What are the responsibilities and job description for the Lead Assortment/Merchandise Planner position at HireTalent?
Job Title: Lead Assortment/Merchandise Planner
Location: Beaverton, OR (Onsite Mon–Thu, WFH Friday)
Duration: 12 Months Contract
Who Are We Looking For
We are looking for a Lead Assortment Planner to establish clear end to end bottom-up merchandise plans to ensure consumer demand is met and a healthy pull market is maintained. The success of our team relies on collaborative and detail-oriented assortment planners who manage style and/or franchise plans to optimize sales, margin and profitable sustainable growth across the marketplace. Our assortment planners step up to address difficult issues, operate effectively when the way forward isn't clear, develop innovative ideas and they win with consumers by understanding their business to drive success.
What Will You Work On
If this is you, you'll develop a robust assortment planning framework that includes product depth, flow and SKU efficiency, whilst providing marketplace consumer insights to curate the optimal product line. In a typical day/week you will building bottom-up forecasts to inform pre-season decisions, weekly sales analysis to identify risk and opportunity, collaboration with your marketplace team and retail partners to manage performance and providing post-season assortment insights and recommendations to key stakeholders.
Who Will You Work With
You will report to a Planning Director and will be working closely with cross-functional teams (Sales & Merchandising) as well as engaging marketplace planning teams in weekly and seasonal conversations. You'll also stay connected to other planners and succeed through your ability to collaborate and drive action and results both internally and externally.
Must-Have
• 4 years retail planning experience, in a vertical retail or wholesale environment
• Comprehensive understanding of retail math required
• Strong Excel skills are essential
• Strong influencing and stakeholder management experience
• Ability to work across a matrixed environment
• Self-starter who speaks up when needed and brings a voice to the table (cross-functional)
Nice-To-Have
• Merchandise planning experience is highly desirable
• AI knowledge
• Power BI
• Previous industry experience is super useful; retail experience needed
Education / Experience Substitutions
• No education requirement — experience-led screen