Business Development Manager

Who are we?

Vinterior is a startup that’s giving vintage a voice. In a world of mass-produced furniture, our marketplace helps the world shop more sustainably and promotes independent vintage sellers. Vinterior makes it easy to buy and sell high quality, characterful vintage and antique furniture and homewares, and by championing pre-owned we’re on a mission to make beautiful interiors be better for the planet.

Vinterior launched in 2016 with 12 London dealers and 200 mid-century furniture pieces. In seven years, we have grown to a community of over 2,000 vintage sellers across Europe which has generated over $600 million in sales worldwide. 400,000 products across 97 furniture and homeware categories and 25 styles are now available on Vinterior, to the delight of our vintage fans.

Thanks to strong organic growth, we have become the leading vintage marketplace in the UK. We raised a $10m series A in 2021 to accelerate growth and expand to become the European leader.

With a team of 30 talented individuals, we are poised for rapid growth and are seeking a talented Business Development Manager to help us drive that growth by bringing the best supply to the marketplace, and growing our trade (B2B) sales.

Our company values

Our interview process looks for people who share our company values.

If these principles resonate with you and describe the kinds of people you would like to work with, then you are likely to enjoy and thrive in the working culture at Vinterior.

About the role

As a Business Development Manager at Vinterior, you will grow our inventory of quality pre-owned furniture, lighting, art and homeware items by bringing new sellers to Vinterior, and forming new partnerships to acquire inventory.

You’ll also bring new B2B trade buyers to Vinterior from industries including interior design, architecture, property development and hospitality.

Through these activities you’ll make a key contribution to offering the best choice of unique finds to delight our customers, and to growing the high-value trade client segment of our business.

You will have the opportunity to take initiative and make an immediate impact on our business metrics from day one.

Responsibilities

• Develop pipelines of target sellers for Vinterior, for example by mapping independent professional dealers and retailers of vintage, antique, and designer furniture in the UK and Europe. Find sellers who can supply the most sought after inventory to Vinterior (for example, based on top selling inventory types and industry trends relevant to our audience)
• Understand and shape Vinterior’s seller proposition and develop effective outreach and pitch materials to entice target sellers to engage and join Vinterior.
• Continually iterate on Vinterior’s outreach strategy to successfully grow seller registrations, through marketing channels, cold contact, attending industry fairs and other tactics
• Own the seller onboarding process, ensuring new sellers are appropriate for Vinterior’s proposition, understand the Vinterior platform and engage with it
• Own the inbound process for new sellers, ensuring appropriate sellers who approach Vinterior directly can efficiently join the platform
• Own and maintain excellent business development processes including contact management and lead conversion funnel reporting; create and regularly update key playbooks and documents to help scale seller acquisition and onboarding
• Explore and develop strategies for business growth through expanding the scope of our inventor, for example growing contemporary quality pre-owned inventory or partnering with premium brands to re-sell returns or ex-display inventory
• In a similar manner to the above, develop pipelines of leads and outreach strategies for new trade buyers, converting them to trade account registration
• Although Vinterior operates as a primarily remote work company, the role will require face to face meetings and attendance at shows/fairs mainly in the UK

Goals and measures of success

• Hit and exceed targets for new seller sign ups and new inventory added to Vinterior, sometimes including goals for specific inventory types (for example, particular categories or seller countries)
• Identify and add the most sought after inventory to Vinterior
• Hit and exceed targets for new trade account sign ups
• Acquire new trade accounts that show high conversion and lifetime value
• Develop clear recommendations and plans for new opportunities such as contemporary pre-owned inventory acquisition or brand resale partnerships

Who you are

• Knowledge of, and passion for, the vintage and/or antique furniture and decor market and its physical product
• 3+ years' experience in a relevant business development, buying or sales role(s), ideally dealing with independent business owners, with a demonstrable track record of commercial results
• Strategic: able to shape attractive USPs for sellers and trade buyers, strategically iterate on business development approaches to improve results, can develop techniques to map a market and understand its needs
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, written and verbal
• Very organised, consistently follow and maintain processes
• Experienced with sales / CRM software
• Comfortable with basic data, reporting and analysis
• Fluent in English and capable in at least one other language from our key European dealer markets - ideally French, Italian or German
• Prior early stage / start up experience preferred
• Persistent, do not take ‘no’ for an answer, positive can-do attitude, happy working independently