Assistant Planner, Sephora Account

Assistant Planner, Sephora Account

The Assistant Planner plays a crucial role in supporting the planning team in optimizing inventory levels, forecasting product demand, and ensuring efficient product flow within the beauty supply chain. This position offers an excellent opportunity to develop foundational planning skills and gain comprehensive experience in the beauty retail sector.

The Assistant Planner will collaborate with cross-functional teams, including merchandising, sales, and logistics, to achieve business objectives and enhance product availability for our clients. This role also plays a key part in bridging planning and field execution, ensuring store teams are equipped with clear, timely insights on inventory, launches, and priorities to drive strong in-store execution and maximize retail performance.

Inventory Management & Allocation:

• Review and manage in-stock positions for core and new products at the SKU/store level to maintain healthy inventory levels.
• Oversee product allocations with analytical insights to support sales performance.
• Track and manage purchase orders (POs) from creation to timely receipt, ensuring accurate pricing, case packs, and delivery windows.
• Support the replenishment process, planning and monitoring inventory levels based on sales and stock throughout the season.
• Ensure timely receipt of inventory for new product launches, promotional events (e.g., Holiday, testers, sampling), and communicate any potential risks.
• Close purchase orders regularly to ensure inventory is accurately captured in replenishment systems.

Forecasting & Analysis:

• Assist in analyzing new product launch performance and seasonality, adjusting forecasts, receipts, and inventory levels as needed to drive business.
• Generate weekly reports on vendor/brand fill rates and lead time accuracy.
• Prepare analyses of location performance, best sellers/slow sellers, and sell-through rates.
• Report updated business trends and stock continuity weekly to cross-functional teams.
• Partner with planning teams to refine forecasts based on launch performance, event cadence, and evolving business trends.

Collaboration & Communication:

• Liaise with internal and external partners (e.g., Sephora, supply chain) to resolve PO discrepancies and ensure on-time delivery.
• Communicate and escalate late key launches to the Planner and Merchant team, focusing on inventory strategy.
• Partner with buying/merchandising counterparts to ensure SKUs are set up correctly for ordering purposes.
• Maintain constant communication with the logistics center to anticipate increased picking/deliveries and sales cycles for key events.
• Communicate timely updates to field teams on inventory availability, launch timing, and key priorities to support strong in-store execution and alignment at the door level.
• Provide clear, actionable guidance to field partners to ensure awareness of stock flow, merchandising priorities, and any risks impacting store performance.

Systems & Data Management

• Set up new SKUs in planning systems to enable accurate purchasing, allocation, and replenishment.
• Maintain and update purchase order (PO) tracking logs, ensuring visibility to shipping status, delivery timing, and potential delays.
• Review and manage SKU lifecycle status, including activating and deactivating items for replenishment based on assortment and inventory strategy.
• Ensure data accuracy across systems to support reporting, forecasting, and inventory visibility.
• Support updates to merchandising and assortment systems to reflect planogram changes, newness launches, and promotional setups.

Qualifications:

• Supply Chain Management, Merchandising, or a related field experience preferred
• 1–2 years of relevant experience in planning, inventory management, or a similar analytical role, preferably within the beauty or retail industry preferred
• Strong analytical aptitude and strategic thinking skills.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel (VLOOKUPs, Pivot Tables, logical formulas).
• Strong organizational skills and meticulous attention to detail.
• Clear and effective communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment and manage multiple priorities.
• Passion for the beauty industry and awareness of current market trends.

Additional Information:

• This job description is intended to cover the core accountabilities of the position and is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change, or new ones may be assigned at any time with or without notice.
• All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.
• LVMH Inc. uses the published salary range as a guideline to provide our employees with market competitive pay while allowing for flexibility to recognize and reward various levels of expertise, performance, and tenure.
• While the published salary range is a good faith reflection of the targeted salary level for the position, LVMH Inc. reserves the right to pay outside of the published range of $65,000-$85,000.