, and benefit from career opportunities that are open to all.

Sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse of authority

UNDP does not tolerate harassment, sexual harassment, exploitation, discrimination and abuse of authority. All selected candidates, therefore, undergo relevant checks and are expected to adhere to the respective standards and principles.

Right to select multiple candidates

UNDP reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement. We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP at the same grade level and with similar job description, experience and educational requirements.

Scam alert

UNDP does not charge a fee at any stage of its recruitment process. For further information, please see www.undp.org/scam-alert.

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