Role Overview
Clients don’t bring on a Supplier Sourcing Manager just to “find factories” — they hire you to secure reliable supply chains that can scale profitably. Your real value is in identifying suppliers who meet performance standards across quality, cost, lead time, and communication, and who can deliver under pressure when it matters most. This is not a purchasing assistant role — this is high-leverage decision-making that shapes margin, fulfillment, branding, and customer trust. You are expected to be proactive, data-driven, and commercially aware of how sourcing choices ripple through the business.
This role is not just about collecting quotes or comparing Alibaba listings. The client counts on you to vet like a strategist — balancing risk, negotiating with leverage, and filtering for suppliers who can evolve with the brand. A poor sourcing decision can crash a launch, bleed cash flow, or destroy review ratings. The right one can open doors to scale, exclusivity, and long-term leverage. Your job is to get it right — not just once, but consistently.
Standards You Must Meet
• You must present multiple supplier options with verified capabilities — not just names, but vetted partners ready to quote, sample, and scale.
• Products must land at target cost without sacrificing quality — if you miss margin targets, it’s on your sourcing decisions.
• Clients expect clear supplier briefs and quote comparisons with data that justifies your recommendations, not guesswork or screenshots.
• Being ghosted by a supplier, missing a sample deadline, or failing to catch a red flag before production will damage trust — own the pipeline, end to end.
• You are responsible for ensuring pre-production samples are aligned to spec and client expectations — no surprises after the deposit is paid.
• Your communication with suppliers must be proactive, contract-minded, and escalation-ready — sloppy follow-ups are non-starters.
• Clients will notice if you default to easy choices — your edge comes from uncovering better supply, stronger terms, and long-term leverage others miss.
• Delays due to sourcing missteps (wrong INCOTERMs, unclear MOQs, poor audit planning) are not acceptable — your role is to anticipate and prevent them.
What You’ll Be Doing
• Identify and present 3–5 vetted suppliers per item, each qualified on cost, capacity, timelines, and compliance.
• Draft and issue clear supplier briefs with no room for quote misalignment or sampling errors.
• Run structured quote comparisons that map supplier data to cost targets, MOQ thresholds, and reliability factors.
• Oversee sample production with daily timeline checks and immediate escalations if delays or defects appear.
• Review all samples against spec before recommending deposit or bulk order approval, ensuring zero post-payment surprises.
• Lead supplier negotiations to lock competitive pricing, enforce IP protection, and align shipment terms to margin goals.
• Track supplier communications with precision—every message, deadline, and agreement documented and escalated as needed.
• Identify sourcing risks early and prepare fallback options before issues impact production or cash flow.
What You’ll Hand Over
• A validated shortlist of 3–5 supplier options per item, each with confirmed capacity, pricing, lead times, and red flag checks.
• A structured quote comparison sheet with clear recommendations and rationale based on margin targets, quality, and risk.
• Final supplier brief and RFQ package aligned to spec, with no ambiguity or guesswork before sampling begins.
• Sample review summary with photo evidence and compliance notes, confirming alignment before deposit or PO issuance.
• Negotiation log showing secured terms on pricing, MOQ, INCOTERMs, and lead times, finalized and ready for purchase action.
Tools You’ll Need to Use
• Alibaba.com – Primary platform for identifying, vetting, and negotiating with overseas suppliers for private label products.
• Jungle Scout – Used to validate product-market fit and supplier viability through competitive and profitability analysis.
• Keepa – Critical for tracking historical price and sales rank trends to assess market demand and sourcing risk.
• Google Sheets / Excel – Essential for supplier comparison, landed cost breakdowns, MOQ tracking, and negotiation logs.
• Amazon Seller Central – Required for overseeing inbound shipments, supplier documentation, and compliance checks.
• Walmart Seller Center – Used to manage supplier-related listing uploads, shipment validation, and pricing structures.
• Shopify Admin – Necessary for syncing sourced inventory, monitoring supplier fulfillment, and updating product data.
Why Work Smarter
The harsh truth: if you can’t automate repetitive sourcing workflows, the client is burning time and money. That includes lead scraping, quote consolidation, data entry, and vendor tracking. This knowledge isn’t mandatory today—but it’s rapidly becoming the unspoken baseline. The difference between a competent VA and a strategic one is knowing what can be automated—and doing it before the client has to ask.
At OES, we set this as a standard because high-performance clients already demand it. We’re not here to catch up. We’re here to lead.
Why Your Work Matters
Every week that sourcing falls short, clients bleed margin, miss launch windows, or ship subpar product. There is no buffer for weak supplier picks or vague quote comparisons—one poor decision can tank a hero SKU or derail a replenishment cycle. Sourcing impacts everything: customer reviews, inventory turns, ad ROI, and brand reputation. This role doesn’t sit on the sidelines of the business—it sits at the center of cost control, speed, and product integrity.
Right now, clients are scaling across marketplaces where lead times are getting tighter, competition is more aggressive, and fulfillment expectations allow little room for sourcing errors. That means they need a sourcing lead who can think in contingencies, not just connections. You’re not here to “support ops”—you *are* the decision-maker who protects profitability before the product even hits the warehouse. No shortcuts. No guesswork. Margin starts with you.
What We Expect From You
As a Supplier Sourcing Manager at the Strategist tier, you are trusted to drive supplier decisions that directly affect profitability, compliance, and brand integrity. You don’t just follow sourcing frameworks — you own them. You understand the stakes: sourcing errors cost margins, delay launches, and expose the brand to risk. You are expected to exercise sharp commercial judgment when vetting suppliers, negotiating terms, and validating samples across Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, and Private Label supply chains. Your decision-making is data-backed, fast when needed, and always aligned with business strategy and marketplace standards.
We’re looking for someone who treats supplier sourcing as a strategic linchpin, not a checklist. You should know the difference between risk and calculated risk — and when to take neither. You manage ambiguity with discipline, maintain tight control over supplier timelines and quality, and lock down procedures others rely on. You operate independently but stay coachable, tracking outcomes and flagging threats before they reach the client. This is a keystone role in how OES builds winning product lines — and you will be held to that standard.
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$700 – $2,300
OES salary standards reflect real market benchmarks, tier and experience level, ensuring fair pay for VAs and realistic expectations for clients.
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