Merchandise Planner

Madewell is hiring a Merchandise Planner to develop and execute the financial strategy for a department in partnership with Merchants and Allocators. The role focuses on building financial plans, forecasting results, and delivering insights that optimize sales, margin, and inventory performance. This position influences cross-functional decision-making across preseason and in-season planning.

• Partner with the manager to develop pre-season financial strategy aligned to total Madewell goals.
• Build preseason sales, margin, and inventory plans by department and class using historical data and trend insights.
• Develop bottom-up style plans with Merchandising, including recommendations on rank, depth of buy, and flow timing.
• Reconcile top-down vs. bottom-up plans using metrics such as markup, average unit cost, margin rate, available inventory, discount rates, and sell-through.
• Present preseason plans and financial recommendations in investment and line review meetings.
• Provide weekly updates on sales, margin, and inventory performance versus forecast at high level and style level.
• Partner with Merchandising, Allocation, and Assortment Planning to optimize product flow, pricing, and receipt management.
• Prepare in-season forecasts and lead monthly OTB meetings, recommending forecast adjustments based on trend analysis.
• Analyze sell-through and inventory-to-sales ratios; propose pricing and promotional actions to maximize profitability.
• Partner with Merchandising to identify chase opportunities or adjust future on-order to improve margin outcomes.

• Bachelor’s degree.
• 4+ years of experience in merchandise planning, allocation, or financial analysis.
• Strong analytical skills, financial modeling capability, and advanced Excel proficiency.
• Ability to translate data into insights and influence cross-functional partners.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including strong presentation abilities.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and able to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Preferred: experience planning across multiple categories or channels.
• Preferred: advanced proficiency with planning tools and retail analytics systems.
• Preferred: demonstrated success managing OTB and seasonal investment strategies.
• Preferred: understanding of retail metrics such as sell-through, turn, and inventory-to-sales ratio.

Schedule, location type, and benefits/perks are not specified in the posting.