Apparel Costing Manager

Headquartered in Southern California, Skechers—the Comfort Technology Company®—has spent over 30 years helping men, women, and kids everywhere look and feel good. Comfort innovation is at the core of everything we do, driving the development of stylish, high-quality products at a great value. From our diverse footwear collections to our expanding range of apparel and accessories, Skechers is a complete lifestyle brand.

Develop and implement Skechers apparel cost control procedures and policies to enhance organizational costing performance against key objectives. In addition to costing, this role will also support the merchandise planning needs by supplying seasonal projections to be used for capacity planning and material bookings. In this highly collaborative role you will work closely with Merchandisers, Sales, Product Developers, Suppliers and our Production team to support the entire product development costing and merchandise planning process.

Responsible for costing management and analysis of all apparel from development through production. This includes the development, evolution and implementation of the short-term and long-term strategic agenda with focus on improved financial margins. All while ensuring transparency of any financial risks and opportunities to internal partners. Develop and deliver costing processes, tools, and training to development teams to enable and empower better decision making to increase margins.

Conduct cost comparisons by gender, silhouette, COO to ensure optimal margin is achieved. Skilled/experienced in IMU/margin calculations and able to calculate target FOB to hit specific margin requirements (based on provided Wholesale, Duty, Target Margin, Freight). Collaborate with Materials team on material costs and process improvements, providing seasonal volume projections to aid in negotiations and ensuring that updates are communicated in proper cadence with costing calendar deadlines.

Partner with Merchandisers and sales to develop seasonal margin targets and work closely to drive for margin improvements. Negotiate and reconfirm MOQ/MCQ and Skechers Cost Standards as needed. Engages in vendor assessments specific to development deliverables, costing and overall quality of product. Maintain System’s FOB and Pre-cost in Flex and working excel files for SMU/Off-Price. Provide high-level analysis, business reports, and qualitative actionable feedback to make recommendations to senior leadership, including contributions to quarterly hindsight's.

Manage needed Compass updates. Manage communication with internal and external teams.

Ability to multi-task. Excellent communicator and team player. Great Negotiator/Compromiser. Excellent Excel skills. Manage/generate margin reports, analysis, ad hoc reports. Able to analyze complex margin reports, cost component breakdowns, materialization breakdowns, production pair reports.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

Education:

Degree Required. Experience in apparel industry; preferred development and/or costing experience. Computer Applications, Excel skill is mandatory. The pay range for this position is $85,000-$95,000/yr USD.

Skechers, a global Fortune 500® company, develops and markets a diverse range of lifestyle and performance footwear, apparel, and accessories. Serving over 180 countries and territories, Skechers connects customers to products through department and specialty stores, e-commerce and digital stores, and through our more than 5,300 Skechers retail…