Merchandise Planner

Description

 The Merchandise Planner is responsible for managing inventory flow of goods for the Eastern Enterprise HomeStores to support sales and product turn for a portion of a product category as assigned.   The primary focus of this position is to keep the HomeStores in stock with the best-selling products and to keep liabilities of slow moving products to a minimum. This position will analyze and maintain individual store inventory levels to maximize sales and profits, while working closely with teammates to coordinate the flow of information in a timely manner to delivery by deadlines.

Responsibilities

• Ensure financial accountability to the merchandising strategy
• Collaborate with the merchant and planning partners to develop yearly sales, margin and product turn plans; recommend divisional and departmental sales growth to drive business strategies
• Write and manage product orders for stores
• Work with inventory team to ensure healthy balance of inventory 
• Maintain in-season product plans and forecast; collaborate with team to execute top-down and bottom-up roles of individual SKUs and styles
• Recommend inventory levels for promotional products
• Develop and execute product exit strategies
• Update field-store operations teams on product flow strategy 
• Build a collaborative team relationship with merchant and pricing counterparts

Qualifications  

• Bachelor degree in Business, Merchandising, Retailing or related field
• 2+ years’ experience in traditional retail planning, Required 
• Strong knowledge and proficiency in merchandising,  inventory flow , retail math, OTB and system analysis 
• Able to work on multiple priorities, meet deadlines, and set priorities while maintaining flexibility in a fast-paced environment 
  
• Advanced Excel skills including the ability to work with extremely large data sets, Pivot Tables, v lookups, and logical formulas