Merchandise Planner
Quick Summary
3+ years of assortment, demand, or merchandise planning experience, including at least 2 years within a retail or e-commerce environment. Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience.
As a Merchandise Planner, you will own merchandise planning across multiple product categories, with direct responsibility for demand forecasting, open-to-buy management, and inventory optimization.
You will partner closely with merchandising teams to translate data, market trends, and customer insights into commercial decisions.
The role combines financial analysis, retail analytics, and strategic planning in a lean, fast-moving environment.
You will lead planning cadences and Open-to-Buy reviews while keeping sales, margin, and inventory objectives on track.
Your recommendations will directly influence assortment decisions, inventory investment, replenishment, and financial performance.
The position offers significant autonomy, cross-functional exposure, and end-to-end ownership of assigned divisions.
You will also build practical fluency with AI tools as part of a modern, data-driven planning workflow.
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Develop comprehensive merchandise plans for multiple product categories, aligning sales targets, inventory objectives, business priorities, and market trends.
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Own and lead Open-to-Buy planning, reviews, and monthly business discussions with senior leadership.
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Forecast demand using historical performance, market trends, customer insights, and other relevant data to inform inventory and replenishment strategies.
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Monitor inventory levels, sell-through rates, and product performance, recommending actions to improve inventory turnover and reduce stock-outs or excess inventory.
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Analyze sales, margin, profitability, and other financial indicators, translating findings into clear recommendations for merchandising and leadership teams.
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Manage the financial performance of assigned divisions against sales, margin, and inventory-turn targets.
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Ensure planning reports and recurring deliverables are accurate, efficient, consistent, and aligned with established best practices.
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Identify opportunities beyond routine planning activities that could increase sales potential or improve commercial performance, and communicate them through clear, data-driven recommendations.
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Build strong cross-functional partnerships with merchandising and other stakeholders, influencing decisions through concise analysis and effective presentations.
Requirements
~1 min read-
3+ years of assortment, demand, or merchandise planning experience, including at least 2 years within a retail or e-commerce environment.
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Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience.
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Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities, with excellent retail mathematics skills and the ability to interpret commercial and financial data.
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Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Excel, including pivot tables, VLOOKUPs, and comparable analytical functions, along with the ability to quickly learn new technical applications.
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Strong written, verbal, communication, and presentation skills, with the ability to make complex information concise and actionable for different audiences.
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Demonstrated ability to build trusted cross-functional relationships and influence stakeholders involved in merchandising and business decisions.
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Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage competing priorities, deadlines, and changing business requirements in a fast-paced environment.
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Demonstrated daily experience using AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, or similar platforms for practical work, including iterating prompts, critically evaluating outputs, and identifying appropriate use cases for AI.
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Preferred experience in softgoods or apparel planning and/or managing a mixed-brand product assortment.
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Familiarity with demand planning, allocation, and forecasting platforms such as JDA, Oracle, SAP, or Anaplan is an advantage.
What We Offer
~2 min readLocation & Eligibility
Listing Details
- Posted
- September 22, 2026
- First seen
- September 27, 2026
- Last seen
- September 28, 2026
Posting Health
- Days active
- 0
- Repost count
- 0
- Trust Level
- 46%
- Scored at
- September 28, 2026
Signal breakdown
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