Retail Planning and Allocation Manager (7751)

Ariat; California (MO); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Ariat is seeking a Retail Planning and Allocation Manager to oversee retail inventory strategies and lead the planning team. This role involves ensuring optimal product delivery to stores, analyzing KPIs for strategic growth, and developing scalable processes for new store openings. Candidates should possess significant experience in retail management and strong analytical and communication skills.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision insurance options

Paid time off and holidays

401(k) with company match

Team member discount on merchandise

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in planning, allocation, or inventory management.
• 3+ years in a leadership role overseeing retail-focused planning or allocation teams.
• Proven experience with store clustering and retail forecasting.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Stores Planning and Allocation team and ensure efficient inventory product mix.
• Analyze retail KPIs to drive strategic actions.
• Partner with supply chain to manage inventory flow into stores.

Skills

Leadership

Data Analysis

Inventory Management

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Merchandising, Business, Finance

MBA (preferred)

Tools

JDA

Oracle RPAS

Blue Yonder

Tableau

Power BI

Job description

Career Opportunities: Retail Planning and Allocation Manager (7751)

Requisition ID7751-Posted -Supply Chain/Logistics/Distribution-Full Time-United States-Hybrid-California-San Leandro, CA

The Retail Planning and Allocation Manager is accountable for the end-to-end planning, forecasting, and inventory execution strategy for all brick & mortar retail locations. This candidate ensures that each store receives the right product mix, quantities, and replenishment timing to maximize sell-through, margin, and inventory productivity. The manager leads a team responsible for retail demand planning, location-level inventory planning, and allocation execution—bridging strategic merchandise plans with localized, store-level execution.

You’ll Make a Difference By:

• Leading the Stores Planning and Allocation team, including planners and allocators.
• Building a high-performance, data-driven team that is a talent magnet for the company which delivers retail sales growth and inventory efficiency.
• Developing and implement scalable processes to support new store openings, remodels, and assortment shifts.
• Owning the top-down and bottom-up store-level sales, inventory, and receipt plans.
• Creating and managing seasonal and long-range plans by store cluster, region, and format.
• Analyzing retail KPIs including revenue, sell-through, turns, and margin by location to drive strategic actions.
• Defining and executing initial allocation strategies based on store capacity, size profiles, and cluster behavior.
• Owning replenishment logic and policies (e.g., min/max, threshold-based replenishment, size curves).
• Partnering with supply and inventory planning to manage constrained product flow into stores.
• Partnering with Merchandising, Demand Planning, and Supply Chain to ensure alignment of demand forecasts, buys, and inventory deployment.
• Representing the retail channel in S&OP discussions and seasonal hindsight reviews.
• Aligning closely with Store Operations and Field Leadership to ensure localized assortments meet customer needs.
• Leading the evolution of allocation and planning systems and tools.
• Defining planning calendar, data governance, and KPI tracking processes specific to retail store health.
• Driving automation, exception-based allocation, and proactive inventory flow strategies.
• Other duties as assigned

About You

• Bachelor’s degree in Merchandising, Business, Finance, or related field; MBA preferred.
• 8+ years of experience in planning, allocation, or inventory management, with a strong focus on physical retail.
• 3+ years in a leadership role overseeing retail-focused planning or allocation teams.
• Proven experience with store clustering, size profiling, and retail forecasting.
• Expertise with planning and allocation systems (JDA, Oracle RPAS, Blue Yonder, etc.) and BI tools (Tableau, Power BI, etc.).
• Exceptional communication and cross-functional leadership skills.
• Inventory turnover and sell-through by store/cluster
• Stock-to-sales ratio and on-hand coverage
• Allocation accuracy and speed to floor
• Markdown % / % to Closeout, aged inventory reduction
• Replenishment efficiency and stockout reduction

About Ariat

Ariat is an innovative, outdoor global brand with roots in equestrian performance. We develop high-quality footwear and apparel for people who ride, work, and play outdoors, and care about performance, quality, comfort, and style.

The salary range for this position is $110,000 - $130,000 per year.

The salary is determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data for geographic locations. Ariat in good faith believes that this posted compensation range is accurate for this role at this location at the time of this posting. This range may be modified in the future.

Ariat’s holistic benefits package for full-time team members includes (but is not limited to):

• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance options
• Expanded wellness and mental health benefits
• Paid time off (PTO), paid holidays, and paid volunteer days
• 401(k) with company match
• Team member discount on Ariat merchandise

Note: Availability of benefits may be subject to location & employment type and may have certain eligibility requirements. Ariat reserves the right to alter these benefits in whole or in part at any time without advance notice.

Ariat will consider qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with state and local laws. Ariat is an Equal Opportunity Employer and considers applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, orientation, national origin, age, disability, genetics or any other basis protected under federal, state, or local law. Ariat is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to candidates with disabilities. If you need an accommodation during the application process, email [e-mail].

Please see our Employment Candidate Privacy Policy at www.ariat.com/careers to learn more about how we collect, use, retain and disclose Personal Information .

Please note that Ariat does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or employment agencies. In the absence of a signed Agreement, Ariat will not consider or agree to payment of any referral compensation or recruiter/agency placement fee. In the event a recruiter or agency submits a resume or candidate without a previously signed Agreement, Ariat explicitly reserves the right to pursue and hire those candidate(s) without any financial obligation to the recruiter or agency. Any unsolicited resumes, including those submitted directly to hiring managers, are deemed to be the property of Ariat.