Merchandise Planning Assistant / Specialist

📣📊 We're Hiring: Merchandise Planning Assistant / Specialist 📍 Location: United Arab Emirates (UAE) 🕒 Employment Type: Full-Time 💼 Level: Assistant / Specialist🌐 About Us We are a commercially driven retail organization focused on maximizing sales, profitability, inventory productivity, product availability, and customer satisfaction across our stores and digital channels in the United Arab Emirates. Our Merchandise Planning team works closely with Buying, Merchandising, Category Management, Finance, Supply Chain, Retail Operations, and E-commerce to ensure the right products are available in the right quantities, locations, and time periods.🎯 The Role We are seeking an analytical and commercially minded Merchandise Planning Assistant / Specialist to support merchandise planning, forecasting, inventory management, Open-to-Buy, assortment planning, sales analysis, and in-season trading activities. The successful candidate will help translate commercial strategies into sales, inventory, assortment, and financial plans, while monitoring performance and recommending corrective actions throughout the season.🚀 What You'll Do - Support the development of annual, seasonal, monthly, and weekly merchandise plans - Assist in preparing sales, inventory, margin, and stock forecasts - Maintain accurate merchandise-planning databases, templates, trackers, and reports - Analyze historical sales and inventory performance to support planning decisions - Review performance by: - Category - Department - Brand - SKU - Store - Channel - Region - Season - Customer segment - Monitor actual performance against plan and forecast - Identify sales, margin, inventory, and availability variances - Prepare variance analysis and recommend corrective actions - Support the development and monitoring of Open-to-Buy (OTB) plans - Track planned purchases against sales, inventory, and financial targets - Monitor OTB utilization and highlight risks or opportunities - Assist with seasonal purchase planning - Analyze historical sales trends, seasonality, growth rates, and product productivity - Support merchandise-budget preparation - Maintain category and departmental sales budgets - Assist with financial planning for new seasons and collections - Prepare planned-versus-actual financial reports - Monitor gross-margin performance and markdown exposure - Support inventory-budget planning - Develop and maintain inventory forecasts - Monitor stock levels, stock cover, inventory turnover, and weeks of supply - Identify excess, aged, slow-moving, and obsolete inventory - Recommend inventory actions in collaboration with Buying and Merchandising - Monitor stock availability and identify potential stock-out risks - Analyze lost-sales opportunities resulting from insufficient inventory - Support replenishment planning and inventory allocation - Coordinate with Supply Chain and Allocation teams to ensure appropriate product availability - Support store-level allocation decisions based on sales and inventory performance - Analyze product demand across stores and channels - Recommend inventory redistribution where appropriate - Support store clustering and location-specific merchandise planning - Analyze differences in customer demand by store, region, format, and market - Assist with localized merchandise strategies for UAE stores - Support assortment planning and range reviews - Analyze SKU productivity and assortment performance - Identify products that should be expanded, maintained, reduced, or discontinued - Support new-product launch planning - Track initial sales performance of new products - Compare new-product performance against forecasts and benchmarks - Recommend adjustments based on actual performance - Support in-season trading activities - Monitor daily, weekly, and monthly sales performance - Track sell-through and stock productivity - Identify opportunities and risks early in the trading cycle - Prepare weekly trade reports and performance summaries - Provide insights to Merchandising and Buying teams - Support seasonal trading meetings and business reviews - Prepare presentations, dashboards, and analysis for management - Assist with markdown planning and optimization - Identify products requiring markdown support - Analyze markdown performance and margin impact - Monitor clearance inventory and sell-through - Support end-of-season inventory plans - Assist with promotional planning and sales-event forecasting - Estimate expected sales and inventory impacts of promotions - Monitor promotional performance against plan - Analyze sales uplift and margin impact - Support peak-season and holiday planning - Prepare merchandise plans for major UAE retail periods and events - Consider local seasonality, tourism, holidays, shopping festivals, and customer behavior - Support planning for new-store openings - Develop preliminary sales and inventory plans for new locations - Prepare initial assortment and stock requirements - Support merchandise planning for store relocations and expansions - Support e-commerce and omnichannel merchandise planning - Analyze online sales, inventory, sell-through, and product availability - Develop channel-specific forecasts where applicable - Coordinate store and online inventory requirements - Monitor channel inventory imbalances - Support marketplace merchandise planning where applicable - Work closely with Buying and Merchandising teams to align purchases with financial plans - Review proposed purchases against OTB and inventory targets - Highlight potential overbuying or underbuying risks - Provide quantitative analysis to support buying decisions - Assist Buyers and Merchandisers with product-performance insights - Coordinate with Finance to validate sales, margin, and inventory figures - Support monthly forecasting and financial review processes - Prepare management reports and financial analyses - Maintain planning calendars and critical deadlines - Ensure planning activities are completed accurately and on time - Maintain accurate product and merchandise master data - Validate SKU, category, brand, season, store, and channel attributes📈 Merchandise Planning Scope The role may support: - Sales planning - Inventory planning - OTB management - Demand forecasting - Assortment planning - Allocation - Replenishment - Markdown planning - Seasonal planning - New-store planning - New-product launches - Promotional forecasting - E-commerce planning - Omnichannel inventory planning - Category and departmental financial planning📊 Key Performance Areas Performance may be measured against: - Sales-plan achievement - Forecast accuracy - Gross-margin performance - Inventory turnover - Stock cover - Sell-through - Stock availability - Stock-out rate - Excess inventory - Markdown rate - OTB utilization - Inventory investment - SKU productivity - New-product performance - Allocation effectiveness - End-of-season inventory - Reporting accuracy and timeliness💻 Systems & Analytical Tools The successful candidate should be highly comfortable using: - Microsoft Excel - ERP systems - Merchandise-planning systems - Inventory-management platforms - POS systems - Business-intelligence tools - E-commerce analytics platforms Advanced Excel skills, including PivotTables, XLOOKUP/VLOOKUP, SUMIFS, INDEX/MATCH, conditional formulas, charts, forecasting models, and dashboards, are highly desirable. Experience with SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power BI, Tableau, or specialist merchandise-planning systems is an advantage.🇦🇪 UAE Retail Environment The successful candidate should understand the UAE retail environment and account for factors such as seasonality, tourism, shopping-mall traffic, Ramadan and Eid trading patterns, promotional periods, regional customer preferences, and major retail events when developing merchandise plans. Experience planning for fashion, beauty, electronics, grocery, luxury, sports, home, lifestyle, specialty retail, or department stores is an advantage.✅ What We're Looking For - Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Retail Management, Merchandising, Finance, Economics, Supply Chain, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related discipline - 2–5+ years of experience in merchandise planning, retail planning, demand planning, inventory planning, buying, merchandising, or commercial analytics - Strong numerical, analytical, and commercial skills - Good understanding of retail sales, inventory, margin, forecasting, and planning concepts - Strong Excel and data-analysis capabilities - Ability to interpret large datasets and convert findings into actionable recommendations - Excellent attention to detail and data accuracy - Strong organizational and time-management skills - Ability to manage multiple categories and deadlines - Strong communication and presentation skills - Ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams - Experience in the UAE retail market is highly desirable🌟 Preferred Qualifications - Bachelor's or master's degree in Retail Management, Business, Finance, Economics, Merchandising, Supply Chain, Statistics, or a related field - Previous experience with Open-to-Buy (OTB) planning - Experience with sales and inventory forecasting - Knowledge of allocation and replenishment principles - Experience with markdown optimization - Knowledge of SKU productivity and assortment rationalization - Experience with new-store planning - Experience in omnichannel and e-commerce merchandise planning - Strong Power BI, Tableau, or advanced Excel skills - Experience with dedicated merchandise-planning software - Knowledge of retail financial planning and margin management - Previous experience working across the UAE and GCC is an advantage - Fluency in English is required; Arabic is an advantage🌟 What We Offer - Full-time position based in the United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪 - Competitive salary and performance-based incentives - Exposure to merchandise planning, buying, merchandising, finance, supply chain, and retail operations - Opportunity to work with diverse product categories and large-scale retail portfolios - Professional development in retail analytics, forecasting, and commercial planning - Career progression toward Merchandise Planner, Senior Planner, Planning Manager, Buyer, Category Planner, or Commercial Planning Manager - Dynamic and commercially focused working environment - Comprehensive benefits package

• Assistant Planning Manager (Merchandising) | Retail |UAE

  Al-Futtaim · Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates