Merchandise Planner

Job description / Role

Job purpose : The job holder will be responsible for merchandise planning process to achieve department /category sales, margin, stockholding, and flow objectives under the guidance of Planning Manager. Responsible for maximizing sales and profitability in the business by providing effective merchandise strategies to achieve the strategic and financial objectives of the concept.

Key Accountabilities:

Merchandise Financial, Strategic and Assortment Planning

- Maximize Sales and profitability for the department/category
- Support in determining high-level financial goals including pre-season financial plans, in-season projections, open-to-buy management and new store budgets
- Prepare and maintain department/category merchandise MIS analytics based on actual sales, sales forecasts, company order parameters, inventory checks, forth coming events, replenishment needs etc.
- Assist in the creation of merchandise plans for the category based on insights gained from merchandise analytics, customer preference, historical trends and future outlook projected by the buyer
- Assist in discussing, deciding and freezing the department/category merchandise strategic plans around financial, store and assortment factors
- Communicate the merchandise strategic plan to buying team for necessary execution
- Ensure effective in season management across territories (stock balancing, markdown management, stock analysis, stock vs sales performance)
- Help review the merchandise plans on a periodic basis to ensure profit is maximized and maintained to reach target levels
- Ensure that the standards of Merchandise procedures and Methodologies are maintained and kept Uniform

Inventory Stock Optimization

- Ensure optimum category inventory levels are maintained at Concept/Territory keeping in mind store requirements as well as working capital constraints
- Ensure that no instances of category stock outs occur on account of any discrepancy on part of merchandise planning
- Ensure excess category inventory is not maintained at the warehouses or the stores and there is proper adherence to the concept/territory ageing policy

In season Management

- Ensure performance is monitored against plan for the assigned category/department, regularly supported by exception reporting
- Ensure effective in season management of the assigned category/department through regular analysis and action planning across concept and territory, based on the performance around Sales vs. Stock, inflows, OTB etc.

Category Promotions

- Provide inputs on the expected margins, possible price points and other parameters for promotions within the product category
- Help analyze the effectiveness of the promotions in achieving the targeted levels of sales and margins
- Help analyze the existing stock levels and liaise with the Buying/VM/Marketing team for timely roll out of promotional campaigns to maintain the territory / warehouse inventory holding norms as well to achieve targeted sales

- Graduate degree in commerce or business administration/ Post Graduate degree in Business Administration / Diploma in Retail discipline
- Minimum 6 years of experience out of which 3 years should be in a similar role and similar industry.
- Specialized Training in MS Office
- Hands on experience of Pre-season merchandise financial planning & in-season demand planning
- Knowledge on MFP, AP & LP

About the Company

Founded in 1973 in Bahrain, the Landmark Group has successfully grown into one of the largest and most successful retail organizations in the Middle East. An international, diversified retail conglomerate that encourages entrepreneurship to consistently deliver exceptional value, the Group operates over 900 stores encompassing a retail presence of over 13 million sq. ft. across Middle East, India, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen and Pakistan (franchise operation). The Group employs around 31,000 employees.