BRAND MANAGER — BLOSSOMDALE

Role Overview

A customer buys a plant because they can picture it thriving in their home or garden. Whether they buy again depends on what happens afterward: the plant’s condition, the instructions they receive, how confidently they care for it, and the help available when something goes wrong. We’re looking for a Brand Manager who understands that entire journey and can turn it into a stronger business for Blossomdale. Blossomdale is our plant and nursery brand, with physical growing and fulfillment operations in the Elmira/Southport area of New York. Our vision is to expand its direct-to-consumer business, build more meaningful ways for customers to discover and engage with the brand, and develop a local wholesale business serving independent plant shops. That growth needs to connect directly to the realities of live inventory. More greenhouse capacity only creates value when we stock the right plants, maintain their quality, sell them at healthy margins, and deliver them reliably. You will take ownership of Blossomdale’s brand direction and commercial performance, working closely with the leadership team and the team managing plants on the ground. From Mumbai, you will coordinate the specialists and operating partners needed to turn the vision into an effective business. The mandate includes several specific opportunities: auctions and alternative selling platforms, community building, a more distinctive farmers’ market presence, and wholesale relationships within practical driving distance of our New York facility. Your job is to determine how each opportunity can work, prove its economics, and build on the results. Why oCommerce oCommerce buys, builds, and operates consumer businesses with shared expertise across creative, performance marketing, technology, ecommerce, and operations. Your focus will be Blossomdale. You will work closely with the leadership team, drawing on shared specialists while developing the knowledge, systems, and relationships this particular business needs. We want a leader who can connect an appealing customer proposition with sound operating decisions. A new channel, larger inventory commitment, or additional hire should have a clear purpose and a credible path to profitable revenue.

Key Responsibilities

• Own Blossomdale’s commercial performance. Build the brand plan, budget, and channel priorities. Track revenue, gross margin, contribution profit, inventory losses, customer acquisition, and repeat purchasing. Explain what is working and where the business needs to change.
• Build a clear brand customers recognize and trust. Define whom Blossomdale serves and why they should choose us. Translate that into the assortment, product descriptions, photography, customer guidance, campaigns, and service experience.
• Turn greenhouse capacity into profitable sales. Coordinate with the New York team on inventory availability, growing schedules, plant readiness, quality, and fulfillment capacity. Recommend inventory expansion based on demand, sell-through, seasonality, and the resources needed to maintain healthy plants.
• Strengthen the direct-to-consumer business. Improve product discovery, category merchandising, seasonal campaigns, bundles, and the shopping experience. Help customers choose plants suited to their space, conditions, and experience level.
• Develop auctions and alternative sales platforms. Assess where these formats can attract useful demand, introduce customers to Blossomdale, or move appropriate inventory. Test platform fees, preparation time, selling prices, fulfillment requirements, and repeat-customer potential before scaling.
• Build a community with practical value. Create reasons for customers to participate between purchases: expert Q&As, seasonal advice, customer garden and planter stories, and engaging activities. Connect those interactions to better plant outcomes, customer trust, and repeat buying.
• Make the farmers’ market offering distinctive. Develop a local experience that combines plants with carefully selected complementary products, such as olive oils, vinegars, honey, and potentially fresh-cut flowers. Validate audience fit, sourcing, margins, and operating requirements before expanding the assortment.
• Launch local wholesale thoughtfully. Build relationships with independent plant shops within practical delivery distance of our New York operation. Develop an appropriate assortment, pricing, minimum orders, payment terms, and ordering process with leadership and operations.
• Prove the delivery model before expanding regionally. Coordinate wholesale sales with plant availability, order preparation, delivery routes, and service standards. Evaluate profitability after delivery and handling costs, and expand only when the local model is repeatable.
• Connect customer education with conversion and retention. Give customers useful information before and after purchase. Work with the relevant specialists on care guides, product recommendations, email journeys, and customer service feedback.
• Lead integrated seasonal execution. Coordinate inventory, growing readiness, website merchandising, creative, advertising, email, social content, and local selling activity around realistic seasonal opportunities.
• Use shared resources efficiently. Give creative, marketing, technology, ecommerce, and operational teams clear briefs and priorities. Improve output through systems, automation, and focused support, adding resources when profitable growth justifies them.
• Develop relevant portfolio collaborations. Explore opportunities with other oCommerce brands where the products and audiences fit—for example, a thoughtfully designed plant-and-gifting offer. Establish a clear customer benefit and measure the commercial result.
• Your Opening Mandate: First 90 Days — First 30 days: Establish the baseline. Review the assortment, customers, channel performance, margins, inventory losses, greenhouse and fulfillment constraints, and local market opportunities. Spend time understanding how the New York operation actually works.
• Days 31–60: Present a prioritized brand and commercial plan. Begin improvements to ecommerce merchandising and customer guidance. Prepare a focused community or alternative-platform test and a local wholesale pilot with clear economics.
• Days 61–90: Run the initial pilots, review customer response and operating performance, and recommend what to scale, revise, or stop. Develop a seasonal plan for a distinctive farmers’ market offering.
• We will agree targets against the actual baseline and seasonal calendar. Success means profitable sales growth, healthier inventory turnover, stronger repeat purchasing, and new channels that work operationally.

Qualifications & Skills

• A demonstrated record of leading a consumer brand or ecommerce business with meaningful responsibility for commercial outcomes. Experience in plants, nurseries, gardening, horticulture, or another business managing live or perishable inventory is especially valuable.
• Strong ecommerce merchandising and growth experience. You understand how assortment, product information, pricing, availability, acquisition, and retention work together.
• Evidence that you can improve profitability alongside revenue. Be ready to explain your decisions, personal contribution, and results.
• Practical understanding of inventory planning, seasonality, replenishment, and losses. You can account for the cost of holding and maintaining stock.
• Sufficient plant and gardening knowledge to make informed commercial decisions and work effectively with horticultural specialists. You should recognize when growing, plant health, or shipping questions require their expertise.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams or coordinating shared specialists and physical operations across locations.
• Strong brand and creative judgment. You can make plant shopping feel inspiring while providing specific, useful information.
• Ability to evaluate new channels through manageable pilots, clear budgets, and measurable results.
• Strong written and spoken English, with the ability to communicate with US customers, retail partners, and operating teams.
• Working familiarity with Shopify, analytics, email marketing, and the tools needed to manage an ecommerce business.
• Thoughtful use of AI and automation for research, analysis, planning, and workflow efficiency.
• Experience Especially Relevant to This Mandate — Plant ecommerce or nursery leadership: Relevant to assortment, plant quality, customer guidance, seasonality, and fulfillment.
• Community-led commerce: Relevant to building participation and repeat demand through education and shared interests.
• Auctions or alternative marketplaces: Relevant to testing additional routes to customers with disciplined channel economics.
• Independent retail wholesale: Relevant to building local accounts, repeat orders, and a dependable delivery model.
• Farmers’ markets or local retail: Relevant to creating an appealing assortment and selling experience while controlling event and staffing costs.
• Greenhouse or perishable-inventory planning: Relevant to connecting growing capacity with profitable demand.
• You do not need experience in every channel. You do need to explain how your previous work prepares you to lead Blossomdale’s specific opportunities and operating challenges.

What we're looking for

• Someone who can see both the appeal of a beautiful plant and the work required to keep it healthy until it reaches the customer.
• Someone who treats customer education as part of the product experience and follows up on whether it helps.
• Someone who can build a community people find useful, then understand how that participation affects the business.
• Someone who will investigate a promising sales platform before committing significant inventory or staff time.
• Someone who understands that a wholesale order must remain worthwhile after preparation, delivery, and service costs.
• Someone who can create a distinctive farmers’ market offering without making it unnecessarily complicated to operate.
• Someone who listens to the people growing, packing, and delivering plants—and turns their knowledge into better decisions.
• Someone comfortable managing from Mumbai while maintaining a reliable working rhythm with the New York operation.
• Someone who takes ownership of results and gives leadership clear recommendations supported by evidence.

What we offer

• Meaningful ownership of Blossomdale’s next chapter. Shape its brand, assortment priorities, customer experience, and channel strategy.
• Direct collaboration with the leadership team. Work closely with the leadership team on decisions that affect the business.
• A business with physical substance. Connect digital commerce with real plants, growing operations, local customers, and retail partnerships.
• Shared specialists to help execute. Coordinate creative, marketing, technology, ecommerce, and operational expertise around your plan.
• Room to develop new channels. Test community initiatives, alternative platforms, local wholesale, and a distinctive farmers’ market proposition.
• Compensation reflecting the scope of the role. We will discuss your experience, expectations, and compensation transparently during the introductory conversation.

Our hiring process

• Application. Share your résumé and identify the brands or businesses you have led, your responsibilities, and relevant commercial results.
• Introductory conversation. Discuss Blossomdale’s vision, the role, working arrangements, resources, and compensation.
• Brand and operating discussion. Walk us through a business or initiative you owned. We will discuss customers, assortment, inventory, channels, team leadership, and profitability.
• Short paid practical exercise. Using a supplied brief, prioritize Blossomdale’s opening actions and propose one manageable growth pilot. The exercise will be designed for approximately two to three hours of preparation, with scope and payment agreed in advance.
• Final leadership conversation and references. Align on decision authority, support, success measures, and collaboration with the New York team.