Merchandise Demand Planner
About the role
The Demand Planner is responsible for developing and maintaining accurate demand forecasts to support sales, inventory, and customer service objectives. This individual contributor partners cross-functionally translate data, trends, and business inputs into actionable demand plans that drive business performance. The role operates in a professional office or remote environment with frequent virtual meetings and cross-functional collaboration.
What You’ll Bring To Bob’s At Bob’s Discount Furniture, we value the unique skills and experiences that each candidate brings. Success in this role is driven by a combination of technical expertise, problem-solving abilities, behavioral and leadership skills, and customer focus. If you thrive in a dynamic environment and enjoy leveraging your skills to make an impact, this is the perfect opportunity for you!
Responsibilities
- Demand Forecasting: Develop and maintain top-down and bottom-up demand forecasts across weekly, monthly, and seasonal horizons.
- Data Analysis & Insights: Analyze historical sales, trends, demand drivers, and category, SKU, and regional performance to identify risks and opportunities.
- Reforecasting & Forecast Accuracy: Perform in-season reforecasting, monitor forecast accuracy, and conduct root-cause analysis on forecast variances.
- Inventory & Financial Alignment: Support alignment of demand forecasts with sales, margin, inventory, open-to-buy, and financial targets; identify over/under-bought risks and recommend corrective actions.
- Cross-Functional Planning: Partner with Merchandising, Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, Inventory, and Finance to gather inputs and communicate forecast updates, risks, and opportunities.
- Product & Assortment Planning: Incorporate product launches and lifecycle changes into forecasts; support assortment planning, product performance analysis, and test strategies.
- Planning Systems & Reporting: Utilize demand planning systems, ERP platforms, Microsoft Excel, and BI tools to generate reporting and actionable insights.
- Process Improvement: Maintain data integrity and support continuous improvement of demand planning and S&OP/demand review processes.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in a retail, omnichannel, or consumer goods environment
- Familiarity with S&OP / Integrated Business Planning processes
- Experience with Power BI, ERP systems, or demand planning tools
- Strong business acumen and understanding of cross-functional impacts on demand and inventory