Description
General Summary
The Associate Planner is responsible for assisting the Planning team in the purchasing and distribution of merchandise to maximize sales and margin within the assigned departments of responsibility. Working closely with the Buying department and their assigned merchandising team, the core areas of responsibility are as follows: Business Analytics, Planning, Relationship with others.
Key Responsibilities
- Support Planner and Merchandising team on day-to-day functions, learning and taking ownership for assigned area
- Analyze business and key KPIs weekly and seasonally, and present recommendations & findings to leads; take ownership for area of responsibility
- Manage and oversee product tracking for assigned category to ensure on time delivery. Elevate any potential risk to upper management
- Develop and maintain cross-functional relationships with Product Development, Merchandising, Allocation other Planning partners to collaborate on seasonal buy process
- Review and recommend replenishment needs against the OTB; report out on receipt tracking
- Conduct store visits to obtain direct feedback relating to merchandising and in-stock along with insights into competitive landscape
- Support Planner on building MPR (Monthly Plan Review), including taking lead on managing product lifecycle and markdown budgets
- Perform ad-hoc analysis to drive the business
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in merchandising, finance, operations, supply chain or other related fields
- 2-3 years of experience in planning, merchandising, or inventory management
- Intermediate to advanced proficiency in Excel, comfortable working with large sets of data/information and analyzing that information with knowledge of retail math to provide insights on the business.
- Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
- Ability to collaborate with others and work in a team focused environment
- Strong time management skills as well as ability to multi-task