Senior Planner

For more than 145 years, Follett has been bringing together affordable educational content, products and technologies to prepare learners and educators, term after term.

At Follett, we manage 1000+ collegiate campus stores that help bring the specific look and feel of each campus experience to life with design concepts inspired by the latest retail trends and experiences. Our emblematic planning team creates customized apparel and gift assortments for the products that fans, alumni, students, and faculty demand most. Follett partners with top brands and infuses today’s apparel trends to enhance the individuality of every school with quality apparel for every type of campus pride, both in-store and online.

Position Overview:

Develops the financial and merchandise assortment plans by department for large volume stores, multiple locations or region. Ensure proper execution of merchandise strategy via the Assortment Planning Process. Manages the Open to Buy process by store to positively impact inventory goals. Identify and exploit sales opportunities. Recommend disposition plans to liquidate aged inventory and overstock. Complete store, department, vendor, style, color and graphic analysis.

Financial Planning - Develops monthly sales plans by store, by department using corporate goals and strategies. Establish monthly markdown and receipt plans to support the monthly sales plan. Drive department goals to deliver financial components of sales, gross margin and inventory turnover.

Assortment Planning - Previews the corporate approved vendor, style and graphic options by Sourcing. Provides feedback to Sourcing regarding additional category, vendor, style, color and graphic needs. Completes assortment plan by store, identifying the appropriate style, graphic and color choices using the store assortment tool based on store needs. Analyze and report weekly/monthly sales, inventory, and turn position as it relates to plan, last year and last week/month.

Financial/Assortment Analysis/Reporting - Manages inventory levels by store using an OTB process. Forecasts future month financial components by store, by department. Executes purchase order placement/modification/cancellation recommendations based on OTB disposition.

Store/Vendor Communication Process - Responds to store e-mail and phone messages in a timely manner including escalated issues. Responds to merchandise requests in a timely and financially responsible manner. Conducts regular store visit offering solutions to store issues regarding assortment breadth and depth. Ensures stores are scanning re-orders regularly for all key items. Provides purchase orders to vendors in a timely manner with appropriate lead-times. Provides item forecasts to vendors as requested by Sourcing. Communicates delivery expectations to all vendors. Fosters open and honest communication with the stores and vendors.
Performs other duties as assigned.

Ability to identify sales opportunities. Develop action plans to maximize sales opportunities through strong analytical skills and partnership with store, Sourcing and Manager. Included in action plan are solid sales forecasting methodology and determination of optimum inventory investment required to support sales growth.

Ability to identify risks to sales, inventory or margin plans. Develop action plans to mitigate the risks through strong analytical skills. Included in action plan are well grounded sales forecast, determination of at risk inventory investment, potential PO cancellation, vendor communication, liquidation plan which could include Promo and/or store level markdown and subsequent margin implications for current and next year.

Requirements: 

• Bachelor's Degree or higher. 
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office products and computer literacy
• Five plus years in buying and/or planning/allocation capacity.
• Retail apparel experience required; specialty and or department retail, licensed products experience preferred.
• Strong analytical and problem resolution skills.
• Strong organization and prioritization skills.
• Solid verbal and written communication skills.
• Excellent analytical and problem resolution skills.
• Travel required, approximately 20 hours during peak periods.
• Non-Traditional hours including, but not limited to, athletics and special events.

Additional Information: 

• Full-time / Benefit Eligible
• Work Location: Chicagoland Area - Hybrid (onsite in Westchester IL & Remote)