Buyer - American Eagle

Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands Limited; Karnataka; On-site; INR 500,000 - 600,000; Full time

Job summary

American Eagle is seeking a Merchandiser to craft a balanced assortment for its retail network in India. The role emphasizes buying plans aligned with sales targets, depth analysis, and stock-to-sale strategies to maximize full-price sell-through across stores.

You will work on monthly category targets, inventory management, and market intelligence, coordinating with VM teams to ensure brand standards and visual merchandising align with space planning requirements.

Qualifications

• Experience in merchandising assortment planning for multiple stores.
• Ability to set targets, analyse product performance and stock to sale planning.
• Proficiency in Excel for sell-through reporting.

Responsibilities

• Merchandise assortment plan for all stores.
• Monthly target setting for each category.
• Inventory management and sell-through reporting with weekly/monthly reviews.
• Stock and sale plan: dispatch, allocation and monitoring.
• Market intelligence including competition mapping and trend estimation.
• Collaborate with Retail Design to align merchandise with space planning.
• Coordinate with space planning, retail planner and VM on merchandise and VM norms.

Job description

Job Purpose

To create a balanced merchandise assortment for retail stores based on consumer preference and brand image. The ideal merchandise mix for retail stores based on design selection, price grid, styling grid, and option plan should aim at maximizing full price sell-through at stores.

Job Context & Major Challenges

American Eagle is one of the worlds largest denim brands among youth and an upcoming brand in India. The aim is to position AE in India as the most exciting denim led lifestyle brand and appropriate the space of a cool dynamic brand for Young Indians. AE is established as a brand with true international credentials.

Major Challenges

• Creating the appropriate merchandise grid for each store
• Buying as per the Brand, Market and trends
• Allocators challenge - achieving a higher full-price sell- thru, controlling inventory (optimum working),
• Competition mapping
• Maintaining Brand GP%
• Regional / Store visits - Quarterly

Key Result Areas

KRA (Accountabilities) (Max 1325 Characters)

Supporting Actions (Max 1325 Characters)

KRA1 Merchandise assortment plan for all stores 1. Create appropriate buying plan for assigned category as per Sales targets

• Set ARP targets for product categories
• Create Option plan and conduct depth analysis
• Formulate Stock to Sale plan for a season - EOM / BOM
• Creating/Buying Flash Line as per the current trends for A+ Stores (Long term)

KRA2 Monthly Target setting for each category 1. Breaking up of Monthly targets into product category

• Target Vs achievement
• Merchandise plan report
• Product performance L2L

KRA3 Inventory Management 1. Ensure Ideal stock cover for each product category is maintained.

• Dormancy within specified norms
• Pullback within specified norms
• Sell thru reports on Excel for Week1, week2 sales
• Sell Through Report with visual Imagery

KRA4 Stock & sale plan 1. Product category wise dispatch plan

• Planned Vs actual
• Allocation plan for each store as per dispatch plan and size wise analysis
• Tracking allocation vs actual dispatches

KRA5 Market Intelligence 1. New launches (competition product / window / schemes)

• Competition Mapping
• Training (Merchandise, Product & VM related)
• Estimation of market, product & design trends

KRA6 Retail Design Brief Designing a retail brief to Intl Team - Current Trends & learning of past seasons

KRA7 Integration with space planning Working in close co-ordination with retail planner & VM to align on merchandise & VM norms.