SENIOR MERCHANDISE PLANNER

Our client is seeking a Senior Merchandise Planner to develop strategic product plans and targets for an assigned group of product categories to maximize sales, optimize inventory, and increase margin through the analysis of historical sales trends, current in-season patterns, and future forecasts.  Through the monthly OTB reforecasting process, as well as weekly business meetings, the Senior Merchandise Planner will identify risks and opportunities to the business, develop action plans and recommendations, and communicate and align with the larger team to execute.

Responsibilities:

• Build product sales, margin, and inventory plans to meet company financial objectives and update monthly forecast through OTB projections and analysis
• Compare forecasts to actuals for sales and margin at the category/format/style level and manage inventory based on performance
• Prepare and analyze reports for assigned categories on a regular basis to understand sales, margin, and inventory trends and communicate actionable takeaways based on analysis
• Partner with merchants to develop and propose business tactics in response to current business trends, advising them on OTB forecasts, inventory goals, etc.
• Suggest strategies for promotion and pricing based on current sales trends and maximizing gross margin; analyze these recommendations and recap/communicate actuals and future recommendations based on performance
• Be responsible for price management to ensure a proper exit date and maximize profitability
• Recommend reorders and orders to expedite in order to achieve better in-stock percentages for bestsellers
• Collaborate to prepare hindsight analysis along with recommendations to capitalize on opportunities and/or reduce risk for upcoming seasons 
• Collaborate with Merchandising to determine recommended sku count by category in order to achieve sales, margin, and inventory goals for future development
• Prepare buy/strategy for each product to meet financial targets 
• Manage two channels of business: eCommerce and Wholesale
• Build new tools, processes, and reports to facilitate management of the business
• Collaborate with peers and share best-practice to ensure consistency in tools, reporting and communications

Experience:

• 5+ years of merchandise planning experience
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience
• Outstanding analytical and problem-solving skills with ability to translate into strategic action 
• Advanced understanding of how to forecast and impact ecommerce demand KPIs
• Flexible and adaptive to changing priorities
• Team leader proven to succeed in highly collaborative environment
• Ability to negotiate with and influence peers and members of cross-functional teams
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel required, including v-lookups, pivot tables, and basic macros; must be able to manipulate large quantities of data in Microsoft Excel to drive business decisions
• Proven examples of “thinking outside the box” to improve processes
• Strong communication skills including storytelling about the data, the ability to work in a team environment, give honest, direct feedback and is a solid verbal and written communicator
• Meets deadlines, prioritizes appropriately, copes well with change, and maintains composure under pressure
• Is accountable for results, approaches obstacles proactively and looks for ways to resolve problems and issues. Always developing a recommendation for solution/approach
• Direct/Indirect management experience and ability to prioritize team workload