Director of Pricing

At World of Books, we’re on a mission to become the Planet’s Bookstore.

Our business was founded in 2002 with the purpose of encouraging recycling, minimising waste and fostering sustainability by giving books a second life. Since then, we’ve grown into the world’s largest seller of used books, providing millions of customers with an affordable way to discover, purchase and enjoy books sustainably.

We now operate across the UK, US and Hungary, with over 1,000 employees and a certified B-Corp status that reflects our commitment to doing good, protecting the environment and supporting charitable causes.

Our lines of business:

• World of Books: The UK’s largest online retailer of used (and new!) books, reaching customers in over 190 countries through direct-to-consumer (D2C) channels, marketplaces (e.g. Amazon and eBay) and wholesale partners.

• World of Rare Books: Specialists in rare, vintage and first edition books, providing one of Europe’s largest collections of pre-ISBN and decorative vintage books.

• Sell Your Books (SYB): An innovative app-based service enabling customers to scan barcodes or tap ISBN codes from their books for instant valuations and hassle-free resale.

• World of Books Enterprise: A SaaS product capable of scanning products on an industrial level, enabling organisations such as national charities to sell us their books, generate additional revenue for good causes and allow more items to be reused.

We’ve scaled profitably and at pace in recent years and in August 2021 we attracted investment from Livingbridge, a leading mid-market private equity firm, to further accelerate our growth.

Today, we’re generating revenue in excess of £200 million per annum, driven by continued investment in our commercial, technology and data capabilities. Our dynamic pricing engine sits at the heart of this, enabling us to optimise value for customers while maximising sales and margin across every channel.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As Director of Pricing, you will play a critical role in shaping and executing our global pricing strategy across multiple geographies, products and sales channel. Your remit will cover the entire pricing lifecycle – from purchasing inventory to selling it – and span multiple business models; including D2C, marketplaces and wholesale.

This is a rare opportunity to drive both strategic direction and day-to-day commercial performance in a fast-moving, data-rich environment with significant headroom for growth.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

You will have ultimate accountability for the following areas:

What books we buy, and in what quantity:

• Define which books to acquire and in what volume, using data-led forecasting and customer demand signals to inform our sourcing strategy.
• Lead the use of predictive modelling and optimisation tools to determine what inventory will maximise sales, margin, and customer satisfaction;
• Establish and manage the objective functions that govern sourcing and inventory decisions, ensuring the business continuously optimises for commercial and customer outcomes.

How much we pay for books:

• Own the logic and infrastructure behind buy-price algorithms for all sourcing channels, including selective and bulk acquisitions from consumers and charity partners.
• Lead a cross-functional squad, including pricing analysts, data scientists, engineers and product managers, to develop and evolve algorithms that accurately reflect value, demand and conversion potential.
• Use revenue management techniques to continuously evaluate and refine buy-side pricing, identifying both risks and opportunities.
• Implement A/B tests and pricing experiments to evaluate the impact of changes to buy prices and refine inputs over time.

What price we set on books for each selling channel (including promotions and shipping fees):

• Own the strategy for all products and conditions (new, used, rare) across all sales channels (D2C, marketplaces, wholesale), ensuring we remain competitive while delivering strong unit economics.
• Design, deliver and maintain a clear pricing roadmap, balancing long-term structural improvements to systems with short-term tactical pricing rule changes to optimise revenue and margin.
• Lead and design the execution of dynamic and rules-based pricing engines, incorporating real-time data on demand elasticity, inventory position, seasonality, competitor pricing and customer behaviour.
• Shape promotional pricing, shipping models and bundling strategies that drive conversion, customer lifetime value and profitable growth.

Which channels we sell books on:

• Determine the optimal sales route for each item, based on commercial performance, platform economics and product characteristics.
• Define and maintain automated channel-allocation logic, ensuring each item is listed in the most commercially effective channel.
• Work cross-functionally to ensure pricing and channel decisions are operationally scalable and aligned to strategic growth targets.
• Collaborate with performance marketing and CRM teams to use pricing as a lever to support broader trading performance.

Which books to keep in inventory:

• Set clear pricing-led rules for managing stock across its lifecycle – from initial listing to markdown, reprice or removal.
• Build frameworks that assess when items should be retained, discounted or culled, based on factors such as age, sales velocity, warehouse capacity and space economics.
• Use tactical pricing levers to optimise trading performance and reduce slow-moving stock.
• Act as product owner for pricing and inventory infrastructure, ensuring systems, tools and cross-functional delivery processes are aligned with the commercial strategy.

Within your first year in the role, we anticipate that you will have demonstrated excellent progress towards the following key milestones and deliverables:

• Implementing pricing A/B testing to maximise profitability, with an initial focus on increasing average sale price, items per order, average order value and unit profit for our most popular books.
• Building effective monitoring and reporting of inputs and outputs of pricing changes, including internal, competitive and macro variables.
• Delivering consistent, logical observed pricing that matches expected outcome from documented and communicated rules.

Collaborating with the Pricing Product Team, including data scientists, engineers and analysts, to rapidly test, run and deploy new pricing algorithms across all our buying and selling channels.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

Key experience:

• Proven leadership experience in pricing, revenue management or commercial strategy in an eCommerce, marketplace, or high-SKU environment (N.B. we have millions of SKUs). Exposure to long-tail or catalogue-based retailing (e.g. books, media, consumer goods) would be particularly advantageous.
• Strong track record of designing and executing pricing strategies using machine learning and reinforcement learning techniques – particularly those suited to high-velocity, multi-product environments (e.g. multi-armed bandit approaches).
• Demonstrated success working alongside data science, analytics and engineering teams to develop and refine pricing logic and automation.
• Proven ability to simplify and communicate complex pricing mechanisms in layman's terms, enabling understanding and alignment across non-technical stakeholders and business leaders.
• Experience leading pricing strategy across direct-to-consumer and third-party marketplaces (e.g. Amazon, eBay), with a deep understanding of platform-specific pricing dynamics.
• Exposure to international pricing and localisation, particularly across UK and US markets.
• Proficiency in SQL and Python.

Key attributes:

• Outstanding leadership skills, with the ability to inspire, motivate and empower teams to perform at a high level and drive business success.
• A strategic thinker who can solve complex problems creatively and critically, while remaining agile and comfortable with ambiguity and change.
• Strong focus on results, with the ability to set clear goals and deliver at pace in a dynamic, trading-led environment.
• Strong financial and commercial acumen, with a deep understanding of how pricing decisions impact the wider business.
• High energy, ambition, and resilience; the capacity to operate with urgency and maintain momentum under pressure.
• Excellent influencing and communication skills, with the confidence to negotiate, challenge constructively and build alignment across diverse stakeholders.

LOCATION

• London (~3 days a week), with some travel to our other offices in the UK (Coventry and West Sussex), US (Illinois) and Hungary on an ad hoc basis.

WHY JOIN WORLD OF BOOKS?

We believe in building great things with great people. As a values-driven organisation, we:

• Work as one team, fostering collaboration across all functions.
• Are customer-obsessed, ensuring everything we build delivers value.
• Simplify, move fast, and deliver results, embracing agility and innovation.
• Protect the environment, making sustainability the core of everything we do.

This is an opportunity to lead game-changing innovation in our marketplace, shaping how millions of books are bought and sold every year.