Overview
Associate Merchandise Planner Jobs in Piscataway, NJ at FOCO
Title: Associate Merchandise Planner
Company: FOCO
Location: Piscataway, NJ
🏢 About FOCO
Team Beans/Forever Collectibles (FOCO) is a global leader in officially licensed sports and entertainment merchandise. FOCO proudly holds licenses across all major professional sports leagues, including the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, and NCAA, along with a growing portfolio of entertainment and character-based brands.
Our product portfolio spans apparel, accessories, footwear, home goods, collectibles, and novelty items—supported by a robust global supply chain and a fast-moving retail and eCommerce business. We create fan-focused products that connect people to the teams, players, and moments they love.
🎯 The Opportunity
FOCO is seeking an Associate Merchandise Planner – Licensed Consumer Products to support pre-season and in-season planning across assigned categories. This role is responsible for helping drive sales, margin, and inventory performance through forecasting, open-to-buy management, reporting, and business analysis.
You will partner closely with Buying, Planning, and cross-functional teams to identify risks and opportunities, recommend actions, and help ensure the business is positioned to maximize profitable growth. This is an ideal opportunity for an analytically strong planner who thrives in a fast-paced consumer products environment and enjoys turning data into action.
📊 What You’ll Do
Pre-Season & In-Season Planning
- Build and maintain class-level and category-level sales, inventory, and margin plans
- Support development of seasonal financial plans using historical performance, current trends, and business drivers
- Update in-season forecasts based on performance, receipts, demand shifts, and changing business needs
- Help align product and inventory plans to support launches, replenishment, and key selling periods
Open-to-Buy & Inventory Management
- Manage weekly Open-to-Buy (OTB) for assigned areas
- Monitor inventory flow, weeks of supply, and sell-through performance
- Identify chase opportunities, inventory risks, and excess positions
- Partner with Buying to recommend actions that improve inventory productivity and protect margin
Reporting, Analysis & Recommendations
- Monitor business performance against sales, inventory, and margin targets
- Highlight early warning signs and emerging trends through weekly and monthly analysis
- Prepare recaps and recommendations for management and merchant partners
- Use data to support decisions around receipts, reorders, pricing, markdowns, and assortment changes
Cross-Functional Partnership
- Partner closely with Buying, Planning, Merchandising, and other cross-functional teams
- Build trust through clear communication, strong follow-through, and actionable recommendations
- Present risks and opportunities to management in a concise and commercially relevant way
- Contribute to planning process improvements, tool enhancements, and reporting accuracy
✅ What You’ll Bring
Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Merchandising, Supply Chain, or related field
- 2+ years of experience in merchandise planning, inventory planning, allocation, buying support, or related analytical retail/eCommerce function
- Strong Excel skills, including comfort with large data sets, formulas, pivots, and reporting
- Strong analytical, quantitative, and retail math skills
- Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment
- Clear written and verbal communication skills
Preferred
- Experience managing or supporting OTB
- Experience in retail, eCommerce, apparel, collectibles, or licensed consumer products
- Familiarity with planning systems
- Experience with Financial ERP – Microsoft Dynamics GP and / or Business Central (BC)
- Experience supporting seasonal and in-season forecasting
- Strong understanding of sell-through, weeks of supply, margin, and inventory productivity metrics
🧠 Key Competencies
- Forecasting and merchandise planning
- OTB management
- Inventory analysis
- Retail math and margin analysis
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Problem-solving and commercial judgement
- Adaptability and prioritization
🌟 Why FOCO?
- Work on products tied to the biggest sports leagues and entertainment brands
- Join a fast-growing business at the intersection of fandom, product, and commerce
- Gain exposure across buying, planning, merchandising, and inventory strategy
- Be part of a collaborative, entrepreneurial environment where ideas move quickly
🎉 Tryouts are open at FOCO!
If you’re ready to grow your career in merchandise planning and help shape fan-focused assortments, we’d love to hear from you.
Apply now.
