The Retail Assistant is a customer care representative who assists clients with their purchases and ensures that their shopping experience is enjoyable and successful. The Retail Assistant is responsible for welcoming and orienting Hayy Jameel’s visitors in a friendly and positive manner by providing information about the complex and its ongoing programs and exhibitions, as well as assisting the Retail Manager on full accountability of the day-to-day performance of all aspects of the Hayy Jameel Shop’s operations.

 Description

 Hayy Jameel, Art Jameel’s flagship project in Saudi Arabia, launched in December 2021 as a dynamic, 17,000-square-meter, multidisciplinary arts hub and quickly became known as Jeddah’s home for the arts. Hayy is home to several Art Jameel-run spaces, including Saudi Arabia’s first arthouse cinema, artist studios, a leading exhibitions venue, and a maker space dedicated to children. Alongside the Art Jameel-run spaces are multiple dynamic tenant-run spaces such as Fennec, a space dedicated to performing arts, Aysh, an institute dedicated to teaching baking techniques, Homegrown, a leading concept store in Jeddah, and more.

The Retail Assistant role is located at Hayy Arts building, which hosts rotating arts, design and architecture exhibitions. The assistant acts as the first point of contact for Hayy’s diverse visitors, ranging from families, students, and artists, to high-profile VIPs and guests. The role entails greeting customers as they enter Hayy Arts welcome desk and providing them with information about products and services, assisting customers in finding the products they are looking for, and making recommendations based on their needs and preferences, providing information about Hayy Jameel and Art Jameel’s purpose and objectives as well as practical information about ongoing programmes and exhibitions, services available at Hayy, directions and opening hours. The role acts as the lead sales person for a small collection of Art Jameel merchandise and publications displayed at the welcome desk at Hayy Arts. The position is best suited to an outgoing candidate who has strong organisation and communication skills, is passionate about the arts, and has an interest in building experience in visitor and retail management.

Accountability

Reports to the Art Jameel’s Retail Manager & the Visitor Experience Coordinator.

Key responsibilities

• Enthusiastically greeting Hayy Jameel’s visitors, answering questions, and assisting with wayfinding across all Hayy spaces.
• Acting as the primary focal point and representative covering Hayy Jameel Shop and Hayy Art’s Welcome Desk.
• Screening telephone calls and responding promptly and professionally.
• Supporting in updating Art Jameel’s bulletin boards and internal dashboards and keeping abreast of Hayy Residents’ activities to make sure information delivered to audiences is always as comprehensive and informative as possible.

• Demonstrating outstanding customer service and selling skills in the retail shop and maintaining a clean and organized store environment, including restocking shelves and arranging shop and welcome desk displays prior to opening hours.
• Tracking all suggested products by team members and customers ahead of buying cycles, as well as suggesting new products based on customers’ appetite.
• Running all backhouse administrative reports, including managing the shop’s POS entries, tracking placed orders, receiving new merchandise, and collecting product information for the shop’s database.
• Liaising with the Art Jameel Finance team in adding new merchandise to the system and making sure that all products have barcodes and performing quarterly stock inventory with the Finance team.
• Aligning with the main store in Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai for any upcoming Art Jameel publications and merchandise, and liaising with potential local suppliers including following up on payments, replenishments, delivery and storage as well as collecting quotations.
• Handling customer complaints, returns, and exchanges and working with the Retail Manager and other team members to meet sales targets and ensure that the store is profitable and performing other duties as assigned by the Visitor Experience coordinator or Retail Manager.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree, post high school diploma or equivalent with a minimum of 2 years experience in Retail.
• Customer oriented attitude: the ability to interact with a wide range of people from students, seniors, families, VIPs and other
• Strong communications skills: the ability to tailor the tone and messaging to address different audiences
• Excellent time management and organisation skills
• Passion and curiosity in the arts
• Saudi Nationals or Saudi residency holder
• English and Arabic fluency
• Drivers license is a plus

Conditions of Work

• Full-time (5 days a week) position based at Hayy Jameel, Jeddah
• Includes weekends and evenings as per the visitor experience roster
• The work week for this role is from Thursday to Monday