Junior Merchandise Planner

Perfectly Placed Recruitment; City of Melbourne; On-site; AUD 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

Perfectly Placed Recruitment, on behalf of a Global retail giant, seeks a Junior Merchandise Planner in Melbourne to translate strategy into actionable sales, stock and margin plans. You forecast demand, shape the OTB, and participate in in-season trading decisions to balance availability, cost and markdown risk.

You will partner with Buying and cross-functional teams, turning insights into actions that drive category performance. Excel and planning tools proficiency is essential.

Qualifications

• Experience in merchandise planning, demand planning, inventory planning, allocations, or related retail analytics.
• Strong understanding of KPIs (sales, margin, stock turns, markdown) and how they interact.
• Ability to adapt plans in response to changing performance and inputs.
• Proven stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Proactive, organized and detail-focused with ability to manage competing priorities.
• Solid skills in planning tools; comfortable with large datasets and building basic models/reports.

Responsibilities

• Build annual/seasonal sales, margin and stock plans using top-down and bottom-up approaches; model scenarios and recommend actions to achieve targets.
• Forecast demand and shape the open-to-buy (OTB) and in-season movements.
• Monitor stock levels and metrics to optimize availability and reduce stockouts.
• Own and maintain the OTB; track commitments and receipts in collaboration with Buying.
• Shape assortment and ranges informed by performance and customer insights.
• Provide clear trading reports and post-season analyses to support decisions.

Skills

Merchandise planning

Demand planning

Inventory planning

Stock management

Open-to-buy

Excel skills

Data analysis

Stakeholder management

Attention to detail

Tools

Excel

Job description

Our client is a large well known Global retail giant, now seeking a Junior Merchandise Planner to translate commercial strategy into actionable sales, stock and margin plans. This role plays a critical part in forecasting demand, shaping the open-to-buy (OTB), and making in-season trading decisions to balance availability, cost and markdown risk. Partnering closely with Buying and cross-functional teams, you will turn insights into actions that drive strong category performance.

Responsibilities

• Key responsibilities
• Financial planning & forecasting: Build annual/seasonal sales, margin and stock plans using top-down and bottom-up approaches; model scenarios and recommend actions to achieve targets.
• Inventory management (stock control): Monitor stock levels and key metrics (cover, sell-through, weeks of supply) to optimise availability, reduce overstock and prevent stockouts across channels.
• Open-to-buy (OTB) management: Own and maintain the OTB; track commitments, receipts and in-season movements; partner with Buying to keep purchases within budget and aligned to strategy.
• Assortment & range planning: Partner with Buyers to shape the option mix (styles, sizes, colours, price points, ranges) informed by historical performance, customer insights and planned strategy.
• In-season trading & performance analysis: Review weekly/monthly performance vs plan; identify risks/opportunities; recommend actions across replenishment, allocation, pricing, promotions and markdowns.
• Reporting & governance: Produce clear trading reports and post-season analysis; maintain planning tools, assumptions and documentation to support decision making.

Required Skills

• You will be experienced in merchandise planning, demand planning, inventory planning, allocations, or a related retail analytics role (preferred).
• You will have a strong understanding of retail KPIs (sales, margin, stock turns, markdown) and how sales, stock and OTB interact.
• You will feel comfortable working with ambiguity and adapting plans in response to changing performance and inputs.
• You will build strong stakeholder management and relationship-building skills with Buying and cross-functional partners.
• You will be proactive, organised, and detail focused, with the ability to manage competing priorities to deadlines.
• A must have for this role is, Solid skills in Excel and planning tools; comfortable working with large datasets and building basic models and reports.
• This role will be managing up to 100 retail stores.
• Retail planning is an absolute must
• This is a full-time office based role. No hybrid.
• Due to the high number of candidates , only candidates with Retail merchandise planning experience will be considered.

Preferred Skills

• retail merchandise planning experience as a junior planner or more senior
• global planning experience would be highly regarded
• understanding the role is a head office based role - 5 days a week