Merchandising Jobs: TheCHIVE seeks a Merchandise Planner / Inventory Analyst (Austin, TX 78701)

Still with me? You liar! You clicked and came back, didn’t you?? It’s okay. Now check out the following block of text clipped verbatim from the client’s original job posting for this role:

“The Chivery is expanding and looking for a Merchandise Planner. Do you have what it takes to manage, forecast, and predict current and future product sales? The Merchandise Planner position is for you! Work in a fast paced and slightly-drunk environment and help The Chivery to achieve their sales goals. No ties allowed. Previous training and experience in the Merchandise planning field is required. Must love dogs.”

Got that? Slightly drunk. No ties. Must love dogs. Sounds like my sister’s house.

But make no mistake: This company is KILLING it online, thanks largely to the vision of its founders, John and Leo Resig. theCHIVE launched in November of 2008 with Leo in Chicago and John living in Venice Beach. (CHI for Chicago and VE for Venice = CHIVE) After a year, the website’s popularity was growing and Leo moved to Venice to set up shop with John and cousin Bob. Five years later, Resignation Media packed up from Venice and moved the Headquarters to Austin, TX, where it plans to stay.

Resignation Media is not a network, but rather a family of websites consisting of the flagship site, theCHIVE.com and also includes theBERRY.com, theTHROTTLE.com, theBRIGADE.com and the ecommerce site, TheChivery.com. The proudest addition is Chive Charities, where the firm is able to activate the most generous and kind audience on the internet to raise money for orphaned causes.

Chive Nation has taken its community offline and has hundreds of meet ups a year all over the world. A buddy of mine went to one of these and said it was an atomic throwdown. So there’s that.

The Merchandising Planner / Inventory Analyst will be responsible for establishing and maintaining complete and accurate inventory records, modeling expected product sales and working closely with the firm’s Merchandise/Purchasing Manager to ensure accurate inventory levels are maintained. Previous planning experience is essential, as this will be a new position.

The Chivery seeks someone who can draw on their past experiences to add value to its the firm’s business on Day One. From a systems perspective, the client uses Netsuite for our ERP, Magento for its shopping cart and a CSV based reporting program to communicate with its distributor. Management would be open to other inventory based software programs to overlay those if necessary.

In this role, you’ll need advanced Excel skills, as this position requires creating reports and managing all aspects pertaining to merchandising; use of v­lookups, pivot tables, creating formulas, templates and macros as well as extracting data from multiple programs to create comprehensive streamlined data delivery. The ability to analyze and draw conclusions from numerical data or information is essential, as is the ability to combine and use information from multiple sources.

Additionally, you’ll need to organize and maintain an up­-to-date filing system for all product line sheets, in addition to researching and resolving vendor shipment issues such as pricing and product description discrepancies. You’ll also be responsible for directing vendor communication, as well as tracking, organizing and managing vendor samples. All the while, you’ll be involved with communicating directly with stores, as well as counting, managing, and reporting on physical inventory at the firms distribution center.

Additional job functions include (but are not limited to) forecasting and re-buying assortment in catalog merchandise, as well as replenishing the firm’s webstores in a timely and profitable manner. Naturally, you’ll have certain stock goals to meet. Basically, the role is all about surpassing planned category productivity and performance standards.

To excel in this role, you must be able to organize and schedule your own work as well as the work of others. That means being able to define steps or resources necessary to achieve a goal and set priorities among conflicting or competing goals and activities.