Buying & Planning Lead - Merch

Job Title: Buying Planning & Merchandise Lead 

Location: Gurugram, India

About Lenskart Lenskart is a tech-led, omni-channel eyewear company with a growing footprint across India and international markets. We operate an integrated value chain across design, manufacturing, retail, and e-commerce.

Role Overview The Buying Planning & Merchandise Lead will own the flow of merchandise from vendor to warehouse across all categories and regions. The role is anchored in demand forecasting, OTB, vendor capacity planning, and lead-time reduction — ensuring the right quantity of the right product reaches the right warehouse at the right time, at the right cost.

Key Responsibilities

Demand Forecasting

• Own global demand forecasting across categories, channels, and regions.

• Drive forecast accuracy through structured S&OP cycles, sell-through analysis, and seasonality modelling.

• Translate top-down financial plans and bottom-up category plans into a single, executable demand view.

OTB & Buying Planning

• Own the Open-to-Buy (OTB) process — building, tracking, and re-forecasting through the season.

• Manage inflow planning, phasing, and depth-vs-breadth decisions in line with sales, stock, and margin targets.

• Partner with the buying and category teams to convert assortment plans into actionable buy quantities.

Vendor Capacity Planning

• Lead capacity planning with the vendor base — aligning monthly and weekly production capacity with the demand plan.

• Work with sourcing and manufacturing partners to lock capacity ahead of peak periods and manage flex during demand swings.

• Build visibility into vendor performance on capacity, on-time delivery, and fill rates.

Lead-Time Reduction & Inflow

• Drive reduction of lead times across the vendor-to-warehouse cycle through better planning rhythm, order release discipline, and vendor collaboration.

• Improve PO-to-receipt timelines, in-transit visibility, and warehouse inbound predictability.

• Work with logistics and warehousing teams to smooth inflow and reduce bullwhip across the network.

Inventory & Allocation

• Own inventory health across warehouses — turns, cover, ageing, and excess.

• Drive allocation and replenishment models that maintain availability with controlled markdowns.

Collaboration & Leadership

• Work closely with Buying, Sourcing, Manufacturing, Logistics, Retail, E-commerce, and Finance.

• Build and lead a strong planning and merch supply chain team.

Key Requirements

• Relevant experience in demand planning, merchandise planning, OTB, or merchandise supply chain roles.

• Strong grounding in demand forecasting, OTB, vendor capacity planning, and lead-time management.

• Commercial understanding of inventory turns, fill rates, markdowns, and working capital.

• Hands-on with planning and analytics tools (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Anaplan, or equivalent).

• Experience working with vendor networks and cross-functional supply chain teams.

• Comfortable operating in a fast-moving, data-led environment.

Why Join Lenskart

• Own the end-to-end merchandise flow from vendor to warehouse at scale.

• Operate at the intersection of planning, supply chain, and commercial strategy.

• Work in a data-led, digitally native environment with international scope.