Merchandise Planning Manager

Demand planning experience in the Beauty (Bath/Body/Skincare) category is mandatory for this role.

Lifestyle is a leading retail destination, specialising in Beauty, Fashion, and Home products. Established in 1998, Lifestyle has consistently delivered a distinctive shopping experience and an extensive selection of brands and products across colour cosmetics, perfumes, personal care, fashion accessories, home essentials, and home fragrance. With its chain of more than 160 retail stores spread across the GCC, coupled with a rapidly growing E-commerce platform, Lifestyle has established itself as an omnichannel destination-of-choice for Beauty and Fashion, serving more than 4 million customers every year.

Objective:

The job holder will be responsible for maximising sales and profitability in the business by providing effective merchandise strategies, planning and in-season management of assortments and inventory levels for Concept.

Key Responsibilities:

Merchandise Financial, Strategic and Assortment Planning

• Maximise Sales and profitability for the Concept
• Determine high-level financial goals, including pre-season financial plans, in-season projections, open-to-buy management and new store budgets
• Prepare and monitor Concept merchandise MIS analytics based on actual sales, sales forecasts, company order parameters, inventory checks, forthcoming events, replenishment needs, etc
• Ensure creation of merchandise plans for all departments/categories based on insights gained from merchandise analytics, customer preference, historical trends and future outlook projected by the buyer
• Discuss, decide and freeze the concept merchandise strategic plans around the following factors: Financials - Sales, Stock, OTB, Margins, Forward Cover, etc, Store - Subgroup level Sales, Order Quantity, Allocation, Replenishment, etc and Assortment - Style, Price, Brand, Supplier, etc
• Communicate the merchandise strategic plan to the buying team for necessary execution
• Ensure effective in-season management across territories (stock balancing, markdown management, stock analysis, stock vs sales performance)
• Review the merchandise plans periodically to ensure profit is maximised and maintained to reach target levels
• Ensure that the standards of Merchandise procedures and Methodologies are maintained and kept uniform
• Keep abreast of the latest trends affecting Merchandise Planning as well as business environment & product trends. Discuss the same with the Buying team from time to time to assess alignment /realignment of existing processes

Inventory Stock Optimisation

• Ensure optimum inventory levels are maintained at Concept/Territory, keeping in mind store requirements as well as working capital constraints
• Ensure that no instances of stockouts occur on account of any discrepancy on the part of merchandise planning
• Ensure excess inventory is not maintained at the warehouses or the stores, and there is proper adherence to the concept/territory ageing policy

Category Promotions

• Provide inputs on the expected margins, possible price points and other parameters for promotions within the product category
• Analyse the effectiveness of the promotions in achieving the targeted levels of sales and margins
• Analyse the existing stock levels and liaise with the Marketing/VM/Buying/ Retail team for the timely roll-out of promotional campaigns to maintain the territory/warehouse inventory holding norms, as well as to achieve targeted sales

In-Season Management

• Ensure effective in-season management through regular analysis and action planning across concept and territory based on the performance around the following anchors: sales vs stock, inflows/OTB, stock analysis, stock balancing, margin analysis and promotional activity
• Communicate and facilitate action to be taken on out-of-line situations with Territory Managers
• Visit territories and stores to be abreast with product performance and trends
• Monitor, Manage and Improve Planning MIS
• Ensure adequate merchandise performance

People Management

• Manage and support team recruitment
• Monitor team development and facilitate complaint resolution
• Set KRA's for direct reports and conduct performance appraisal
• Oversee team deployment and drive the motivation levels of the direct reportees

Key Requirements:

• Demand planning experience in the Beauty (Bath/Body/Skincare) category is mandatory for this role.
• 8+ years of retail experience with at least 6 years in planning
• Retail knowledge
• Financial & Business Acumen
• Relationship Management
• Negotiation skills
• Problem Solving & Decision Making
• Team Management & Leadership
• Resource Management
• Planning & Execution abilities