Sr. Inventory Planning Strategist

$90,000 - $103,000/Yr

Balsam Brands - Redwood City, CA

Full-time - Mid Level

Remote - Redwood City, CA

Furniture, Home Furnishings, Electronics, and Appliance Retailers

About the position

The Sr. Inventory Planning Strategist is responsible for managing inventory strategically to enhance customer experience in the greenery and decor categories. This role involves collaboration with various teams to optimize sales, inventory efficiency, and vendor relationships, contributing to the company's growth and profitability.

Responsibilities

• Create pre-season, item-level sales plans that align with company financial goals and open-to-buy constraints.
• Design inventory strategies that balance new and core merchandise while supporting in-stock and inventory level targets.
• Determine item level order quantities and flow strategies, partnering with Procurement for timely execution of purchase orders.
• Leverage historical data to identify key learnings around product, pricing, and inventory for future seasons.
• Present strategies, investments, risk analysis, and recommendations to cross-functional partners and senior leaders.
• Perform in-season, item level forecasting and ad-hoc analysis to identify inventory-related risks and opportunities.
• Develop strong cross-functional partnerships with Merchandising, Sourcing, E-commerce, Operations, and external vendors.
• Provide critical thought partnership to functional leads within the teams you support.
• Regularly meet with managers and leaders to understand team landscape, diagnose issues, and brainstorm potential solutions.
• Navigate interpersonal and team dynamics, managing conflict and difficult conversations.

Requirements

• 5+ years of work experience, with at least 3+ years in an inventory planning or forecasting role.
• Bachelor's degree in Math, Finance, Accounting, Business, or Statistics preferred.
• A passion for drawing insights from data.
• Excellent business acumen.
• Comfort with ambiguity.
• Strong Excel skills.
• Exceptional communication skills, including the ability to partner with and influence internal partners and external vendors.
• Strong attention to detail when identifying data relationships, trends, and anomalies.
• Proficiency in retail math and experience managing a traditional open-to-buy.
• Creative problem solver.
• Ability to take initiative and deliver tangible results within deadlines.
• Ability to take direction from several individuals and be self-directed.
• Experience in retail or e-commerce strongly preferred.
• Experience with direct vendor negotiation preferred.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience in retail or e-commerce strongly preferred.
• Experience with direct vendor negotiation preferred.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation, including a cash-based incentive plan; salary is reviewed yearly.
• Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage, with 100% of monthly premiums covered for team members.
• Up to $2,000 annual funding toward HSA accounts.
• Medical, transit, dependent care FSA.
• Infertility coverage offered on all medical plans.
• Generous parental leave program and flexible return options.
• Company-paid life and AD&D insurance.
• Company-paid short and long-term disability insurance.
• 401(k) with dollar-for-dollar company match up to $4,000 per calendar year.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and other mental health and wellness perks.
• Paid holidays, annual shutdown week, PTO, and volunteer time-off (VTO) packages.
• Paid 5-week sabbatical leave after 10 years of employment.
• Annual continuous learning benefit up to $1,000 per person, per fiscal year.
• Up to $300 flexible reimbursement to support setup of new team member's work-from-home environment.
• Generous team member merchandise discount.
• Identity theft protection, subsidized parking, monthly wellness, pet insurance, accident & critical illness insurance.