Merchandise Planner Resume Examples

Merchandise Planner

Managed product and financial planning to support an $800M sales budget for tablets, accessories, and handsets in 6,500 stores. Spearheaded merchandise planning process with a key focus on receipts and inventory using ladder plans to support achievement of growth and decline categories. Created bottom-up financial plans that reconciled with top-down merchandising plans to support growth objectives. Managed in-season product performance analysis, open-to-buy, and EOL control processes, along with providing feedback and suggested course corrections to merchants.

• Successfully launched ZAGG screen protectors in 4,500 stores, resulting in $9.3M profit and $23.4M revenue.
• Aggressively reduced EOL inventory by 20% ($7.2M) through product lifecycle management.
• Accomplished 15% revenue increase ($26M) and 10% profit increase ($13M) in wireless accessories, while average inventory on-hand decreased 25% ($7M) through implementing markdown cadence, product rationalization, and price optimization.

Merchandise Planner

Increased the Women's bottoms business by $10.6 million dollars in 2012, which was achieved by expanding our denim assortment,
building our fashion penetration in dresses, and developing store tier strategies to maximize sales potential.

• Planned the dresses department, which drove the largest sales increase in the Women's division of 99% over the previous year.
• Improved departments' 2012 gross margin by $6.7 million dollars by managing store level promotions on a weekly basis, and working with production to improve costing on core items.
• Presented to the CEO financial direction of the Women's bottoms business during seasonal buy meetings.
• Managed planning coordinators, and reported into the director of Women's planning.
• Appointed business committee member on JDA implementation team for PVH to assist in the design of new planning and assortment systems to be rolled out in November 2013.
• Designated as super user for Arthur Planning system, and provided assistance to other planners regularly.

Merchandise Planner

Conducted in-depth sales trend analysis to develop time-phased SKU-level plans for the majority of the bedroom collection, of which my planning generated $15.4 million in annual sales. Developed regional sales forecasts spanning 3,000+ items, consistently achieving forecast error accuracy of 95%+. Monitored and tracked the production and shipping lifecycle from initial order entry to delivery to regional distribution centers.

• Circumvented $900,000 in lost revenue and an out-of-stock situation, by recommending a dual-vendor relationship, thwarting the risk inherent in using only one vendor for the manufacture of top 10 collections.
• Managed relationships with 22 domestic and Asian suppliers, analyzing and forecasting product performance and issues to fuel purchasing decisions and initiation of new vendor relationships.
• Consistently achieved forecast error percent under 6%.

Merchandise Planner

• Developed plans for 39 sub-classifications of Apparel and Accessories representing 50% of the company sales volume
• Proposed and implemented a fixture-fill initiative in Sunglasses, aligned inventory plans to support this strategy with a 30% increase in sales
• Recommended strategies based on analysis to adjust product assortment generating additional $1 million gross margin
• Produced weekly OTB reports, promotional analysis, and top seller reviews to accomplish sales, meet gross margin and turn goals
• Implemented a value versus promotional price strategy in Backpacks that resulted in an increase of 16.8%, an additional $460,000 in sales
• Developed and conducted training in Retail Math for 20 allocation analysts

Merchandise Planner - Boys

Responsible for developing and re-forecasting merchandise financial plans to achieve sales and gross profit goals for $147M business.

• Sales for March +3.1%, +$255K to plan.
• Executed contingency plans of additional 125K units of dress up which resulted in +2.2%, +$4M to LY
• Developed strategies, analyzed and identified opportunities and risks to drive the business to its highest potential and presented recommendations to Planning and Allocation Director.
• Approved purchase orders and managed inventory levels to achieve company turn goals.
• Partnered with the team to create item plans, develop marketing strategies and reconcile them to the merchandise financial plan.

Merchandise Planner

Managed margin, inventory, assortment and financial plans for $75 million business consisting of Clothing, Dress Shirts, Ties and footwear.

• Developed strategic plans that aligned financial and product opportunities by department, class and key items.
• Created pricing strategies to maximize sales trends and opportunities.
• Increased footwear business by 14.5% to $13.4 million in 2 year period by increasing penetration in underdeveloped categories including sandals and casual shoes.
• Partnered with Buyer to develop and execute assortment plans targeting specific store clusters.
• Ensured proper inventory levels and allocation for all key items and coordinated timely flow of merchandise with E3 Allocation Specialists.
• Generated seasonal forecasts and evaluated actual sales to plan on a weekly basis. Presented results to CEO and CFO in monthly forecast meetings.
• Increased gross margin in area of responsibility by 130 basis points in a 2 year period.
• Effectively trained and mentored 4 direct reports; promoted Allocation Specialist to Associate Planner in 2008.

Senior Assistant Merchandise Planner - Designer Women's Fragrances

Responsible for managing receipts and open to buy for $10M (annual) department with multiple vendors

• Analyzed sales by location, proposed modifications by location based on a productivity threshold, presented
• Negotiated edits and stock adjustments by style by location to optimize stock levels and achieve stock targets
• Identified core customers by brand and product category utilizing consumer intelligence data to maximize sales
• Responsible for development and distribution of weekly district merchant planning newsletter to inform field teams of major launches, shipping or vendor issues, and replenishment strategies
• Analyzed various potential sales opportunities and provided recommendations to team and upper management

Merchandise Planner

Planned and monitored sales, receipts, returns, markdowns and inventory levels for the book trade with a volume of $600 million annually.

• Insured sales, markdown and inventory objectives were achieved.
• Worked with the Finance Department to establish overall financial objectives and identify sales and inventory issues.
• Established, input and reviewed sales and inventory plans on key merchandise programs.
• Monitored purchases monthly by type and through analyses to determine the impact on inventory position by month.