Merchandise Planner

Your Role:

Merchandise Planner serves as the business manager for a book of business and is primarily responsible for translating the Merchants vision into viable plans and profitable results. The Planner is responsible for developing and maintaining sales, inventory and margin plans that tie to financial targets for an assigned Sub-Brand or Category. Plans will begin at the Sub-Brand or Category level and will drive to choice-level (Style/Color) plans, creating targeted assortments by cluster of stores with similar selling characteristics. In partnership with the Merchant, the Planner drives to additional value through optimizing the assortment for these store clusters. In collaboration with the Demand Forecaster, the Merchandise Planner generates demand plans, which incorporate statistically-based forecasts, merchandise plans and business knowledge. Demand plans provide the basis for future merchandise plans, as well as a forward-looking expectation of sales to inform the distribution process. The Merchandise Planner reports to the Director, Merchandise Planning.

Why You Belong Here:

At Victoria’s Secret, we acknowledge your value. We recognize that every associate has something unique to add to our brand and business. We strive to recruit, retain, and advance diverse talent that reflects the customers we serve and the communities where we live and work. We foster a culture where everyone belongs because we know our business thrives most when we look for, listen to, and amplify diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We place the customer at the heart of everything we do. We dream big, embrace curiosity and creativity while always learning from our mistakes. We lead with integrity, trust, and respect to achieve the best outcomes as one team.

Your Impact:

Pre-Season

• Build and refine a class/sub-class plan based on guidance from Category and Attribute plans created by Strategic Planning – the class/sub-brand plan is a weekly dollar and unit merchandise plan by class, sub-brand and potentially subclass
• Partner with Merchants to create and maintain a seasonal theme-based assortment list and volume targets by store grouping (format, cluster, etc)
• Develop assortment plans for sales, margin and inventory to the style/choice level by store groupings (cluster/format, etc) in support of productivity and financial targets
• Use demand forecast, pattern after items, targets from attribute and category plans, test results and historical trends
• Incorporate impact of events and entrance/exit strategies
• Propose initial and promotional pricing by item Participate in consensus planning with demand planner; collaborate to drive to one number sales plan with recommendations for events, based on class plan and forecast
• Communicate merchandise plans to other functional groups as follows:
• Logistics for their review from a capacity standpoint. Information gained is then reconciled with the plan; issues reviewed and discussed together
• Finance to inform their rolling business plan; together review and discuss any related issues
• Stores to inform their labor estimates
• Compliance to inform of possible categories for new product quality, testing and regulatory considerations
• Customer Marketing to give strategic direction for the development/refinement of their seasonal campaign plans
• Support the Sales & Operations Planning process by assisting in the preparation of materials for purposes of evaluating and resolving supply/demand imbalances
• Identify test candidates that fit with merchandise strategy

In-Season

• Analyze and reflect current trends in performance of strategy based on actual sales performance; revise in-season plans for sales and profitability, control inventory levels
• Partner with Merchant to develop and propose tactics in response to current business trends
• Manage and execute promotional and liquidation strategy
• Manage the assortment to approved inventory targets
• Communicate revisions both within the team and cross functionally
• Work with Demand Forecaster to formulate alternate event options
• Actively manage inventory levels pulling up, pushing back or cancelling orders; and by working with Inventory Deployment to recommend reorders

Reporting/Analytics

• Analyze performance for area of responsibility relative to performance of plan and trend for both period and season sales, margin and inventory
• Prepare recommendations and alternatives for key financial meetings/decisions in order to maximize sales and margin and optimize inventory productivity, in partnership with Merchant.
• Perform trade-off analysis on impact of new items to the assortment identified at a sub-brand level and provide financial planning recommendations

Integration Points

• Partner with Strategic Planning to inform, reconcile and revise financial targets based on the category and attribute plans
• Participate in consensus planning with Demand Forecasters; collaborate to drive to one number plan and recommendations for event modeling
• Partner with Inventory Deployment to establish and implement short- and long-term inventory management objectives and review order quantities
• Work with cross-functional partners to make informed decisions on promotional events and season planning, exit strategies, new item launches and collections; provide recommendations in response to financial targets
• Assist Merchandising, Logistics and Production to optimize flow of goods from suppliers to warehouses, distribution agents and fulfillment centers. Work with demand forecasting to improve reliability through demand plan accuracy
• Integrate with Space Planning to represent the opportunities and constraints that the physical environment creates at store level, monitor results from tests, launches and edits

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