Merchandise Planning Manager

POSITION SUMMARY

Thinx is seeking a razor sharp, analytical, and team-oriented Merchandise Planning Manager with an entrepreneurial mindset to support our growing team. This role will be responsible for creating and managing sales and inventory plans at a brand, collection, style and SKU level. Managers are responsible for researching, analyzing, identifying, and communicating sales opportunities and providing risk-mitigating recommendations to cross-functional partners. While the Planning Manager will help oversee all businesses across all sales channels and geographic regions, the initial focus will be to help set up and manage our rapidly growing Wholesale channel.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Create sales, margin and inventory plans by brand, collection, and style for both the DTC and Wholesale businesses.
• Collaborate with Product Innovation/Development, Design, and Marketing teams on assortment plans to align with sales and inventory strategies.
• Play an active role in partnering with management in creating, updating and enhancing tools and processes that support the planning and buying function.
• Summarize the opportunity and risk of a product plan as it relates to trend and financial metrics: initial mark-up, average unit retail, average unit cost, net margin dollars.
• Recommend style count, cc count and flow of goods for optimal results.
• Provide daily and weekly updates on business as it relates to last forecast, identifying trends, and highlighting selling that exceeds or falls short of expectation.
• Initiate conversations with cross functional partners regarding potential risk or opportunities and suggested changes to course of action for both current and future quarters.
• Prepare sales, margin and inventory forecast and lead team in monthly OTB forecast meetings for current year; provide sales trend opportunity for future quarters, validate stock-to-sales relationships, maximize receipt flow to improve turn and suggest pricing strategies to drive profitability.
• Oversee forecasting and investment in Basic product (KIPs) and ensure 100% in-stock levels at all times
• Propose markdown and promotional strategies to maximize profitability on the life of an item or category; provide pricing and margin dollar gain/loss scenarios.
• Manage the Wholesale business and create more efficient processes, tools, and reporting to better forecast sales and inventory and allow for scalability of on-boarding additional retailer accounts
• Engage partners on the Marketing Team to ensure proper product and category representation in marketing channels relative to inventory investment
• Work closely with the Operations Team to help optimize processes, improve accuracies in inventory reporting across multiple 3PL/warehouses, and ensure on-time arrival of product

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Strong analytical, financial modeling, and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills.
• Proven ability to build strong cross-functional partnerships and influence others.
• Ability to synthesize business performance into key highlights, root cause analysis and action plans.
• Ability to manage multiple work streams/projects with tight timelines.
• Strong technical aptitude, including advanced competency in Microsoft Excel and the ability to quickly master new applications and systems.
• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 5+ years of merchandise planning, allocation, merchandising, financial planning, strategy or business analytics. Wholesale experience a plus.