Associate Planner
Kith · Brooklyn · $65,000–$75,000 (stated in the posting)
Location: HQ - Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Status: Full-time / 100% on-site
Compensation: $65,000 - $75,000 annually
Position Summary:
The Associate Merchandise Planner is a pivotal role in driving sales, optimizing inventory, and maximizing profitability across our Kith collections and Multibrand vendors. This role is highly analytical and works in close partnership with cross functional teams to be the point person for high level financial targets and ground level inventory execution. This person will also manage historical data analysis and reporting, support in the Open to Buy process, maintain inventory flow across multiple regions, and recommend and maintain markdown or promotional strategies.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Open-to-Buy (OTB) support – Assist in managing the monthly OTB reporting by updating sales, inventory, and receipt forecasts.
- Analyze historical data and demand trends to identify opportunities.
- Monitor stock levels across various channels (e-commerce, brick & mortar) to minimize out-of-stocks or over-stocks.
- Analyze slow-moving inventory and partner with the buying team to target markdown strategies, and to manage liquidation inventory while protecting gross margin.
- Partner with the buying and merchandising teams to build seasonal assortment plans that align with financial targets.
- Build and maintain category-level bottoms-up forecasting based on historical data and current market trends.
Special Projects/Tasks:
- Generate and analyze monthly, quarterly, and yearly business reports (e.g., best/worst sellers, sell-through percentage, gross margin ROI) to share with cross-functional teams.
- Partner with the operations and logistics teams to manage warehouse projections to alert warehouse teams on spikes in receipts and big releases.
Experience:
- 2+ years in merchandise planning, buying, or retail analytics role.
- Deep understanding of key metrics and retail math proficiency (Gross Margin, Sell-Through, IMU, WOS, Inventory Turn, OTB).
- Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel (XLOOKUPs, Pivot Tables, macros and power query are a plus).
- Experience with planning systems, ERP and POS systems, and BI tools preferred.
Skills/Abilities:
- Ability to synthesize large sets of raw data into actionable business recommendations.
- Strong presentation skills with the ability to explain complex financial data to non-financial partners
- Capacity to pivot quickly in a fast-paced retail environment where the traditional seasonal model is more drop based and frequent.