Merchandise Planner jobs in Lynchburg, VA

Rhoback is looking for a proactive and analytically hungry Merchandise Planner to join the team with a primary focus of managing Rhoback’s sales and inventory forecasting at the colorway level to inform POs and strategic planning.

The Merchandise Planner should have excellent quantitative and analytical skills and be an expert in Microsoft Excel. The best candidate has strong experience in planning, sales forecasting and/or inventory management, ideally in retail or consumer goods, as well as experience with reporting tools. Candidate should have exceptional organization skills and attention to detail to effectively own Rhoback’s sales forecast at the colorway and SKU level. This candidate should also be comfortable pulling raw data, organizing it into a digestible format, and communicating it to inform tactical and strategic decisions. Finally, the candidate should be comfortable creating and managing KPIs around sell-through rates, velocity, and other sales KPIs.

This role will be based in Charlottesville, VA and will start as soon as possible. This individual will be working with the Merchandising team, Finance team, Production team, and Rhoback’s founders.

Responsibilities include, but not limited to:

• Update, maintain, and continually improve Rhoback’s monthly sales volume forecasts by colorway across all product categories using Rhoback’s Open-to-Buy file. This will include ranking products based on sales history and integrating seasonal marketing campaigns into monthly forecasts.


• Roll up Rhoback’s monthly volume and sales forecasts by product category at the colorway level to arrive at a bottom’s up sales forecast. Leverage historic data and growth rates on carryover products. Partner with Merchandising team for trend analysis on forecasts for new colorways and products.


• Challenge and align on tops down sales forecasts by product type from Finance team based on bottom’s up forecast.


• Partner with Finance team to receive monthly inventory balances and forecasted inventory receipts by colorway. Combine inventory balances with sales forecasts to monitor inventory stock levels on a consistent basis.


• Determine inventory stock-out dates, flag potential emergency purchase order needs, and inform seasonal PO quantities at the colorway and size level for all product categories.


• Generate POs during each seasonal PO cycle using Open-to-Buy file to inform Production team.


• Analyze sales performance by size to inform sizing ratios for each product category for each seasonal PO cycle.


• Closely track sales performance by product, by colorway to inform monthly sales estimates.


• Serve as point person to share sales reporting by colorway across the team. Set up automated reporting to appropriate team members.


• Attend strategic planning sessions with Finance and Marketing teams to provide sales insight on colorway/SKU level.


• Prepare and inform mark-down strategy for any out-of-season or slow-moving colorways, presenting recommendations to Merchandising team on a monthly basis.


• Pull return data to inform sales estimates and share with Product Development team to inform product development updates.

Ideal Requirements:

• College degree required.


• 2 years of merchandise planning or related experience.


• Analytical and quantitative with acute attention to detail.


• Expert at Microsoft Excel and building forecast models.


• Comfortable owning and improving existing forecast models and Excel files.


• Ability to work independently and switch rapidly between projects.


• Self-starter work ethic with a desire to make a positive impact.


• Strong internal and external communication skills.


• Ability to think strategically, advise and impact Rhoback’s direction with data-driven analysis.


• Propensity to go above and beyond and think outside the box.


• Openness to change and new ways of solving problems.


• No-task-too-small attitude.


• Trustworthy and full of integrity.

Company Mission: Rhoback is a community of passionate and motivated people looking to generate positivity, bring people together, and inspire activity by creating high quality products and engaging content for those who seek inspiration, motivation, and connection with a #craveactivity mentality.

Only serious and qualified candidates with a passion for growing a fun startup e-commerce brand will be considered. If you think you'd make a great addition to the Rhoback Team, please submit your resume and portfolio to laura@rhoback.com.