Sr Merch Planner - Books (Minneapolis)
About The Position
Target Merchandising is evolving at an incredible pace. We are constantly reimagining how this $70 billion retailer offers the innovative, guest-inspiring items that Target is known and loved for. Our goal is to deliver exceptional value, quality and style to elevate Target as the premier retailer in a competitive global marketplace. Through intelligent and progressive business strategies that make the most of Target’s resources and partnerships worldwide, Merchandising works across product categories to create a localized shopping experience online and in our 1800 stores. A role in Planning means being in charge of the financials and forecasting for one of Target’s businesses. Here, you’ll conduct comparative analysis of holiday or other seasonal performance reports and provide the insights that inform the Inventory team’s work to ensure that product supports projected sales. Acting as the hub between Merchandising and Supply Chain, you will create a financial link between these two essential groups and have a voice in some of the most important decisions from a financial strategy standpoint. As a Merchandise Planner in Books, you will be leading the BU in a fast paced, growing segment of our business. You’ll determine new release forecasts and placement hurdles, collaborate on assortment planning, recommend localization strategies including cluster types and profiles, and lead demand forecasting. You’ll work closely with the buyers to determine how we deliver our LRP growth strategy for kid’s books, and maximize our overall footprint in the stores. You will head up the open-to-buy process and decide on category-level investment, “big bet” development and the financial validity of assortments. You’ll conduct scenario planning, build unit plans, and lead initial set planning and operationalization to optimize assortments. A large part of your role will be to interpret forecast results and conduct “what if?” analysis to guide your go-forward recommendations. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.
Requirements
- Four-year degree or equivalent experience
- 6+ years of Merchandising experience
- Strong strategic, financial, and analytical skills; can easily translate data from an array of sources into insights and recommendations
- Strong collaboration skills to partner with cross-functional teams
- Flexible, resilient and comfortable working in “grey areas” that are constantly changing
Responsibilities
- Determine new release forecasts and placement hurdles
- Collaborate on assortment planning
- Recommend localization strategies including cluster types and profiles
- Lead demand forecasting
- Work closely with the buyers to determine how we deliver our LRP growth strategy for kid’s books, and maximize our overall footprint in the stores
- Head up the open-to-buy process
- Decide on category-level investment, “big bet” development and the financial validity of assortments
- Conduct scenario planning
- Build unit plans
- Lead initial set planning and operationalization to optimize assortments
- Interpret forecast results and conduct “what if?” analysis to guide your go-forward recommendations
- Conduct comparative analysis of holiday or other seasonal performance reports and provide the insights that inform the Inventory team’s work to ensure that product supports projected sales
- Create a financial link between Merchandising and Supply Chain
- Have a voice in some of the most important decisions from a financial strategy standpoint
Benefits
- Comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more
- 401(k)
- Employee discount
- Short term disability
- Long term disability
- Paid sick leave
- Paid national holidays
- Paid vacation
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
Associate degree
