Senior Demand Planner

About the Team

Our Merchandise Planning and Allocation (MP&A) teams are the driving forces behind making the organization’s product visions available to our consumers through calculated and strategic measures. Your involvement in sales and margin forecasts, promotional performance analysis, inventory management, and vendor relationships will play a critical role in obtaining goals while maintaining Pet Smart’s reputation in the market as a trusted partner to pet parents.

Collaborative Work Environment:
At Pet Smart, teamwork and connection are core to how we thrive. This role is based at our Phoenix Home Office, with an expectation of working a minimum of four days in the office each week. In a standard work week, associates may work up to one remote “flex day” (with leader approval). Our hybrid approach is designed to foster strong collaboration while also supporting flexibility and individual success.

As a Sr. Demand Planner you will partner with vendors, merchandising, store operations, supply chain and Inventory Planning to manage:

• Store In Stocks and Fill Rate
• PO On time and Fill Rate
• Inventory, turns, DOS
• Sales and Margin
• Implement best practices to support Pet Smart growth

This position is responsible for following the Replenishment and Planning P&Ps that support positive growth in sales/ margin, and drive cost reductions. This includes identifying and communicating opportunities for improvement on your desk to your manager and working with your peers and business partners to enable a strong cross functional team.

This position is responsible for purchase order generation, value and frequency to support DC inventory fulfillment. Ensure correct inventory quantities are on hand at all servicing Distribution Center's (DC's) to support store sales demand and merchandising objectives. Management of seasonal, in-line and 'one time buy' DC inventories. Responsible for establishing and maintaining solid vendor relations and management of vendor order projections.

Key contact for vendors and DC's in supporting smooth order flow and PO issue resolution.

• Achieves Sales, Margin, and Inventory Turnover and other KPIs as designated to plan
• Develop overall division strategy vision, policies, resources, and execution plans to align to the corporate strategy
• Participates in the seasonal, annual, and long-range strategic and financial planning across a wide array of vendor (direct and external), customer, and merchandising segments
• Use consumer insights and data combined with a structured test and learn approach to maximize growth opportunities
• Leads, executes and measure performance against the business planning and product creation calendars to drive timely and informed decision making
• Supports the VP & Director to present within various strategic meetings for the division (i.e. Open-To-Buy, Vendor, Q , and other meetings)
• Owns the end-to-end management of demand planning and allocation optimization, including in-stock and service levels for funded items and promotional product; set targets and achieves plans for inventory and space productivity required to support the sales, gross margin and in-stock plans, maintain high levels of promotional product availability during promotional periods while minimizing ad residue, and optimizing end-caps, drive aisle, and in-line story telling and integration consistent with consumer shopping patterns.
• Ensure department and sku level planning reflects unique store and merchandise assortments, including localization, that allows for sharp transition between selling periods
• Leads the development and execution of demand planning, including information sharing and problem solving with vendors around purchase orders, capacities, forecasting, and network inventory flow and optimization.
• Responsible for the creation, accuracy, communication and management of vendor demand plans.
• Responsible for management and maintenance of order policy and all business metrics within.
• Actively create and lead special projects that drive growth opportunities
• Integrate processes and systems to optimize accuracy, efficiency, inventory productivity, space…