SENIOR MERCHANDISE PLANNER - HOME OFFICE - AUSTIN, TEXAS
About Kendra Scott:
We are a fun, talented and driven team dedicated to providing our customers with gorgeous products and a WOW! experience. Family, fashion and philanthropy are at the core of our company and though we move at a very fast pace, we are committed to maintaining a family-oriented work environment and giving back to our community. A passion for great design, dedication to innovation and a strong social media presence are our building blocks for creating a unique and engaging lifestyle brand across all channels, including retail stores, wholesale accounts and e-commerce. Our headquarters are located in the heart of Austin, Texas, and we embrace the unique vibe and energy of our hometown as an inspiration for our brand and company culture.
Position Overview:
The Senior Merchandise Planner is a professional member of the Planning team and reports to the Merchandise Planning Manager. This is an exempt, salaried position whose primary responsibility is to forecast, purchase, and manage inventory, ensuring financial goals are achieved while supporting overall company initiatives and acting as a leader on the Planning team. All below responsibilities are for specific categories owned.
Responsibilities:
BUYING & INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
• Responsible for inventory management of categories, including forecasting and buying responsibilities, ensuring in stock rates to maximize Revenue while hitting turn targets
• Assumes a leadership role on the Planning team - takes initiative and ownership on projects for process improvements; trains and develops current team as well as new hires.
• Manages open-to-buy, monitoring receipts and shifting as needed
• Responsible for out of stock reporting, ensuring products in season are stocked at the warehouse for replenishment
• Assumes a holistic approach to inventory management, driving owned categories while maintaining broad, strategic scope, understanding the effect on total financial and brand objectives for all
• Own weekly reporting and recaps, presenting and sharing key insights with cross functional teams and management
• Proactively achieve investment alignment from all cross functional partners to ensure buy is supporting overall initiatives and key feature items. Able to articulate buy assumptions, logic, trends, risks and recommendations while presenting buys to leadership
• Communicates trends by category, as well as opportunities for additional receipts and/or need for receipt flow adjustments based on performance in all channels, without undo impact to production
• Inspire the team to develop and present strategies, evaluate performance and collaborate on assortment edits
• Effectively manages up, communicating results to leadership including key wins, risks and opportunities
• Develop bottoms up product forecasts, rolling up to total category and measuring against top down company forecasts, communicating any risks to Finance
• Views and communicates inventory from a global perspective; clearly understands inventory needs and impacts to all areas of the company
• Determines exit strategies and markdowns as well as identify items to maximize promotional and marketing strategies
CROSS FUNCTIONAL PARTNERSHIP
• Partner closely with Merchandising on assortment and pricing for new product launches, communicating any risks and ensuring IMU and financial targets are achieved
• Share product performance, trends, and key insights with Design and Merchandising to help support line plan development for future assortments
• Navigates through roadblocks, able to independently partner cross functionally to resolve any issues, recapping outcome to management
• Strategize and collaborate with cross functional teams on future promotional plans, ensuring financial targets are achieved and teams are aligned on execution
• Partner with Allocation on channel distribution strategy, ensuring buy strategy and priority items are supported
• Work with Marketing and Visual teams to ensure product features are supported with inventory
• Plan and forecast for Wholesale boutiques, working closely with Wholesale team on Revenue goals, evaluate any inventory transfers to Wholesale.
• Partner with Events and Affiliate teams on inventory needs, work closely with the Distribution Center and Allocation teams to ensure the inventory gets to the correct point of contact
• Collaborate with Retail Operations team on employee purchasing strategy, contests, training content, and specific employee buys
• Ability to drive influence across cross functional teams and senior leadership to ensure alignment
Our Ideal Candidate will have:
• Experience forecasting, managing receipts and total open-to-buy required
• 7+ years of experience in retail buying/planning; Jewelry/Accessory experience a plus
• Analytical ability and proficiency in retail math and inventory management
• High level of experience using Excel and other tools to analyze a business to drive results
• 4 Year College degree required; B.S Degree in Retail Merchandising or Business preferred
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects, including prioritization, planning, task delegation and communication of big picture
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail and follow up are critical
• 2+ years of experience managing an Assistant or Associate Planner
• Ability to communicate complex issues, risks and opportunities in easily understood and concise manner, with specific and complete information; communicates 360 degrees, altering communication styles to meet audience need
• Strong leader with experience in supporting and growing a multi-channel organization; ability to excel as strategic and/or hands on leader and adapt as needed