Merchandise Planner in Seattle Area, Washington at BuyWander

Merchandise Planner (Full-Time)

Department: Merchandising

Reports To: VP of Merchandising

Location: Seattle Area, Washington

Job Summary

At BuyWander, the Merchandise Planner is the financial engine behind every buying decision we make. This role owns how much we buy, for which market, and at what expected return, and holds that standard even when senior leaders want to push past it. This is not traditional replenishment planning. Every truckload is a one-time decision with a one-time recovery outcome, and once it is bought, we live with it.

The Merchandise Planner serves as the primary source of financial discipline in our buying process, setting the inventory envelope each market can absorb, forecasting what each load should return, and grading every source on what it actually delivered. This person works closely with the VP of Merchandising, Pricing, Transportation, and Finance to ensure every purchase is grounded in data and every market operates within a published plan.

BuyWander's Values

• Happy: We bring positive energy to our work and support each other.
• Humble: We stay grounded, open to learning, and focused on the team over ego.
• High Performing: We set a high bar and hold ourselves accountable to results.
• (H)loyal: We show up for each other and the company, with loyalty that goes beyond the ordinary.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Open-to-Buy & Inventory Planning

• Set and maintain a monthly open-to-buy budget for each market, derived from its actual clearance rate, processing capacity, and contribution margin goal.
• Gate proposed purchases against that budget and surface early when a market is trending over-inventoried or under-supplied.
• Build the weekly buying plan covering target volume, product mix, and size distribution by market that the buying team executes against.

Load Evaluation & Allocation

• Evaluate inbound truckload manifests before purchase: product mix, total MSRP, size and category distribution, expected recovery rate, and estimated handling cost per item.
• Assign every load to the market best positioned to clear it, balancing capacity, local demand, and current inventory position.
• Set an expected revenue and margin forecast for each load at the point of purchase so performance can be measured against it while the load is still selling through.

Performance Measurement & Source Scorecards

• Own the monthly source scorecard covering landed margin per truck, recovery rate, return rate, and handling cost by inventory source, with clear keep, renegotiate, or exit recommendations.
• Track actual versus forecast recovery on every load and investigate material variances, partnering with Operations where the gap points to processing or inventory control issues.
• Reduce the share of items that sell below their handling break-even through better mix targeting and source selection.

Cross-functional Partnership

• Work daily with the VP of Merchandising and the Buyer, providing the data-driven requirements and constraints that shape what gets purchased.
• Partner with the Pricing Analyst on manifest data quality and load-level performance reporting.
• Coordinate with Transportation on how inbound flow aligns with each market's receiving and processing capacity.
• Work with Finance on margin attribution and market-level P&L targets.

You Will

• Own the open-to-buy for each of our seven markets and hold the line when a market cannot absorb more inventory.
• Evaluate inbound truckload manifests and produce a buy recommendation backed by recovery rate, margin, and capacity data.
• Publish a monthly source scorecard with evidence-based keep, renegotiate, and exit recommendations.
• Set a recovery forecast for every load at the point of purchase and track actual performance against it.
• Investigate material variances between forecast and actual recovery and surface findings to Operations and leadership.
• Build and maintain reporting in Metabase that gives the buying team and leadership visibility into inventory health by market.

What You'll Bring

Required

• 3 or more years in merchandise planning, inventory planning, revenue or margin analytics, or a comparable analytical role with real financial accountability.
• Strong SQL skills and advanced spreadsheet modeling.
• Experience building and maintaining reporting in a BI tool (we use Metabase).
• Comfort working in an internally built operating system rather than off-the-shelf software. Our inventory and manifest data lives in Chuck, our own platform.
• The judgment to translate messy, incomplete manifest data into a defensible buy recommendation.
• The confidence and communication skills to hold a position with senior stakeholders when the numbers do not support a purchase.
• Fluency with AI tooling such as Claude, Cursor, or Copilot to build analyses and reporting faster, paired with the discipline to verify what it produces.

Preferred

• Experience in liquidation, off-price, resale, or auction marketplace environments.
• Prior ownership of an open-to-buy or comparable inventory budget process.
• Multi-location retail planning or allocation experience.

What Defines a BuyWander Merchandise Planner

Our Merchandise Planner is a builder of financial discipline. They thrive in ambiguity, move fast with imperfect data, and are not rattled by pressure to buy when the numbers say otherwise. They also bring:

• A bias toward clarity. You make the data readable and the recommendation obvious.
• Comfort in a fast-moving environment where no two loads are the same and the answer is never in a textbook.
• The backbone to tell a senior leader no when the market cannot absorb the purchase.
• An orientation toward continuous improvement. You are always asking whether the forecast got better and why it did or did not.
• Excitement about building something new. BuyWander's planning infrastructure is still being built, and this person helps define what it looks like.

Physical Requirements

• This is primarily a desk-based analytical role. It includes periodic time on the store floor to observe processing and inventory flow, and occasional travel to our markets.
• Position requires seeing, hearing, use of hands and fingers, sitting, standing, walking, reaching, twisting, turning, kneeling, bending, squatting and stooping in the performance of daily activities.
• Must be able to communicate with others including talking, hearing, and listening and exchanging communication.
• Ability to work at a fast pace in a goal-driven environment.
• Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Schedule & Compensation

• Schedule: Full-time, Monday through Friday
• Salary: $70,000 to $100,000 DOE
• Paid Vacation, Sick & Holidays
• Health, Dental & Vision
• 401(k)

BuyWander is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We make employment decisions based on qualifications, skills, merit, and business needs. We believe a range of skills, perspectives, and experiences strengthens our team and supports better outcomes for our employees and customers.