What are the responsibilities and job description for the Inventory Planning Manager position at Violet Grey?
The Planning Manager will oversee inventory levels, reporting on performance to internal team and brand partners. Manages OTB process, performs data entry as needed. Prior experience in CPG inventory is mandatory. Primary responsibilities include:
Planning, Inventory Management & Reporting:
- Provide daily sales, month to date and year to date sales and inventory reports to internal team members and brand partners as appropriate
- Manage product sales and inventory budget from top down and bottoms up views; manage performance at brand, category and product level
- Manage monthly inventory open to buy by brand and product category to ensure stock and sales positions are supporting growth and inventory efficiency goals
- Provide retail sales and PO projection forecasts for brand partners. Monitor inventory levels and suggest reorders within appropriate timeframe to avoid stock outs
- Negotiate upfront discounts and payment terms with vendors in partnership with Buying
- Monitor hero style selling throughout the year, adjusting projections for these styles and reporting on progress to stakeholders and ensuring product levels are such that we can meet hero projections
- Manage product expiration dates and partner with marketing and sales teams to ensure that any product with upcoming expirations is exhausted prior to needing to be dispositioned
- Provide inventory in DC ready date to Marketing to finalize Ecommerce and retail launch dates for new products
- Speak to future brand and product strategies with key cross functional departments during meetings to give direction on focus styles based on inventory levels
- Partner with Sales, Marketing & Content teams to ensure retail partners have appropriate sampling and marketing collateral from brands to support new launches and ongoing selling
- Forecast sampling and gratis needs both for DTC and retail
Promos
- Communicate with brand partners ahead of promotional periods to confirm participation and increase stock positions.
- Share promo details with Operations and PD teams
- Determine special inventory needs (ie. GWP) and lead the set-up of these items with Ops and PD
- Analyze past promotion performance to determine overall promo goal and impact to month and year trend
- Provide relevant selling updates during promo and share Promo Recap once promo has ended
Order Support
- Work with Buying & Accounting to create purchase orders for brands, receive invoices and coordinate payments
- Coordinate the initial set-up and onboarding with new brand partners, working cross functionally across all teams to ensure milestones are hit in the lead up to launch
- Manage stock levels for our retail locations via weekly inventory transfers
- Help create more streamlined processes for inventory transfers as we scale retail footprint
