Associate Merchandise Planner

Serving the needs of all families with young children, Carter’s Inc. is the largest North American apparel retailer exclusively for babies and young children, encompassing Carter’s, OshKosh B’gosh, Skip*Hop and Little Planet brands. Meaningful work, constant learning, genuine people, and a community guided by core values that promote inclusion and innovation is in everything we do. There are many reasons to build your career at Carter's.

How You’ll Make an Impact:

The Carter’s Retail Planning team is responsible for developing short and mid-range merchandise strategies, buy quantification and financial plans, working cross-functionally with our Merchandising, Marketing, Pricing, Allocations and Location Planning teams to achieve key financial objectives for CRI. 

The Associate Planner is a critical member of the team focusing on the day-to-day operations of the Planning office and contributes directly to supporting company-wide initiatives that will ensure Carter’s remains a leading children’s brand.

This role supports the Planning team with relevant data to drive the business, provides critical administrative functions, and collaborates with cross-functional partners to ensure the key strategies and pricing are executed. We are looking for a candidate who possesses strong organizational skills, is energized by multi-tasking in a fast-paced environment, is curious about business trends and analytics, and has a passion for product, planning, customer experience, and delivering results.

35% In-season business management and financial plans:

• Analyze current business to maximize sales and gross margin, address inventory challenges and review promotions to drive immediate and/or future decisions within area of responsibility
• Optimize inventory by channel, achieving turn and in-stock goals
• Review competitive pricing on key programs, recommending adjustments based on current marketplace
• Capture required changes to future promotional cadence based on topside retail event calendar and strategies for the season. 
• Complete periodic store visits to continually listen, learn, build relationships to better understand what our customer is looking for.

35% Pre-Season Strategy

• Create financial plans to achieve growth targets to inform the line structure, in partnership with Merchandising team
• Quantify style level needs to support the financial targets for area of responsibility
• Manage inventory by building weekly receipt plans (Open to buy forecasting)
• Construct and manage ladder plans in collaboration with Assistant Planner and Allocation partners, ensuring appropriate inventory, turn, WOS
• Develop pre-season and in-season pricing execution.  Includes partnering with Planner and Merchandising to develop and execute future pricing strategies, weekly campaign changes for stores and eComm, and adjusting as needed based on business trends
• Hindsight current business and make recommendations on category changes for future buy

30% Pricing and Inventory Execution: 

• Recommend and execute price changes for clearance markdowns in order to maximize gross margin productivity aligning to topside financial goals.
• Lead partnership with allocations, ensuring appropriate receipt flows to stores
• Demonstrate excellent organizational skills and accuracy regarding product setup and pricing to maintain our customers perception of value and integrity.

We’d Love to Hear from You if:

Must Have:

• Bachelor’s degree required
• 3+ years  in a corporate retail environment required (purchase order management, price change management, seasonal preparation, report analysis, manage a product category, special project leader, site merchandising)
• Strong understanding of a retail product assortment, breadth and depth, promotional pricing, entrance and exit strategies, and ladder planning
• Analytical Skills, Strong Retail Financial Acumen/Math
• Self-Starter, Strong Communication Skills, Flexible, Collaborative

Preferred Skills and Experience:

• Knowledge of Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)
• Highly Organized, Ability to Multi-Task, Detail-Oriented, Deadline-Oriented
• Ability to manage large amounts of data and multiple projects

Our Team Members:

• Lead Courageously: Have a strong sense of personal values that align with our Company values
• Collaborates Broadly: Build cooperation, trust, and thrive in a consensus driven environment
• Customer Focus: Proactively seek opportunities to leverage data and fact-based insights to serve customers and/or internal clients
• Drive Growth: Set aggressive goals and implement plans precisely
• Cultivates Innovation:  Respectfully challenge the "we’ve always done it this way" mentality and explore new ways to achieve desired outcomes

Make a Career at Carter’s:

• Career Development: Success starts from within, and we have several paths from which you can choose to enhance your career evolution. From Carter’s University to Toastmasters to mentorship programs and more, we encourage you to utilize these tools to elevate your professional prowess.

NOTE:  This job description is not intended to be all-inclusive. The duties described may be changed or reassigned at the discretion of management, and the employee may be required to perform duties that are not listed in the job description.

Carters is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local law.