Wholesale Demand Planner

DEMAND PLANNER — SHOPIFY & TIKTOK (HYDROJUG)

Reports to: Director of Demand Planning (when filled; interim to Jelena Minic, Demand Planning Lead)

ABOUT THE ROLE

You own the Shopify & TikTok demand forecast for HydroJug — every retail account, every SKU, every week — and you make sure the S&OP forum always has a current, trusted Shopify & TikTok demand number to plan from.

HydroJug's wholesale business spans Target, Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club, Dick's Sporting Goods, Scheels, Academy, Anthropologie, and TJX — and it's one of the most data-rich forecasting environments in the company. Retailers publish POS data weekly. PO pipelines are visible. Sell-through is measurable. The challenge isn't data — it's doing the work to reconcile it, clean it, and turn it into a forecast the business can act on.

That's your job.

You sit at the intersection of the demand planning team and the wholesale account operations team. The 5 Customer Planning Managers (CPMs) own account-level operational execution — PO timing, OTIF, retailer compliance, floor dates. The National Account Managers (NAMs) own the buyer relationships. You own the forecast underneath all of it. You pull POS data weekly, reconcile it against shipment data, manage the PO pipeline by account and SKU, and feed the Wholesale Demand Review with numbers the CPMs and NAMs can trust.

This is a focused, high-data-volume IC role. You're not building strategy — you're building models and running the numbers with discipline and consistency every single week.

RESPONSIBILITIES

HydroJug Shopify & TikTok demand forecast — SKU × week × account

• Builds and maintains the statistical baseline forecast for every HydroJug SKU across all wholesale retail accounts
• Incorporates promotional lift assumptions, seasonal curves, and new item ramps for each retailer
• Reconciles the statistical model against the PO pipeline to surface gap-to-forecast by account
• Maintains a 13-week rolling 26-week horizon forecast by account and by SKU

POS data reconciliation

• Pulls weekly POS data from retailer portals: RetailLink (Walmart / Sam's), POL (Target), Syndigo, DSG vendor portal, and others
• Cleans and normalizes POS data across different retailer formats — a Target POS file and a Walmart POS file do not look the same
• Reconciles POS sell-through against shipment data to track inventory at retail (IAR) and weeks-of-supply by account
• Flags early signals of at-risk SKUs (velocity trending down, inventory building, stockout risk) before the retailer calls

PO pipeline tracking by account

• Maintains the active PO pipeline by retailer account and SKU — what's ordered, what's in transit, what's past due
• Partners with the CPMs on PO placement timing — your forecast is the input that tells them when the next PO needs to be placed
• Surfaces PO pipeline gaps to the Director of Demand Planning and the CPMs weekly
• Tracks retailer reorder triggers and automatic replenishment programs (where applicable)

Wholesale Demand Review cadence

• Owns the weekly Wholesale Demand Review meeting — agenda, pre-reads, data package
• Presents the Shopify DTC TikTok Shop forecast to the Director of Demand Planning and feeds it into the broader Demand Review that rolls into S&OP
• Brings variance analysis: where did last week's sell-through land vs. forecast, and why?

Forecast accuracy by retailer

• Tracks MAPE and forecast bias by retailer account and top-50 SKUs weekly
• Publishes the wholesale accuracy scorecard to the Director of Demand Planning
• Does the root-cause work when accuracy misses: was it promo timing, a bad baseline, a lost floor space, or just noise?

SUCCESS CRITERIA

First 30 days

• You've mapped every retailer portal you'll be pulling from — you know where to find the data, how often it updates, and what format it comes in.
• You've introduced yourself to each of the 5 CPMs. You understand what data they're already using and what they need from you.
• You've audited the current state of the Shopify DTC TikTok Shop forecast — what exists, what the accuracy has been, where the biggest gaps are.
• You have not changed the model yet. You're learning it first.

First 90 days

• You're pulling POS data weekly from all major retail portals on a locked schedule.
• The Wholesale Demand Review runs with a clean pre-read: forecast vs. actual, gap analysis, PO pipeline by account, and risk flags.
• The CPMs are getting a weekly data update from you — they're not tracking down POS data themselves anymore.
• The PO pipeline is reconciled weekly. No account is placing a PO without your forecast input.

First 6 months

• Wholesale forecast accuracy at or trending toward ≥85%. MAPE on top-50 wholesale SKUs below 20%.
• The Director of Demand Planning has a locked Shopify & TikTok demand number that goes into S&OP without revision.
• At-risk SKU flags are surfacing 4–6 weeks before they become a retailer fill-rate problem.
• You know the planning cycle, PO cadence, and lead-time rules for every major account in the portfolio.

First 12 months

• Wholesale forecasting is a repeatable, consistent machine. New account onboarding (new retailers added to the portfolio) has a clear playbook.
• Forecast accuracy is a lagging indicator of a clean process — you're not chasing the number; you're running the process that produces the number.
• The CPMs trust your data enough to use it in retailer planning meetings. Buyers at accounts like Target and Walmart see HJ as operationally reliable.

QUALIFICATIONS

Background:

• 2–5 years of demand planning, supply chain planning, or retail vendor operations at a consumer brand or retailer
• Has worked with wholesale retail accounts — understands how major retailers (Walmart, Target, Costco, DSG, etc.) plan, order, and track inventory
• Hands-on experience pulling and working with DTC site analytics TikTok Shop data from vendor portals (RetailLink, POL, Syndigo, or equivalent)
• Understands the math: MAPE, forecast bias, weeks-of-supply, inventory at retail, OTIF, fill rate — doesn't need a glossary
• Excel power user — builds and maintains multi-SKU, multi-account forecast models. Pivot tables, XLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH are table stakes
• ERP experience a plus (NetSuite or SAP); SQL a meaningful plus

Soft profile:

• Data-disciplined — you don't send an update without checking the numbers. You're the person who catches the formula error before it goes to the meeting.
• Consistent — you pull the data on the same day every week because the cadence is the product
• Communicative — the CPMs and NAMs need to trust your data. You give them clear, direct updates and flag problems early, not after the retailer calls
• Comfortable with ambiguity — some accounts have clean data; some have messy data. You figure it out
• Genuinely interested in the numbers — this role is high-data-volume. If spreadsheets feel like work to you, this isn't the right fit

REPORTING & ORGANIZATION

• Director of Demand Planning (your manager, or Jelena Minic interim) — you feed the weekly Shopify & TikTok demand number into the Demand Review. They own what happens to it next.
• Jelena Minic (Demand Planning Lead) — your modeling anchor in the near term. She knows the statistical framework and the HJ baseline methodology.
• 5 Customer Planning Managers — your closest operational partners. They own the account execution; you own the forecast underneath it. You brief them weekly.
• National Account Managers — they own the buyer relationships and promotional programs. When a promo goes in at Target, you need to know about it before you publish your next forecast.
• Director of Planning & S&OP — your Shopify & TikTok demand number flows into their S&OP forum. They need it current and locked.
• Allocation Manager (Laszlo Steffensen) — when wholesale inventory is constrained, your forecast is the input to allocation decisions. Keep that loop clean.

ABOUT HYDROJUG, INC.

HydroJug, Inc. is a consumer brand headquartered in Ogden, Utah, designing and selling premium hydration and lifestyle products through direct-to-consumer and major retail channels.