Vendor Manager – 1 year project , Apparel – Amazon

This is a fixed-term Vendor Manager role inside Amazon’s Apparel category team for the GCC, covering a defined one-year project rather than a permanent headcount seat. The person in this seat becomes the day-to-day commercial owner for a portfolio of apparel and fashion brands that sell to Amazon on a wholesale (vendor) basis, acting as the main point of contact between the brand and Amazon’s internal retail, supply chain, and marketing teams.

Day to day, the work is a mix of negotiation, planning, and data. Vendor Managers run joint business planning conversations with brand partners, negotiate cost prices, terms, and promotional funding, and then track the results through purchase orders, in-stock rates, pricing competitiveness, and selection growth. A meaningful part of the role is diagnosing why a brand’s catalog is under-selling or going out of stock, then fixing the underlying process rather than the symptom.

It suits someone who already has vendor management, category management, retail buying, or account management experience and is comfortable being judged on hard numbers in weekly and monthly business reviews. Familiarity with the apparel or fashion retail category is useful context but the core skill being hired for is structured negotiation backed by data, not fashion expertise on its own.

Because it is a project role, it is a good fit for someone who wants concentrated exposure to how a large-scale e-commerce vendor organization actually runs a category, without necessarily committing to a long-term seat from day one.

A Vendor Manager in the Apparel category directly shapes what customers see and can buy when they search for clothing and fashion on Amazon.ae. Every negotiation over cost price, promotional funding, and purchase order volume feeds straight into two things that matter commercially: how competitively a product is priced against other retailers, and whether it is actually in stock when a customer wants to buy it. Get either wrong and the business loses sales it should have won. Because apparel is a category with heavy seasonality and fast style turnover, the Vendor Manager's forecasting and replenishment decisions have an outsized effect on whether inventory matches demand instead of sitting unsold or running out during peak periods. The role also protects the brand relationship itself: a well-run vendor partnership means the brand keeps investing in the Amazon channel, expanding its catalog, and prioritizing Amazon in its own supply planning. Over a one-year project, the incumbent is expected to leave the portfolio measurably healthier than they found it, whether that is judged through improved in-stock rates, cleaner purchase order cycles, or stronger joint business plans that carry on after the project ends.

Amazon is one of the most closely studied operating models in global retail, and a Vendor Manager seat is one of the more transferable ways to learn it firsthand, because the role forces fluency in negotiation, data analysis, and operational problem-solving all at once, rather than just one of the three. People who do this job well come out able to run a structured commercial negotiation, build and defend a business case with real numbers, and manage a portfolio of external partners with competing priorities, which are skills that transfer directly into buying, category management, and commercial roles across retail, FMCG, and e-commerce more broadly. Working inside Amazon's category organization also means exposure to how the company's leadership principles and metrics culture operate day to day, not just as a poster on the wall, which is often cited as one of the more useful things people take from an Amazon tenure into their next role. Even as a fixed-term project, this kind of assignment reads well on a CV because it demonstrates the candidate can be trusted with real commercial ownership rather than a support function. For someone early in a retail or e-commerce career, it is also a fast way to build a network of brand-side contacts and internal Amazon stakeholders that can open doors later, whether the next step is a permanent category role, a move to a brand's own sales team, or a broader commercial or operations path.

• Bachelor’s degree in business, supply chain, marketing, or a related field
• Experience in vendor management, category management, retail buying, or account management, ideally in retail, FMCG, or e-commerce
• Strong negotiation skills and comfort discussing commercial terms directly with brand partners
• Proficiency in Excel and comfort working with large data sets to track pricing, in-stock, and sales performance
• Ability to manage multiple vendor relationships and internal stakeholders simultaneously
• Familiarity with the apparel or fashion retail category is an advantage
• Clear written and verbal communication in English; Arabic is a plus in the UAE market
• Comfort working in a fast-paced, metrics-driven environment with short planning cycles