APPAREL MERCHANDISER (Knitwear / Activewear)

Our client, a well-established knitwear and apparel manufacturer to leading South African retailers, seeks to appoint a highly structured, detail-oriented Apparel Merchandiser to join their Merchandising & Production Coordination team at their factory based outside Ladysmith. This is an excellent opportunity for an A pparel Merchandiser who wants to build a career at the intersection of retail client management and factory production.

About the Role

The ideal candidate will act as the central cross-functional bridge between retail brand clients and the factory’s development and planning teams — ensuring garment assortments are planned, developed, and delivered on time, in full, and to the correct quality and quantity specifications.

Key Responsibilities

• Analyse tech packs, yarn properties, fabric construction, and trim requirements alongside product developers
• Build and maintain day-to-day client relationships, providing clear updates on sample status and order progress
• Participate in commercial negotiations on unit pricing, credit terms, and shipping schedules under senior guidance
• Track daily production and quality progress across the factory floor against brand benchmarks
• Maintain accurate order, inventory, and sample-approval records using internal systems and spreadsheets
• Partner with production planners to convert buyer order sheets into executable factory floor timelines
• Act as frontline support resolving production bottlenecks, documentation errors, or volume changes
• Conduct ongoing research into regional fashion trends, fabric innovations, and raw material pricing

Must Have

• Degree or Diploma in Textile Technology, Clothing & Textile Technology, Fashion Design
• 2 – 5 years’ merchandising experience within the textile or garment manufacturing industry
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with an eye for fabric defects and manufacturing friction points
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for client-facing and factory-floor interactions
• Intermediate Microsoft Excel proficiency (data sorting, formulas, lookups)
• Resilience and adaptability in a fast-paced, high-output manufacturing environment

Please email Andrea Galloway: ***email_hidden***

Correspondence will only be conducted with short listed candidates.

Should you not hear from us within 14 days then please consider your application as unsuccessful