Merchandise Planner Job Description
Merchandise planner
provides retail sales, Gross margin, Inventory and Turn forecasts against Plan and Last year for assigned Account.
Merchandise Planner Duties & Responsibilities
To write an effective merchandise planner job description, begin by listing detailed duties, responsibilities and expectations. We have included merchandise planner job description templates that you can modify and use.
Sample responsibilities for this position include:
Develop seasonal budgets that meet the divisional sales and gross margin goals
Develop seasonal merchandise gross margin components and objectives at department and class level
Develop seasonal financial merchandise plans at the product, location level that align to company sales, inventory, turn and profit targets
Drive Assortment Planning Tool by using Locational financial plans to align with Lifestyle and Size of door, established Product targets
Conduct attribute-level planning based on the inventory need to support rate of sale, store presentation, targeted sell-through percent, and the current risk parameters and historical trends (long range goal)
And DMM are considered to be the leadership team for each division
Partner with Buyer to develop strategic goals that insure the growth and profitability of your area of responsibility
Buy recommendations down to SKU – In total & flow strategy
Assessment of past seasons & results providing insight to future plan development & recommendations in concert with merchandising partners
Provide direction & insights to the allocation team to ensure inventory is optimized
Merchandise Planner Qualifications
Qualifications for a job description may include education, certification, and experience.
Licensing or Certifications for Merchandise Planner
List any licenses or certifications required by the position: APICS
Education for Merchandise Planner
Typically a job would require a certain level of education.
Employers hiring for the merchandise planner job most commonly would prefer for their future employee to have a relevant degree such as Bachelor's and Collage Degree in Business, Finance, Merchandising, Education, Economics, MBA, Marketing, Management, Statistics, Business/Administration
Skills for Merchandise Planner
Desired skills for merchandise planner include:
Retail math
Excel
Microsoft Office Suite
Oracle
SAS
Gross margin
Initial markup
Word
Target customer and product trends
Retail and merchandising concepts
Desired experience for merchandise planner includes:
Undergraduate degree in finance, economics, or related field-- MBA a plus
BA or BS in Merchandising, Business or related field preferred
2-4 years of experience in planning for a multi-channel retail environment (ecommerce and/or direct-to-consumer experience preferred)
Must possess excellent organizational and prioritization skills with a strong attention to detail
Must prioritize and execute tasks in a fast paced environment
The ability to apply planning logic to maximize opportunity
Merchandise Planner Examples
1
Merchandise Planner Job Description
Job Description Example
Our growing company is searching for experienced candidates for the position of merchandise planner. If you are looking for an exciting place to work, please take a look at the list of qualifications below.
Responsibilities for merchandise planner
- Demonstrated proficiency Retail Math and analysis
- Analyze, review, and recommend strategies to maximize sales, turnover goods, and gross margin
- Weekly reports that support Terrain store, e commerce businesses
- Monitor and evaluate sales of current styles on a weekly basis, partnering with the buyer and the Managing Director to effectively manage receipts and inventory
- Develop style-level plans for e commerce based on current forecast, historic trend and test information for key items
- Conduct sku level planning based on the inventory need to support rate of sale, store presentation, targeted sell-through percent, and the current risk parameters and historical trends (long range goal)
- Work in synergy with toward common goals for the merchandise area
- Analyze clearance inventory and sales trends for all items
- Recap and analyze actual sales results to plan and forecast in-season sales and inventories on a weekly, monthly, quarterly basis and ad hoc basis
- Work with merchants and allocation to determine and manage exit strategies recommending items for clearance and controlling aged inventory
Qualifications for merchandise planner
- This Merchandise Planner is responsible for quantitative information necessary to support the team and the business objectives
- Ability to negotiate & influence peers & members of cross-functional team
- Consistently make confident and independent recommendations and accept accountability for achieving business goals
- Influence/develop new tools and processes that will improve efficiencies
- Must be able to think both globally/strategically tactically
- Must have excellent time-management and organization skills
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Merchandise Planner Job Description
Job Description Example
Our company is looking to fill the role of merchandise planner. If you are looking for an exciting place to work, please take a look at the list of qualifications below.
Responsibilities for merchandise planner
- Makes determinations and decisions regarding the overall Special Event product placement, stock balancing, flow of goods from warehouse stores, event reporting and operational support
- Create and maintain store volume clusters by Department
- Review and approve seasonal profile recommendations from inventory planners
- Capacity planning – identify styles, quantity, and flow for feature presentations
- Analyze the results of promotions and markdowns
- Develops and maintains merchandise financial plans and channel plans to the class level, and establishes store level sales and inventory targets based on the company’s growth plans, translating the merchandise strategy and vision into actionable plans with profitable results
- Helps guide the IA team in developing baseline inventory levels that will tie back to the overall Merchandise Financial plans that will ensure the baseline inventory levels fall within the parameters of the open to buy maximizing our GMROI, maintain executive summary with IA's to ensure all department lev el growth strategies have been capture for the executive review
- Awareness of all marketing strategies and dates to ensure they fall within the daily budgets that will allow the organization to plan weekly sales within the channel plan and Merch Plan roll ups
- Analyze Merchandise Planning levels that will help increase profits and isolate losses
- Helps the Planning & inventory manager meet all Merchandise Financial planning deadlines by following up with IA's to meet all necessary plan build outs and to ensure that each planning level is tied to the overall company objectives
Qualifications for merchandise planner
- This individual must be able to work well in a dynamic, fast paced environment
- Must have 2-5 years of experience in retail merchandise planning, demand forecasting, inventory management, allocation, financial planning, or a similar role
- Two or more years’ experience in a Planning or Allocation Analysis role
- Ability to work with multiple product categories at one time
- Drives for global leverage
- 7 years experience as a Buyer/Planner - minimum 2 years in merchandising capacity at SFA (may also have strong prior experience in their product category)
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Merchandise Planner Job Description
Job Description Example
Our innovative and growing company is looking for a merchandise planner. Thank you in advance for taking a look at the list of responsibilities and qualifications. We look forward to reviewing your resume.
Responsibilities for merchandise planner
- Develop time/action plan to drive timely completion
- Create pre-season Brand Budget Plans partnering with Inventory Director, Merchants, and Vendors
- Planning running and seasonal development calendars
- Identifying opportunities to drive top-line to store business
- Building, managing, and motivating a team
- Working with planning and buying teams to communicate financial objectives, action plans, and liabilities
- Executing strategies to drive business and brand awareness
- Monitoring sales performance levels
- Managing stock, inventory, markdowns, and profit levels for each classification
- Addressing the division’s needs to ensure all opportunities are determined and acted-upon
Qualifications for merchandise planner
- Superior financial skills necessary to manage a profitable and successful business
- Good negotiator - has a "win win" approach with vendors and stores
- Understands how the business works
- Passionate about product - great at building assortments
- Exceptional taste level
- 5-8 years buying or planning experience
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Merchandise Planner Job Description
Job Description Example
Our company is growing rapidly and is searching for experienced candidates for the position of merchandise planner. Thank you in advance for taking a look at the list of responsibilities and qualifications. We look forward to reviewing your resume.
Responsibilities for merchandise planner
- Conceptualizes highly complex analytics to provide insights for proactive issue resolution and evaluations
- Identifies item level opportunities to drive performance while controlling inventory levels by leveraging data and insights
- Performs annual financial planning and conducts weekly forecasting
- Reviewing in-season system generated forecast recommendations and determining which recommendations to accept/reject based on retail metrics
- Independent analysis developing store lists and recommendations for any limited business opportunities and analyzing different store groups
- Lead and inspire team
- Prepare pre-season Original Plans across multiple channels
- Work with merchandising and marketing to develop promotional strategies for multiple channels
- Reviewing category sales and by region developing store level opportunity analysis
- Create and manage sales and inventory targets for identified core programs, ensuring consistent stock levels
Qualifications for merchandise planner
- Ability to identify, develop, and retain talent
- Provide assortment plans to meet financial goals satisfy client needs
- Five or more years of experience in a Planning or Allocation Analysis role
- Demonstrated forecasting/planning expertise and experience in the wholesale apparel industry preferred
- Minimum of 4-6 years in retail as a merchandise planner, allocation, financial analyst, or Buyer experience a plus in addition to merchandise planning
- Ability to build strong relationships with a diverse group of cross functional partners, and cascade the proper level of information to support decision making
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Merchandise Planner Job Description
Job Description Example
Our growing company is looking to fill the role of merchandise planner. We appreciate you taking the time to review the list of qualifications and to apply for the position. If you don’t fill all of the qualifications, you may still be considered depending on your level of experience.
Responsibilities for merchandise planner
- Clearly communicates across all groups within NA eComm, and is a trusted resource for information
- Working knowledge of product and an innate ability to understand how product value propositions impact business plans
- Build seasonal product post-mortems
- Analyze and reflect current trends in performance of strategy based on actual sales performance
- Drive the demand forecasting and planning of all products to ensure the maximization of sales, inventory productivity, and customer experience
- Responsible for managing all aspects of merchandising operations including purchase order processing, SKU and vendor onboarding, follow up with outside resources
- Review performance of key and core items
- Provide regular reporting and analysis to highlight actual performance of key metrics versus plan and forecast by department/class and ship/trade
- Analyze tests, promotional activities and events
- Maintain system settings to ensure proper replenishment, manage wos expectations
Qualifications for merchandise planner
- Undergraduate degree in finance, economics, accounting, business or related field-- MBA a plus
- Minimum of 2-3 years in retail as a merchandise planner
- Experience in planning for e-Commerce strongly preferred
- Generate all weekly, daily, & monthly planning reports –be the point person with any follow up questions
- Assist in seasonal markdown cadence via strategic pricing to meet EOP & margin targets
- Assist in maintaining OTB and Trunkshow Projection process from a bottoms up perspective to ensure financial targets are met (revenue, margin, returns, cancels, inventory levels)