A retail inventory planner decides how much stock a store chain should own each month and where every unit goes. They build the open-to-buy, split each vendor shipment across the stores and the website, move slow goods between stores, and tell the buyer when to reorder or mark down.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Annual pay: 10th percentile $37,200, middle half $45,070 to $75,840, 90th percentile $101,560. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.
Reports to
Chief Financial Officer
Department
Merchandising
Schedule
Weekdays in the office, hybrid optional · Long days before seasonal allocations and through the holidays, plus store and warehouse visits a few times a year
We're looking for an Inventory Planner to decide how much product we buy and which store or channel it goes to. You'll build the open-to-buy plan by month and category, split new shipments across stores and online, and move stock between stores as sales come in. You'll tell the Buyer when to reorder, cut or mark down.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Build and update the open-to-buy plan by month and category: sales, receipts, markdowns and ending inventory.
Allocate new shipments to stores and the website based on each location's sales, size and space.
Set and manage replenishment for core items so they stay in stock.
Move slow stock between stores or to the website to sell it before it needs a markdown.
Recommend markdowns to the Buyer based on sell-through and weeks of supply.
Report weekly on inventory health: aged stock, overstocks, out-of-stocks and open orders.
Set safety stock for items sold online and for pickup in store, so online orders don't oversell.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Review yesterday's sales and stock levels by item and store.
Run allocations for shipments arriving at the warehouse.
Build transfer lists for stores with too much or too little of an item.
Update the open-to-buy as receipts, cancellations and sales change.
Answer stock questions from buyers, store managers and the warehouse.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
In-stock rate on core items: [your target].
Weeks of supply by category: [your target].
Ending inventory to plan: [your target].
Sales forecast accuracy: [your target].
Aged inventory: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[2+] years of inventory planning, allocation or replenishment experience in retail.
Advanced spreadsheet skills: lookups, pivot tables and building plans from sales data.
Understands open-to-buy, sell-through, weeks of supply and size curves.
Experience with an inventory management or merchandise planning system.
6. Preferred Experience
Bachelor's degree in business, math, supply chain or a related field.
Has planned inventory for both stores and an online business.
Experience building reports in [your reporting tool].
7. Physical Requirements
Sit at a computer for most of the day.
Visit stores and the warehouse [a few times a year].
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Central office role[, with hybrid options].
Weekday hours, with longer days before seasonal allocations and the holidays.
Works daily with buyers, the warehouse and store managers.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new inventory planner gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
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What makes planning for a small store chain different
At a national chain, a planner may own one category, with allocators and planning software to lean on. Here one planner covers every category, every store and the website, most often from spreadsheets and the inventory system's reports.
Each store sells only a few of each item
A small store may sell two of a style in a week, so one busy Saturday can look like a trend. Planners at this size group stores into tiers by sales and space, and plan each tier instead of trusting one store's history. Size runs need the same care: a small store that gets one of every size often ends up with only the ends left.
The website sells from the same stock
When the site can sell units sitting in a store or offer pickup in store, the last unit on the shelf can sell twice. The planner sets safety stock, a few units the website can't promise, for each item and location. Set it too high and the site hides stock it could sell. Set it too low and customers get cancel emails.
Transfers cost more than they look
Moving a slow item from one store to another takes labor at both ends, a spot on the truck and days off the sales floor. Good planners send transfers on the regular store truck, choose items with enough selling weeks left to be worth the trip, and send true leftovers back to the warehouse for the website instead.
The plan answers to the CFO
In this template the planner reports to the CFO, not the buyer. The open-to-buy is the budget for the biggest thing the company buys: its stock. A planner who works for the CFO can tell a buyer that a hot new line doesn't fit this month's plan, and the CFO gets stock figures the cash forecast can rely on.
Seasonal goods run out of time
Holiday decor, swimwear and back-to-school items lose most of their pull the week the season ends. The planner tracks weeks of supply against the weeks left in the season and calls for markdowns early, while a smaller cut can still clear the goods. Waiting until the last week means deeper cuts on more units.
How much retail inventory planners make
The closest BLS group for retail inventory planners is buyers and purchasing agents. Buyers and purchasing agents who work for retailers earned a median of $57,840 a year ($27.81 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $77,710 median for buyers and purchasing agents in all industries. About 38,460 of the 491,430 buyers and purchasing agents in that survey work for retail stores.
Usually a salary. A bonus, if you offer one, can rest on the inventory goals in the template, such as in-stock on core items or ending inventory against plan.
Retail stores
$57,840$57,840 median Middle half $45,070–$75,840 10th–90th $37,200–$101,560
All industries
$77,710$77,710 median Middle half $60,800–$100,820 10th–90th $48,380–$128,870
$0k$25k$50k$75k$100k$125k$150k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Retail stores
$37,200
$45,070
$57,840
$75,840
$101,560
All industries
$48,380
$60,800
$77,710
$100,820
$128,870
These figures cover all retail. Pay differs by store type, so check what local stores like yours pay. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Builds a monthly plan from sales history in a spreadsheet, with lookups and pivot tables others can follow
Knows open-to-buy, weeks of supply, sell-through and size curves well enough to explain them to a store manager
Pushes back on an over-plan buy with numbers, not opinion
Spots the store or size that breaks the pattern in a long report
Gets allocations and transfer lists out on time when the warehouse is waiting
Teach these on the job
Your inventory system's reports and allocation screens
Each store's size, fixture space and customer
Your store truck schedule and transfer rules
How your CFO wants the open-to-buy laid out each month
Which items count as core and must stay in stock
Your markdown calendar and who approves each cut
Planners work in spreadsheets and the inventory system (NetSuite, Lightspeed, Retail Pro or the POS's own reports), plus the e-commerce platform's stock settings for online safety stock. Larger chains buy planning software, but at this size a candidate who can build a clean open-to-buy in a spreadsheet is worth more than one who knows a specific tool.
Retail inventory planner interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Leave the blanks open until one whole season has run through the plan and you can see where it missed. Core basics and seasonal goods need separate targets.
In-stock rate on core items
Each Monday, count the core items with stock on hand in each store and online, out of all core items that location should carry. Report stores one by one so a strong store can't hide gaps.
Weeks of supply by category
Units on hand divided by average weekly unit sales over recent weeks, by category. Rising weeks of supply while sales fall is the signal to talk markdowns with the buyer.
Ending inventory to plan
Actual inventory at cost on the last day of the month, compared with the month-end figure in the open-to-buy, by category. Use the same cost figures finance uses so the gap is real.
Sales forecast accuracy
Planned sales against actual sales each month, by category and store tier. Track how far off each forecast was in either direction, so misses high and low don't cancel each other out.
Aged inventory
Units and cost on hand past your age limit since first receipt, by category. Pull receipt dates from the inventory system and send the buyer the oldest items every week.
How is an inventory planner different from a buyer?
The buyer chooses what to carry and who to buy it from, and bargains on cost and terms. The planner decides how much the chain can afford to own, when it should arrive, and which store or channel gets it. With only a few stores, the buyer often plans too. As the chain grows, splitting the jobs means someone besides the buyer checks every big buy against the budget.
How much does a retail inventory planner make?
Buyers and purchasing agents who work for retailers earned a median of $57,840 a year ($27.81 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $45,070 and $75,840 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
Do we need planning software before we hire a planner?
No. At chains this small, most planners start in spreadsheets fed by the inventory system's sales and stock reports. A good planner will tell you when the spreadsheet stops working, for example when one delivery takes most of a day to allocate. That's the time to shop for allocation or planning software, with the planner helping choose it.
Can an inventory planner work remotely?
Most of the work happens on a screen, and the template has a hybrid option you can keep or delete. Plan on time in person anyway. Planners make better calls after they've walked the stores, seen the fixtures that limit how much each one can hold, and watched the warehouse receive a shipment they allocated. Schedule those visits before the big seasonal allocations.
Should we hire a planner from a national chain?
They bring strong habits, but ask what they built on their own. At a big retailer, software and a planning team may have produced the open-to-buy while the planner managed one piece. Here they'll build the whole plan for every category. Have them show you a plan they built from scratch, line by line.
What should we test in a planner interview?
Hand them a small sheet with a few weeks of sales and stock for one item across five stores and the website, plus a new shipment to split. Ask how many units each location gets and why. Then ask which store should send stock to another. Listen to the reasons more than the exact counts.
