Senior Manager Assortment Planning, Footwear, Canada

Overview

This hybrid position will be located at our Foot Locker Canada Office in Toronto. Expectations for hybrid in-office schedule is three days a week, typically Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Foot Locker, Inc. is hiring a Senior Manager of Assortment Planning, Footwear to join our Foot Locker and Champs Canada team! The Assortment Planner, Sr Manager is responsible for the development, delivery and on‑going management of a profitable and productive clustered assortment that is aligned to our consumer preferences. By assorting with intent, the Assortment Planner will ensure the customer has a balance of brands, franchises, and mix of basics & fashion choices.

In close partnership with buying, allocation, and financial planning, the assortment planning team is responsible for:

• Development of store assortments informed by business strategy and customer preference to determine the optimal assortment in each store location
• Providing customer choice count targets by brand/franchise using productivity metrics aligned to in‑store merchandising guidelines
• Ensuring depth by style‑color needed to achieve sales utilizing Rate of Sale plan and door tiering and clustering
• Adjusting assortment strategy in‑season based on changes in business performance or inventory productivity, fashion trend, and store assortment capacity
• Driving customer experience in store and increasing NPS, while maximizing sales, margin, and sell‑through rates

• Change Agent
  : enthusiastic about improving processes and ways of working and can champion change among the organization
• Strategic Thinker
  : connect the dots between functions, understand upstream and downstream implications of decisions, and intellectually curious
• Collaborative and Connected
  : know how to navigate the organization and can quickly follow up or raise decisions to the right people and drive alignment
• Trusted
  :
  Others respect their decision‑making and will trust they have made the right decisions in guiding assortments
• Detail Oriented
  : have no problem rolling up their sleeves and digging into the details of how things work or how decisions should be made
• Data Savvy
  : solid understanding of historical performance data as well as the pitfalls of relying too much on data alone

• Lead end‑to‑end Assortment Planning process for area of responsibility from initial brand/franchise forecasting to go‑to‑market
• Develop pre‑season assortment plan to support the merchandise strategy
• Apply assortment analytics, including rate‑of‑sale and door tiering, to the planning process
• Conduct analysis to support the creation of SKU targets by tier
• Ensure accurate life cycle management attribution
• Maximize margin through assortment productivity

• Create and maintain store clusters based on demographics, space, volume, and product
• Define assortment breadth, depth, and mix for each store cluster
• Assign productivity metrics and evaluate by cluster‑product type

• Collaborate with Space Optimization to analyze space and capacity for area of business
• Ensure the monthly SKU count flow fits within space capacity
• Provide capital project floorplan guidance based on Merchant strategy and productivity analysis

• Build future assortment and space plans together with the Buying team by visiting brand partners and traveling the market
• Partner with Allocation, Buying, and GTM/VM to ensure alignment on door and distribution
• Partner with Financial Planning on bottoms‑up receipt plans by vendor

• Foster a strong partnership with the brands on assortment build and GTM processes
• Attend brand pre‑season meetings, line reviews, and market travel as needed
• Effectively articulate vendor‑product strategies
• Conduct scenario analysis as required

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, finance, or merchandising required
• Minimum 7‑9 years of relevant retail experience in a trend driven, high‑volume company
• Advanced Excel skills are a must
• Experience using Power BI is a plus
• Experience working in assortment planning solutions is preferable
• Retail math proficiency required
• Ability to establish relationships and work effectively with all internal and external constituencies
• Ability to think creatively, highly‑driven and self‑motivated
• Ability to multi‑task in a fast‑paced environment with a sense of urgency while remaining organized
• Ability to problem‑solve, manage to deadlines, and complete in‑depth analysis to support decision making
• 20% Travel