Mehak Arora Baweja

Current role- Merchandise planner Kitchen and Seasonal Food

Previous Role: Merchandise Planner Manchester

• Collaborated with cross-functional teams (Buyer,Store Design,Visual Merchandising) to align procurement and sales activities with marketing initiatives.
• Developed seasonal merchandise strategies to enhance product assortment and drive sales growth.
• Predicted, analyzed and maintained Open to Buy (OTB),participated in open-to-buy meetings, presenting data-driven recommendations for assortment planning decisions.
• Monitored sales performance to identify opportunities for improved inventory turnover.
• Monitored key performance indicators, adjusting plans accordingly to maximize sales potential.
• To ensure price management of category, providing accurate forecasting and recommendations.
• Maximise profitability through sound stock and price management, data analysis and reporting.
• Analyse results from post-seasonal analysis.
• Visit stores and identify sales and promotional opportunities.
• Evaluated vendor performance regularly, ensuring a consistent supply of high-quality products and addressing any issues proactively.
• Developed strong relationships with suppliers, resulting in favorable terms and exclusive product offerings.

The product manager role in InZone is a matrix role aimed at bringing ensuring product is aligned with company objectives and budgets.

This role involves regular exposure to

• Evaluation of product range, to align with agreed targets on Sales and Margin
• Onboarding new product ranges and categories involving market share research, business case development and launch.
• Evaluate and participate in tenders & RFP's.
• Established relationships with key stakeholders, facilitating effective communication and collaboration across departments for successful project execution. This included a range of clients varying between retail clients like Panasonic to government agencies like EECA
• Developed product documentation to communicate upcoming features and products to internal teams.

As a category assistant, no one day has been the same and this role has given exposure to understand the various aspects of the ever-evolving Brick and Mortar retail, with ability to constantly improve category potential through application of different concepts and being agile with change.

• Whilst working as a category assistant, key skills gained (but not limited to):
• Working with category manager for strategic growth plans of the category along with individual planning and execution of range reviews.
• Working knowledge of annual Go To Market to achieve sales and GP targets.
• Close review of seasonal categories to ensure high sell-through and demand planning.
• Maintaining high standards of stakeholder management and liaising with suppliers.
• Ability to engage in product range enhancement and improvement ideas.
• Executing category and price point reviews including working through a pricing strategy to manage market competitiveness with an ability to maintain profits.

• Store management including stock handling, inventory planning.
• Visual merchandise analytics.
• Cross merchandise selling.
• Multitasking store operations.
• Customer experience management.
• Enhancing customer buying experience.
• Store operations optimisation.

• Collaborated with cross-functional teams to streamline operations and optimize service delivery.
• Profit driven merchandise strategy plan and category plan for Men, Women and Kids.
• Assortment Planning for the season for the partners and aligning with OTB plan/Brand budgets.
• Managed vendor relationships, resolving disputes, addressing performance issues, and facilitating communication between parties as needed.
• Focusing on growing and developing existing clients, together with generating new business.
• Sales driven marketing and promotional activities Plan for key partners-order analysis, ranging, forecasting, submissions, sales tracking, reporting and analysis.
• Inventory Management including demand and supply lead time planning.

• Brand partnership (Business negotiations with new brands and growth planning).
• Manage Open to Buy (OTB) with distributors.
• Mentored junior team members on best practices in category management and strategic sourcing techniques.
• Product development and Product Analysis-product quality selection, pricing and positioning.
• Competition mapping, market trend analysis and strategic planning -Sales, Marketing- Forecasting, budgeting.
• Implemented data-driven strategies to enhance inventory management, minimizing stockouts and excess inventory risks.
• Vendor negotiation and Vendor Management- Build strong working relationship with clients for new business opportunities.
• Enhancing user experience by application of customer centric approach.
• Increased category revenue by launching innovative products that met consumer needs and preferences.
• Analyzed SKU-level performance on an ongoing basis to inform assortment optimisation decisions based on sales velocity, margin contribution, and consumer feedback data points.

• Campaign Management and Devising the sales calendar.
• Pricing accuracy and improvement.
• Merchandise and Assortment planning.
• Product Development and Commercial Negotiation.
• Strategic formulation and deployment for formulating profitable business.
• Marketing and promotion planning.
• Supply chain management and coordination.
• Administrative tasks for assistance to Assistant Category manager and category manager.