Senior Product Manager, Product Strategy for Merchants and Vendors - Business Support Development Department (BSD)

Job Description:

Business Overview

We are the development department that supports Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten's founding business.

Rakuten was founded in 1997, and Rakuten Ichiba has continued to embody Rakuten's mission of "empowering people and society through innovation." It has created a system that allows people with strong commercial skills to easily open stores beyond the limits of their physical business area, delivering the joy of shopping to users throughout Japan.

Rakuten Ichiba service page:

Department Overview

Rakuten Ichiba is a marketplace where a diverse range of merchants from across Japan come together. This diversity is what makes Rakuten Ichiba attractive, and our section develops and provides the products that merchants need to operate more efficiently and grow on Rakuten Ichiba.

Our section develops and provides solutions and external-integration platforms for merchants on Rakuten Ichiba and the vendors that support their operations.

Mission

Our mission is to support the growth of merchants on Rakuten Ichiba from two angles: by providing operational support solutions, and by providing external-integration platforms. We look across the entire ecosystem - not only merchants, but also the vendors that support their operations - and aim to maximize the value we deliver through multiple products.

What Makes This Role Attractive

The appeal of this role lies in being able to design the experience, user flow, and priorities across multiple products, beyond improvements to a single product.

These products are used by merchants representing over 90% of Rakuten Ichiba's Gross Merchandise Sales (GMS), serving as a core foundation of the Rakuten Ichiba ecosystem.

While collaborating with diverse stakeholders, and taking into account the challenges and growth phase of each merchant and external partner, you can take on product management that creates value across the entire product portfolio rather than through local optimization.

The main services in our scope include BOSS, Compass, RMS Service Square, and platforms that enable external integrations.

- BOSS: A Solution that supports merchants' day-to-day operations, including orders, inventory, and shipping

- Compass: A Solution that supports merchants on Rakuten Ichiba in creating and updating their online shop pages

- RMS Service Square: A Platform where merchants can discover, adopt, and use tools and services from external vendors

- Platforms that enable external integrations: Platforms that connect merchant and vendor systems and services with Rakuten Ichiba

Position:

Why We Hire

As the challenges faced by merchants and vendors become increasingly sophisticated and diverse, we too must move beyond improving individual products and focus on how to combine multiple products to maximize value. In recent years, leveraging AI and other technologies has accelerated development speed, enabling us to execute a greater number of initiatives. At the same time, the importance of judging "what to build" and "why it should be prioritized" from a mid- to long-term perspective has grown significantly.

For this reason, we are looking for a Senior Product Manager who can take an overarching view of the section's entire product portfolio and organize and drive its mission and vision, roadmap, KPIs, and development priorities across products. After joining, you will work closely with individual product managers and stakeholders across business and engineering to lead the formulation and execution of the mid- to long-term product strategy, roadmap, KPIs, and development priorities for the section as a whole.

Position Details

Job Overview

You will join as the Senior Product Manager for the section that owns the product portfolio for merchants on Rakuten Ichiba and the vendors that support their operations.

You will take a cross-product view across multiple Solutions and Platforms, and lead the product strategy for the section as a whole. You will design the value proposition, target segments, positioning, product-to-product integrations, customer experience, KPIs, and development priorities to contribute to the business growth of merchants and vendors.

Day-to-day management of individual products will be shared with each product manager, while you take ownership of the overall product outputs across the section. You will also support the product managers in the section so that they can think about What/Why at a higher level.

Job Details

- Defining the vision, mid- to long-term strategy, and roadmap for the section's entire product portfolio

- Identifying product opportunities and setting priorities based on market trends, competitors, and the challenges faced by merchants and vendors

- Designing how to maximize value by combining products such as BOSS, Compass, RMS Service Square, and products that enable external integrations

- Driving alignment and decision-making with diverse stakeholders

- Working with the product managers of individual products to ensure the quality and consistency of the section's product outputs

Benefits and Attraction

Through the Solutions and Platforms in our section, you can influence a broad area that supports the businesses of merchants and vendors on Rakuten Ichiba.

By maximizing value through combinations of multiple products, you can directly contribute to merchants' operational efficiency and sales growth, vendors' business expansion, and the strengthening of the Rakuten Ichiba ecosystem as a whole.

Beyond improvements to individual products, by leading product strategy, portfolio design, and roadmap planning across the section, you can gain the experience of creating significant business impact on a product portfolio that supports one of Japan's largest EC marketplaces.

Stakeholders

Merchants, vendors, development teams, product managers, project managers, sales, customer support, security team, business divisions, and other internal teams.

Work Environment

You will join as a member of the section that delivers the product portfolio for merchants and vendors, and work in close collaboration with multiple product teams.

For meetings with development teams, documentation, and day-to-day project communication, we mainly use English. For communication with merchants, vendors, and internal stakeholders, we use Japanese.

Mandatory Qualifications:

- More than 5 years of product management experience in web services, SaaS, platforms, business support services, or EC-related services

- Ability to analyze market environments, customer challenges, and competitive trends, and to identify product opportunities and issues from a customer perspective

- Ability to envision the future needs of merchants and vendors and to draft a mid- to long-term product vision, strategy, and roadmap that combine multiple products

- Ability to engage stakeholders across different functions (customers, external partners, sales, support, development, security, etc.) and to lead alignment and decision-making

- Business Level English proficiency

- Business Level Japanese proficiency

Desired Qualifications:

- Experience designing and driving a product portfolio, roadmap, and priorities across multiple products

- Experience planning and operating platforms or integration features for external vendors, partner companies, or internal developers

- Experience enhancing customer value through integrated experiences, user flows, or package design across multiple products

- Experience improving products based on KPIs, user research, inquiry analysis, and feedback from sales and support

- Experience contributing to the improvement of product management quality within a team through product reviews and knowledge sharing

Other Information:

Additional information on Location

Tokyo

Additional information on English Qualification

TOEIC Score 800 above or possess equivalent abilities.

The applicants must have Business Level English skill.

#engineer #productmanager #commerce #RakutenIchiba