Assistant Merchandiser in London

THE OUTNET is the most fashionable fashion outlet. Since its launch in April 2009 by the people behind the award-winning website NET-A-PORTER, THE OUTNET has quickly established itself as the chic, go-to destination for the global, style-conscious shopper looking for the best designer brands at a great discount price. As such, we are seeking a talented Assistant Merchandiser to maximise and capture global sales through strategic analysis, effective stock management and executing strategic activities in a growing and dynamic business. Ultimately ensuring that we are first in making the latest trends and best designs available to our customers – wherever they are!

The Role:

• With guidance from the Merchandiser, key responsibilities would be:
• Trading:
• Develop understanding of key performance indicators, relating to sales, stock, profit and markdown, against budget and last year.
• Understand the importance of both intake and selling margin and support the merchandiser and buyer with making decisions to achieve targets.
• Update and analyse weekly reports and propose actions to Merchandiser to minimise risks and maximise opportunities.
• Work alongside merchandiser and buying team to plan and trade relevant brands.
• Identify and analyse best-selling and under-performing brands and recommend actions to take.
• Work with Product Merchandising and buying teams to improve seasonal performance and drive existing sales.
• Plan brand upload sizes and forecast sell through targets as well as analyse resulting sales performance.
• Review weekly sales analysis and present back findings in Monday trade meetings as well as follow through with further actions.
• Undertake adhoc and self-driven analysis as required by the department to support trade.
• Reviewing KPIs when undertaking PO sign offs to ensure business and brand goals are met.
• Intake:
• Managing the MA who will have ownership of intake delivery KPI’s into the business for a relevant department.
• Overseeing the MA directly working with internal Operational teams to ensure stock delivery targets and inbound SLAs are met.
• Planning and Forecasting:
• Take ownership of relevant Brand WSSIS, analyse and make strategic suggestions to Merchandiser.
• Use analysis to plan by brand for key trading periods to ensure optimum intake values are plotted by revenue type to ensure sales plans can be achieved.
• With Merchandisers support complete quarterly planning forecasts driven from historic analysis and strategic vision for brands.
• Support merchandiser with strategic planning for both Strategy and Hindsight.
• Produce category buy plans, identifying key trends and working with buying to ensure these are suitable for the ranges they will be buying from.
• Assist Merchandiser with setting up and management of department WSSIs.
• Assist Merchandiser with planning and execution of promotions and clearance.

Essential Skills & Requirements

• In order to be successful in this role you’ll need a combination of analytical skills, passion, commercial knowledge, great communication and organisational skills.
• An analytical or business related degree is also desirable due to the numerical and statistical requirements of the role.
• Degree educated (or equivalent).
• Significant commercial experience gained in a fashion retail merchandising environment (ideally luxury within an own-brand or multi-brand environment).
• Numerate with strong analytical and computer literacy.
• Advanced Excel knowledge essential.
• Commercial Awareness – working to develop full understanding of the nature of our business, products and competitive market in order to drive the best performance.
• Team player – build relationships with other internal and external teams and functions for personal and business development.
• Strong eye for detail and organisational skills and strives for a high level of accuracy.
• Proactive, self-driven and able to work with stringent deadlines.
• Excellent work ethic and ability to multi-task.
• Professional, positive attitude with excellent communication skills.