Tiered Approach

In line with the commitment to safeguard capacity and support personnel already in the Organization, a majority of UNDP UNCDF/UNV vacancies are advertised using a tiered application process whereby:

• Tier 0 UNDP/UNCDF/UNV IP staff holding permanent (PA) and fixed-term (FTA) appointments, whose posts will be abolished, or contracts will be terminated or not renewed during 2026.
• Tier 1 Other UNDP/UNCDF/UNV staff holding permanent (PA) and fixed-term (FTA) appointments
• Tier 2 UNDP/UNCDF/UNV staff holding temporary appointments (TA), personnel on regular PSA contracts, and Expert and Specialist UN Volunteers
• Tier 3 or no tier indicated All other contract types from UNDP/UNCDF/UNV and other agencies, and other external candidates

Please make note of the Tier(s) indicated in the vacancy title, if any, and ensure that you satisfy the eligibility to apply.

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 Operations Manager is in charge of 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.

Project Description

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

The UNDP Shop E-commerce Operations Manager will oversee day-to-day operations and be involved in the marketing aspects related to UNDP’s e-commerce platform by proposing 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 Operations Manager will also oversee daily order fulfillment operations and be a champion in quality standards for order and return management, improving speed and accuracy and ensuring timely issue resolution.

Scope of Work

Ensure Operations Management:

• Ensure financial viability of all UNDP Shop’s operations and related initiatives
• Set up, manage the monthly tracking of P&L, to ensure proper funds management for the Shop
• Set up and manage 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
• Manage waste reduction and sustainable procurement practices, including sourcing products that cause minimal or no environmental impact
• Manage SOPs and support the development of new SOPs, continuously working towards improving performance, operations, and revenue for the Shop

Order Fulfillment:

• Lead on all bulk, corporate (B2B) and customized orders
• Support the UNDP Shop Associate, ensuring smooth and state-of-the-art fulfilment of all regular customer (B2C) orders, returns and related operations

Ensure 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 to the introduction of any needed innovations in SOPs, tools and services to continuously improve inventory management
• Manage 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

Ensure Customer Relations Management (CRM)

• Manage B2B customer management, ensuring optimal experience and driving customer satisfaction and return
• Oversee and advise 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, optimizing customer support.
• Work to upgrade the CRM infrastructure for profiling and marketing purposes, manage and monitor databases to identify opportunities for growth and upsell
• Manage B2B clients, nurturing the relationship and finding new and creative ways to increase orders and sales
• Lead on insights based 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 and support knowledge sharing

• Lead 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.
• Make sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice.
• Support compiling and systematizing project knowledge, products and tools as well as their wide distribution to partners.

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

Institutional Arrangement

The UNDP Shop E-commerce Operations 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 Assistant, providing support and guidance as needed.

Competencies Core

• Achieve Results: LEVEL 2: Scale up solutions and simplifies processes, balances speed and accuracy in doing work
• Think Innovatively: LEVEL 2: Offer new ideas/open to new approaches, demonstrate systemic/integrated thinking
• Learn Continuously: LEVEL 2: Go outside comfort zone, learn from others and support their learning
• Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 2: Adapt processes/approaches to new situations, involve others in change process
• Act with Determination: LEVEL 2: Able to persevere and deal with multiple sources of pressure simultaneously
• Engage and Partner: LEVEL 2: Is facilitator/integrator, bring people together, build/maintain coalitions/partnerships
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 2: Facilitate conversations to bridge differences, considers in decision making

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.
• 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 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.
• 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

• Business Acumen: Develop effective strategies and prioritised plans in line with UNDP’s mission and objectives, based on the systemic analysis of challenges, opportunities and potential risks; link the general vision to reality on the ground to create tangible targeted solutions; learn from a variety of sources to anticipate and effectively respond to both current and future trends; demonstrate foresight.

Operations, Administration, Finance, HR, Procurement

• Procurement 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

Digital & Innovation

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

Required Skills and Experience

Min. Education requirements

• Advanced university degree (master’s-level 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 an additional two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Min. years of relevant work experience

• Minimum of two (2) years (with master’s degree) or four (4) years (with bachelor’s degree) in business operations, e-commerce, supply chain management, business management, customer service, retail management and/or other relevant field

Required skills

• Proven previous experience managing budget and operations for e-commerce platforms
• Proven previous experience delivering customer service/key account management
• Proven previous experience handling orders, stock and inventory

Desired skills

• 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 ability in using insights to design e-commerce strategies that help drive conversions and generate ROI
• Familiarity with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• Experience with Gorgias and Familiarity with Mailchimp
• Experience working in retail, marketing

Required Language(s)

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required.
• Working knowledge of another 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.

Use of AI by candidates

Applicants are invited to read UNDP’s guidance for candidates on using AI responsibly in UNDP recruitment and selection

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.