About:
Macy’s is proudly America’s Department Store. For more than 160 years, Macy’s has served generations at every stage of their lives. Customers come to us for fashion, value and celebration.

Macy’s Merchandising curates the best national and private brands to support our customer’s self-expression from off-price to luxury. Merchandising ensures Macy's is the premier fashion authority using a high acumen for products and trends as well as strong relationships with vendors in the marketplace. Our team maximizes sales and gross margin for each product category by identifying, procuring, and assorting the products that our customers demand.

Do you have an eye for products and trends? Join Macy’s Merchandising and create connections that surprise and delight our customers at every turn.

Job Overview:
The Associate, Assortment Planner is responsible for driving sales, margin, turn and growth across both channels for a defined area within the Assortment Planner’s total area of responsibility. This position will support the Assortment Planner in developing and executing a strategic vision, with a progressive, customer-centric approach all while delivering on sales and profit objectives. This role requires the ability to leverage technical expertise to identify opportunities, develop assortment plans, and implement allocation strategies. A fundamental requirement is to be able to build trust with their teams and key collaborators. Perform other duties as assigned.

Essential Functions:
The Associate, Assortment Planer will be known as a trusted, collaborative and results-oriented leader, business partner, and change agent who can lead through influence and who possesses professional maturity and industry credibility. The ideal candidate needs to be comfortable and effective at delivering financial results that maximize sales, inventory, and bottom-line profitability. Candidates must be comfortable with quickly evaluating and sun-setting legacy approaches that no longer align with the strategy. The ideal candidate will be known for both vision and an equally strong orientation for speed.

Assortment Vision and Strategy

• Determine specific category and product behaviors to build foundation for assortment strategies.
• Collaborate with Merchants to ensure channel plans support top line strategic and financial objectives.
• Identify white space opportunities, assortment optimization initiatives, and growth opportunities.
• Implement category distortions with appropriate recommendations for breadth and depth.
• Define historical core assortment and partner with Product and Buying teams to protect and forecast future core.

Assortment Planning

• Support Assortment Planner to drive in season business effectively through influence of assortment planning and allocation strategies.
• Work with Merchants and Vendors to develop assortment plans that support channel needs and leverage opportunities.
• Make all assortment planning decisions independently of Assortment Planner that satisfies the customer demand and achieves sales, turn and margin plan.
• Recommend and execute assortment edits.
• Develop SKU/Class Plans by channel
• Identify replenishment assortment.
• Execute fulfillment strategies to optimize inventory between both channels.
• Ensure team is adhering to calendar deadlines for class plans and style/sku plans to align assortment, placement and order entry, and assortment allocation.
• Responsible for maximizing sales and profit through proper planning and execution of merchandise placement.
• Understand and utilize retail math formulas to analyze sales and determine appropriate allocations.
• Regular, dependable attendance and punctuality.

Leadership Profile

• Assist in the development and coaching of Assortment Assistants and EDPs.
• Inspires, motivates, and influences the behavior of others to drive high performance.
• Engages team to examine current practices and encourages creative thinking about how things could be more effective and efficient.
• Asserts own ideas and persuades others in a clear, confident, and composed manner. Tailors message for the audience and is able to gain support and commitment from others.
• Comfortable with taking risks and celebrating risk taking regardless of outcome.
• Collaborative, consultative style with a strong ability to establish trust and build relationships across all levels and functions of the organization.
• Resilient, tenacious, high energy. Able to rapidly bounce back from adversity.
• Embraces change with realistic optimism and persists through challenges and setbacks caused by change.

Qualifications and Competencies:

• Bachelor's Degree from a 4-year college or university
• 1-2 years related experience
• Ideally, 2-plus years of experience in retail, catalogue or ecommerce buying or planning.
• Understands competitive marketplace and pursues white space opportunities that align with Macy's strategy.
• Competitive shop and determine action necessary to address competitive challenges. Identify any product opportunities and provide suggestions and input in product development to vendor.
• Openly accepts and seeks constructive direction for development from supervisor and leadership.
• Practices open and continuous communication, values keeping others informed, effectively presenting information in a clear, concise manner.
• Excellent leadership, facilitation, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work across functional lines and at many levels.
• Ability to think creatively, strategically and technically
• Ability to work a flexible schedule based on department and Company needs.
• Knowledge of MS Office computer programs are required