Merchandise Planner

Job Summary

The Merchandise Planner works in collaboration with the Category Management Team to deliver on the business strategy by leading the development and ongoing management of the annual and weekly financial plan, creating the business forecast, and evaluating potential pricing decisions and promotional plans. Manages ongoing financial plans through data-driven recommendations and creation of the demand plan. Works highly collaboratively within a matrix organization to ensure the cross functional team is delivering budgeted P&L results.

Job Responsibilities

• Develops category and/or departmental financial plans to achieve sales and profit goals. Recommends actions based on historical performance and forecasts comparing various scenarios.
• Partners with various areas within Retail Products and cross functional project teams to drive key initiatives that impact the business and deliver end to end P&L results.
• Conceptualizes highly complex analytics to provide insights for proactive issue resolution and evaluations.
• Provides post mortem analysis of merchant category to identify trends and recommendations to maximize results.
• Identifies item level opportunities to drive performance while controlling inventory levels by leveraging data and insights. Analyzes sales trends, item level data, pricing and promotional plans, markdowns and budgets to build a demand plan.
• Performs annual financial planning and conducts weekly forecasting. Executes reports to drive performance and alignment across category team and cross functional partners.
• Develops approaches to drive the development of broad reaching initiatives.
• Establishes guidelines, best practices and standards.

• Bachelor’s Degree and at least 2 years of experience in one or more of the following: retail, merchandising, planning, demand planning, inventory management, allocation, analytics, finance or replenishment, OR a High School Diploma/GED and at least 4 years of experience in two or more of the following: retail, merchandising, planning, demand planning, inventory management, allocation, analytics, finance or replenishment.
• Experience establishing and maintaining relationships with individuals at all levels of the organization, including the executive level.
• Strong analytical skills, problem solving skills and recommends solutions, superior critical thinking skills, and strong communication and presentation skills.
• Experience developing and delivering presentations to various audience levels within an organization.
• Intermediate level skill in Microsoft Excel (for example: using SUM function, setting borders, setting column width, inserting charts, using text wrap, sorting, setting headers and footers and/or print scaling).
• Intermediate level skill in Microsoft Word (for example: inserting headers, page breaks, page numbers and tables and/or adjusting table columns).
• Intermediate level skill in Microsoft PowerPoint (for example: applying a theme, formatting character spacing, inserting a picture, changing slide layout and theme colors, adding transitions, customizing slide numbers, changing chart style and/or formatting font).
• Willing to travel up to 10% of the time for business purposes (within state and out of state).

• Master's Degree OR MBA.
• 4 years of experience in one or more of the following: retail, merchandising demand planning, inventory management, allocation, analytics, finance or replenishment.
• At least 1 year of experience in cross functional team leadership.
• JDA, SAP or other merchandise planning tools.