Senior Executive, Retail Merchandising

Education: Bachelor's Degree in Business Management or equivalent studied

Professional: Minimum 3-4 years retail / merchandising experience in a fashion / branded / retail environment

IT Skills: Strong computer skills including MS Excel, Word, Power Point

Language Skills: Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Good English written/verbal skills required (PUMA Group language is English

• Together with the Manager, Retail Merch, responsible for delivering a buy strategy per season and building the most profitable, balanced, customer focused range for the country which reflects the PUMA Brand Strategy and supports any key country strategies.
• Accountable for managing the in-season trading of the business in a way where inventory is managed efficiently and required trading decisions are made and communicated to stakeholders.

Execution of seasonal FP buy

• Execute seasonal buy in accordance to OTB & Budget.
• Define assortment based on market/store/customer profile, participate in seasonal kickoff meetings to ensure product relevance.
• Ensure timely submission of seasonal orders.
• Manage the right product mix with targeted division/product category in mind.
• Ensure the buy based on analysis of the historical data/sell through.
• Define product strategy by sales channel to achieve optimal sell through results.
• Deliver seasonal line to ensure gross margin, sell through performance and healthy stocks inventory.
• Review seasonal collection performance vs expectations and in analysing consumer buying patterns, predicting future trends.

Effective and efficient in-season rollout

• Collaborate with VM & Retail Operations to ensure seasonal rollout is aligned with Global direction.
• Garner feedback from Brand ambassadors on shop floor to enhance on pre-season planning.
• Be close to market to monitor direct competitors against Brand's position in terms of pricing, product, technology, Hero items.
• Ensure timely rollout of monthly launches and product assortment plan prior launch of a season.
• Touch base weekly/monthly with both VM & Retail OPs to reaffirm on RESEC/GSEC.
• Participate in monthly SIC meeting / Walk the stores/retail visit bi-monthly.

Align best practices across territory

• Adhere to existing best practices and ensure it is consistently rolled out in different markets.
• Ensure that functional work processes are clearly defined.
• Learn and adopt best practices from regional counterparts.

Task 1:  Pre-season Planning

• Review Sales and Inventory vs actual performance by stores and division. Present risks and opportunities to and sign off any changes with the Retail Merchandising Manager and Head of Retail.
• Review store base grading by analyzing historical sales, SKU efficiency, and specific store needs as well as strategy. Work with Visual Merchandising on capacity planning to make sure the stores have the right amount of SKU’s per space/concept at any point in time. Hand over the SKU targets to Merchandising to make sure the needed capacity is fulfilled and to prevent over-capacity.
• Provide appropriate top line and style level reporting and analysis, to be able to make educated buy decisions.
• Create achievable seasonal top-line plans for store and category sales and options in the Range Plan tool based on brand strategy, country strategy, history and range strategy.
• Create bottom-up plans by style including grading, start and end weeks, ROS, MD and end Inventory in the Range Plan tool based on historical analysis. Ensure plans reflect the types of items planned i.e. best sellers vs interest pieces to make sure inventory is managed effectively. Ensure these plans reflect the created top line plans.
• Analyze size level performance on Gender/ BU/ class level and create sized buy plans for ordering on style level.

Task 2:  In-season Planning

• Drive weekly, monthly, quarterly and seasonal reporting and analysis and present these during weekly trading meetings. Drive the discussion on actions needed based on trading.
• Review weekly sales at style level and make trading decisions for promotions, MD, price changes, re-buy needs, stock transfers etc.
• Review the plans for upcoming seasons against actual situation and create final store plans and stock flow for allocation. Review allocation plans prepared by allocation team and discuss changes needed or pending issues.
• Oversee the placement of orders and track deliveries and stock flow to Warehouse.
• Ensure an efficient inventory flow between channels and locations; transfers in and out, store vs warehouse, and that any opportunities are fulfilled. Inform channels of changes in inventory forecasts that will directly affect KPI’s.

Task 3: Process improvement

• In conjunction with Retail Merchandising Team, work on improving the processes and tools used.
• Ensure existing tools are compatible with country needs and systems. Highlight needs to Retail Merchandising Manager. In the absence of set templates, drive the introduction and implementation of such tools.