Behind the floor
Retail Planner
Decides how much stock goes where and when — the forecasting and allocation work that decides whether a range sells out or gets marked down.
- Ladder position
- Rung 3
- Experience
- 2–5 years
- Annual band
- Not publishedAORE states no range
01Pay
What it is worth
Annual band
AORE has not published a salary range for this role, and none is estimated here. What the job board advertised
Highest advertised
No listing for this rung is currently on the AORE board.
02The work
What the job actually involves
- Build sales and stock forecasts by category and store
- Manage open-to-buy and in-season replenishment
- Allocate stock across stores by grade and performance
- Plan markdowns and clearance to protect margin
- Monitor sell-through and adjust the plan in season
- Work with buying and stores on availability and phasing
03The route
How to get there
Graduate with strong numeracy; a commerce or statistics background helps.
Start as a merchandise or planning assistant and learn the trading calendar.
Take an advanced diploma in retail analytics or inventory management.
Get properly good at Excel — planning is a spreadsheet discipline before it is a systems one.
Learn to explain a forecast miss without hiding it.
04Eligibility
What employers ask for
Graduate in any stream. Typically 2–5 years in merchandising, planning or analytics.
05Skills
What matters, and why
- Forecasting
- Every buying decision downstream inherits your number.
- Open-to-buy
- It is the discipline that stops a good season becoming a cash problem.
- Allocation
- The same range performs differently in Lucknow and in Mumbai.
- Markdown planning
- Marking down late costs far more than marking down early.
- Advanced Excel
- Most planning still happens in a workbook somebody has to trust.
06Progression
Where this sits on the ladder
Retail promotes from within more reliably than most sectors. This is the route in and the route on.
You are here
Where it goes next
Also arrives from
Merchandise Assistant · Retail Analyst
And can lead to
Senior Planner · Planning Manager
07Training
Courses that get you here
- Advanced Diploma · 11 months · fast track 4.5 monthsAdvanced Diploma in Retail AnalyticsTurning till data into decisions. Covers sales and basket analysis, customer segmentation and RFM, forecasting, price and promotion effectiveness, dashboard design, and advanced Excel and BI tooling — with the emphasis on the recommendation, not the chart.₹76,700+ GST₹90,506 all-infrom ₹7,543/mo
- Advanced Diploma · 11 months · fast track 4.5 monthsAdvanced Diploma in Inventory ManagementStock is the largest number on most retail balance sheets. Covers inventory models and safety stock, ABC and cycle counting, ageing and provisioning, shrinkage control, multi-location allocation, and the systems work that keeps a stock figure trustworthy.₹76,700+ GST₹90,506 all-infrom ₹7,543/mo
08Hiring now