Head of Product Merchandising & Creative

About TOY Life

TOY Life is a fast-growing consumer products company focused on toys, giftable products, and trend-driven consumer items. We currently generate the majority of our sales through Amazon and are actively expanding into Walmart, TikTok Shop, Shopify, and future omnichannel opportunities.

We are a lean, entrepreneurial company with approximately 20–25 full-time employees, 200–300 active SKUs, and a strong growth trajectory from approximately $25M in annual sales toward $50M over the next three years.

We are looking for a hands-on Head of Product Merchandising & Creative to help strengthen product selection, elevate creative quality, improve ownership and accountability across teams, and help scale TOY Life into a stronger omnichannel consumer brand.

Role Overview

This role reports directly to the Founder/CEO and will serve as a key partner in shaping TOY Life’s product and creative organization.

You will lead:

• Product selection and merchandising direction
• Product and creative briefs
• Packaging and visual direction
• Omnichannel product presentation
• Compliance ownership and platform issue resolution
• Leadership of creative, product development, sourcing, and QC teams
• Cross-functional accountability and execution

This is a highly hands-on leadership role. You will personally review products, write briefs, direct creative work, make product decisions, and help solve platform and compliance challenges.

This is not a pure Amazon operations, project management, sourcing, or corporate strategy role.

Key Responsibilities

Product Selection & Merchandising

• Identify trend-right and commercially strong products
• Review supplier and factory-ready products
• Build stronger product assortment strategy across Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop, Shopify, and future channels
• Improve product positioning and differentiation
• Help create a more intentional omnichannel merchandising strategy

Product & Creative Direction

• Write product briefs and creative briefs
• Direct packaging, imagery, and product storytelling
• Review creative assets and provide clear feedback
• Improve thumbnails, visual merchandising, and perceived product value
• Maintain consistency across products and channels

Compliance Ownership

• Ensure products are developed with strong compliance awareness
• Coordinate with sourcing, QC, and testing partners
• Help resolve listing suppressions, documentation requests, testing issues, and platform escalations
• Communicate with marketplace/platform teams when necessary
• Maintain strong ownership of product compliance readiness

Team Leadership

Lead and align a distributed global team across:

Creative Team

• 4 graphic designers (Argentina + China)
• 1 videographer
• 1 lead graphic designer

Product Development / Sourcing / QC Team

• 1 product developer
• 1 sourcing team member
• 1 sourcing assistant
• 1 QC team member

You will help improve:

• Ownership and accountability
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Team alignment
• Execution speed and quality
• Decision-making and prioritization

Cross-Cultural & Remote Leadership

• Lead remote teams across China, Argentina, and the U.S.
• Maintain strong written communication and accountability
• Work with partial overlap with China working hours when needed
• Travel internationally to China 1–2 times per year

Ideal Candidate Profile

We are looking for a founder-minded merchant and creative product leader from a smaller or fast-growing consumer products company.

You likely come from:

• Merchandising
• Buying
• Product selection
• Category merchandising
• Consumer product leadership
• Omnichannel or marketplace-driven brands

You are:

• Entrepreneurial
• Hands-on
• Commercially creative
• Highly accountable
• Product-obsessed
• Decisive
• Strong at giving feedback
• Comfortable with ambiguity and ownership
• Comfortable leading remote global teams

Required Experience

• 8–12+ years in merchandising, buying, product selection, creative merchandising, category management, or consumer product leadership
• Strong product taste and trend intuition
• Experience writing product briefs and creative briefs
• Experience managing creative and cross-functional teams
• Experience working with overseas teams and sourcing/product development organizations
• Experience handling product compliance coordination or platform issue resolution is strongly preferred
• Comfort working directly with a founder
• Strong ownership mentality and hands-on execution style

Location & Travel

• West Coast preferred
• South Florida hybrid possible
• Remote considered for strong candidates
• Must maintain overlap with China working hours when needed
• Must be willing to travel to China 1–2 times per year