Planner, Merchandise Job Description
Planner, Merchandise Duties & Responsibilities
To write an effective planner, merchandise job description, begin by listing detailed duties, responsibilities and expectations. We have included planner, merchandise job description templates that you can modify and use.
Sample responsibilities for this position include:
Planner, Merchandise Qualifications
Qualifications for a job description may include education, certification, and experience.
Licensing or Certifications for Planner, Merchandise
List any licenses or certifications required by the position: APICS
Education for Planner, Merchandise
Typically a job would require a certain level of education.
Employers hiring for the planner, merchandise 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 Planner, Merchandise
Desired skills for planner, merchandise include:
Desired experience for planner, merchandise includes:
Planner, Merchandise Examples
Planner, Merchandise Job Description
- Review historical data to determine pattern for future forecasting
- Manage the Merchandise Transfer process from start to finish for Retail and Direct, including RTV’s
- Create pre-season Brand Budget Plans partnering with Inventory Directors, Merchants, and Vendors
- Own newness/launch hindsight, sales projections and buys to support all merchandising and promo strategies, partnering with Merchandising team & Vendors
- Create and maintain strategic financial plans tied to merchandising strategies
- Responsible for planning sales, inventory, markdowns and margins at a department/ class and/or program level
- Responsible for building pre-season class plans at the price type (regular and markdown) and weekly level
- Analysis of business around risk and opportunities at division, class and/or program level
- Communicate monthly Open-to-Buy forecasts & supporting action plans presentation of this data to Management and Cross Functional teams
- Create forecasts that support Demand, Shipped Sales, Inventory and Margin plans
- Astounding proficiency in MS Excel
- Understanding of structure, uses & elements of traditional Open to Buy
- Extremely flexible and adaptive to changing priorities
- Comfortable with a certain amount of ambiguity
- 3 - 5 years of experience in merchandise or demand planning in Luxury business
- Master’s Degree in Finance, Economics, Supply Chain, or Business with a strong quantitative focus
Planner, Merchandise Job Description
- Responsible for the training and development of direct and indirect reports on all Merchandise Planning metrics
- Helps guide the IA's to re-forecasts on a weekly basis to maximize KPI strategies that will ultimately increase our Turns and GMROI while minimizing our inventory investments
- Responsible for ensuring replenishment styles in stock at all time
- Works cross-functionally with Merchants and Allocators to develop pre-season buy plans and architecture (including receipt flow and styles/choices)
- Actively participates in thorough weekly review of the business with Merchandise and Allocation teams to monitor the business and react to risks and opportunities
- Manages and executes to promotional strategy
- Develops and maintains effective relationships with cross-functional partners to ensure proper support and coordination of merchandise issues
- Communicates department level objectives, strategies, and issues (as appropriate) to Manager along with supporting analysis and action plans to achieve them
- Communicates and collaborates with vendors in order to align on sales and receipt forecasts to ensure vendors can support forecasted demand
- Closely track the online status of each new flow and continues to insure on-time receipts and uploading
- A risk taker - reinvents their vision each season to stay fresh with the market
- Ability to present business strategies and action plans
- The ability to make the transition from strategic (conceptual and planning) thinking to execution to achieve the tactical objectives
- Possess an ability to understand financial measurements and how to impact them
- Experienced in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Word, Lotus Notes, Outlook, or equivalent Email system
- 2-4 years of experience in store planning or merchandising
Planner, Merchandise Job Description
- Influence cross functional relationships to drive business solutions and synergies within functional areas
- Create, manage and enhance cross channel processes
- Analyze and assess the sales performance of assigned product categories
- Partnering with the finance team to cross-reference financial plans company objectives
- Create monthly financial plans at division and category level for fiscal time periods
- Understanding of marketing calendar and impact to financial architecture
- Update plans to react to business trends
- Identifies and reacts to opportunities to increase sales, improve margin, optimize inventories, and decrease markdowns
- Supports VP and Merchandise Product Directors/Merchandise Managers with data and analysis
- Partners with Director of Planning, Buyers and Divisional Merchandise Managers to develop long-range seasonal targets
- Analytical and numbers-oriented, ability to manage and organize large sets of data
- Familiarity with merchandise management systems and retail planning software
- Responsible for in-season scenario planning actionable recommendations to address business needs
- Exceptionally organised, methodical and efficient.Confidence to deal with/present to colleagues at all levels of the business
- Advanced skills with Microsoft Excel and Access
- Excellent technical skills – MS Office (specifically Excel)
Planner, Merchandise Job Description
- Partner with Buyer and Merchandise Planner to identify high volume key items for potential re-orders
- Partner with allocation team to maximize store level inventory balance on all core programs
- Partner with Buyer and Planner to create sales targets on promotional merchandise, while identifying risk to the overall department sales plan
- Manage and review monthly assortment plans to ensure sku rationality
- Create and manage sales, inventory, and profit targets for assigned cross category product attributes
- Partner with IT team to create better and more efficient reporting based on the needs of the merchandising team
- Run and analyze ad hoc reports in order to react to current business trends anticipate future business trends
- Complete monthly forecast submissions for given categories (sales plan & buy plan)
- Manages OTB template & monitors inventory on a weekly basis to manage turn targets
- Provides input and builds tools to support long term merchandise planning
- Proficient in Word, Excel, and Access with ability to quickly learn other software (Arthur, E3, Business Objects)
- A University Degree in Finance, Economics, Supply Chain, or Business with a strong quantitative focus
- Advanced knowledge and use of forecasting tools
- Hands-on or entrepreneurial attitude
- Focus on business metrics that lead to profitability (revenue, margin, returns, cancels, sell thru, aged inventory)
- Provide support analytically by creating and upgrading all reporting and processes
Planner, Merchandise Job Description
- Partner with Merchant and Inventory teams to build monthly flow plan for sales and inventory, accommodating MFO product lifecycle alongside expected flush pipeline
- Collaborate with Finance and Commercial teams to reconcile bottom-up merchandise plans and top down sales targets
- Conduct quantitative analysis and insights (Gen/Cat/Fit/Sub-class) to optimize line profitability—monetize new opportunities and identify risks
- Gather qualitative/quantitative feedback from key stakeholders (sales team/merchandising/marketing) in order to inform future buy decision
- Develop item-level promotional and markdown strategies on a weekly basis
- Hindsight in-season & post-season performance by category
- Ensure Group Merchandiser is informed of any changes / movements to intake vs
- Conduct analysis of slow and fast moving lines, providing commercial recommendations to the Group Merchandiser
- Produce Arthur packs and attend monthly review meeting ensuring you are fully conversant with all receipts for Arthur
- In conjunction with the Group Buying and Merchandising teams, prepare detailed sales and stock analysis for regular Range Reviews
- To think “outside the box” to generate new ideas (and follow thru) to increase efficiency and profitability
- Retail math expertise
- Produce ad hoc reporting as needed by the business
- Three to five years in Merchandise Planning, Inventory Control or Buying required
- Must be detail oriented and possess strong organizational, analytical and communication skills
- Knowledge of Excel and Micro-Strategy is a plus