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McKinley Marketing Partners · 4 hours ago

Merchandise Planner

Dallas, TX

Full-time

Onsite

Mid Level

3+ years exp

McKinley Marketing Partners is seeking a Merchandise Planner to join their retail client on a temporary basis, with potential for contract-to-hire. This role involves supporting seasonal planning, inventory management, and forecasting for an e-commerce business while collaborating with various cross-functional teams.

ConsultingDigital MarketingGraphic Design

Comp. & Benefits

Responsibilities

Own and maintain ladder plans for ecommerce, ensuring alignment with marketing, drops, and financial targets

Take over and manage the Ecommerce Open-to-Buy (OTB) — build, update, and communicate OTB to support growth and manage risk

Help with seasonal ecommerce buys and forecasting; gradually take on more of the forecasting responsibility for future drops

Lead sizing strategy for seasonal buys, including detailed size curve and size performance analysis to right-size buys and reduce stock imbalances

Support the company's entry into wholesale with planning insights on assortment, depth, and sizing

Work heavily in Excel to build, maintain, and enhance planning tools, reports, and models (including complex formulas and multi-tab workbooks)

Use Netsuite (ERP) to manage and maintain critical item master data and ensure accurate product information flows through the business

Oversee and validate inventory uploads from Shopify, ensuring data integrity across systems

Support and refine reporting coming out of WFX (PLM)

Develop new reporting around color performance, category performance, and key merchandising KPIs to bring a more nuanced, data-informed view to buying decisions

Introduce more structured markdown planning and recommendations; help identify when and where to take action on slow movers, excess inventory, and aging styles

Proactively flag inventory risks and opportunities to marketing and ecommerce (e.g., excess, low stock, broken style/size/color ranges)

Help build a more mature merchandising analytics function — including analysis by color, size, channel, and launch type

Work with our 3rd-party warehouse data to ensure stock, receipts, and availability line up with ecommerce and wholesale plans

Collaborate closely with Marketing/Ecommerce/Customer Service to provide clear, actionable data on inventory, new launches, and promotional opportunities

Partner with Production & Design on future seasons, ensuring buys are informed by hindsight and in-season performance

Work with finance on topline planning, OTB discipline, and margin-aware decision-making

Interact directly with our founders/owners, who are very hands-on, to present insights and discuss key inventory and assortment decisions

Take full ownership of ladder plans with minimal oversight; ensure they are accurate, timely, and actionable

Assume responsibility for the ecommerce OTB and be able to walk stakeholders through it confidently

Support ecommerce buys & forecasting for upcoming drops

Stand up or improve basic color and size analysis to inform future buys and reduce misses

Qualification

Merchandise planningAdvanced ExcelEcommerce forecastingNetsuite (ERP)ShopifyCollaborationFlexibilityCommunication

Required

3–5 years of merchandise planning experience in apparel, fashion, or a closely related retail category

Advanced Excel skills are required. You should be fluent with: complex formulas (e.g., nested IFs, INDEX/MATCH/XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, etc.), large data sets and multi-sheet workbooks, and building and troubleshooting planning templates and reports

Preferred

Some traditional retail experience (e.g., department store, specialty retail, or branded retailer) to ground you in core planning disciplines

Experience working in a small or fast-growing company where you've had to be flexible, wear multiple hats, and work without a large, structured planning department

Comfort owning a mix of “classic” planning tasks and non-traditional responsibilities that happen in a lean environment

Comfortable working in at least one ERP (Netsuite is a plus) and one PLM system

Experience with Shopify or similar ecommerce platforms is a plus