Director of Planning

SNIPES Director of Planning  

Bensalem, PA 

Hybrid

We live sneakers, streetwear, and neighborhood culture! All Day! Every Day!

With more than 750 stores in Europe and the USA, SNIPES is one of the leading sneaker and streetwear retailers worldwide. Since opening its first store in Essen, Germany in 1998, SNIPES has been an integral part of street culture and is constantly growing thanks to its proximity to the community and regular openings worldwide.

At SNIPES, everything revolves around youth culture. In stores and online at snipes.com and snipesusa.com, our community finds a wide range of internationally renowned sneakers and apparel brands for the latest fits from head to toe. We dive deep into subcultures, sponsor some of the biggest hip-hop festivals, events, and sports teams throughout the world to stay close to our community and keep our deep roots in the global street culture community. Therefore, we work closely with key figures from the scene like DJ Khaled, our Chief Creative Officer. But whether it’s sponsorships or developing grassroots projects – we prioritize giving back to the community in everything we do.

SNIPES has always kept an ear to the streets to create a meaningful impact in the communities we serve. Through our community program “SNIPES serves” and its localized approach we support the needs of our communities, empower, and celebrate our dynamic culture.

Overview: Reporting to the Vice President of Planning and Allocations, the Director of Planning is responsible for setting overall Merchandise Planning and Inventory strategies to achieve sales and margin goals. Collaborates with the Divisional Merchandise Managers on strategic initiatives, long term planning and financial analysis. Participates in the development and execution of merchandise plans, including sales, planning, forecasting, product buys, and sell through.   

Responsibilities 

• Coach and develop the planning team to achieve financial objectives and optimal inventory management as well as prepare the team for broader responsibilities 
• Lead the planners through analysis of historical data and current trends to identify risks and opportunities to the business, and recommend strategies to correct and achieve sales plans – shared with buyers 
• Create monthly unit ladders in conjunction with buyers 
• Ensure planners and buyers manage to the OTB based on planned and actualized sales  
• Develop a strong relationship between planning and merchandising to ensure accurate forecasting, approve category assortment plans by season, analyze product history and sales trends 
• Manage all plan phases, including top level preliminary targets and bottom-up department level pre and post market 
• Recommend strategies to achieve balanced plans, maximizing sales and gross margin opportunities through product mix 
• Leads Merchant organization through monthly forecast process to accurately assess the current state of the business, provide accurate future forecasts, and makes recommendations for actions needed to maximize sales and margin. 
• Quantify risk/opportunity and provide appropriate recommendations to deliver overall company financial objectives 
• Identify strategies to minimize the aging of inventory and make and pricing recommendations to address the aging inventory. 
• Develop suite of retail reporting to effectively manage the business 
• Conduct ROI analysis: examine margin requirements along with operational merchandise plans 

Qualifications 

• 7-10 years' merchandise planning experience; 5+ years as a Director of Planning
• Bachelor's degree in Fashion, Business, or related fields
• Ability to work in an entrepreneurial, fast-moving environment; streetwear a plus
• Prior experience with implementing core merchandising systems and creating retail reports; experience working with planning software
• Ability to manage workflow within a constantly changing environment 
• Demonstrates accountability and responsibility 
• Ability to lead and facilitate commun