The Role

We're looking for a hands-on Merchandising & Inventory Planning Manager to own how Ware plans, buys, and replenishes its products. This is a highly analytical, execution-focused role centered on one core question: what should we buy, how much, when, from whom, and why?

You'll work closely with the Founder, Product Design, Sales, E-commerce, and manufacturing partners to ensure Ware has the right products available without tying up unnecessary capital in inventory.

Key Responsibilities

1. Demand Planning

- Analyse SKU-level sales across online, retail, and B2B channels
- Build monthly and quarterly demand forecasts, incorporating seasonality, promotions, launches, and known orders
- Track sales velocity and demand shifts; compare forecast vs. actuals to continuously improve accuracy

2. Inventory Planning

- Build and maintain a planning system covering stock on hand, stock in transit, open POs, sales velocity, stock cover, lead times, MOQs, safety stock, reorder points/quantities, expected stockout dates, and inventory ageing
- Ensure every key SKU has clear, data-backed replenishment logic

3. Buying & Replenishment

- Prepare monthly buying recommendations — what to buy, how much, and when
- Flag SKUs that shouldn't be reordered; plan production against demand and lead times
- Track purchase plans against actuals and maintain disciplined buying budgets

4. Inventory Optimisation

- Ware currently carries more inventory than ideal. You'll help build and execute a plan to reduce excess and dead stock, prevent unnecessary replenishment, improve turns,



cut inventory days, and release working capital — without compromising availability of key products

5. Product Performance & Merchandising

- Classify products (hero, core, growth, experimental, seasonal, slow-moving, end-of-life) and use this to inform buying and replenishment decisions

6. Factory & Vendor Coordination

- Coordinate production plans and timelines with manufacturing partners
- Monitor MOQs and lead times; negotiate day-to-day commercial terms where appropriate
- Identify opportunities for smaller production batches and better payment terms; track vendor performance and resolve production issues with Design/QA

7. Data & Reporting

- Build simple, reliable dashboards covering inventory value, days, turns, stock cover, ageing, excess/dead stock, stockout risk, forecast accuracy, open PO value, purchase requirements, and supplier performance
- Strong Excel/Google Sheets skills essential — you'll be working with large SKU-level datasets

What Success Looks Like

First 90 days:

- Clean SKU-level inventory master with reliable sales/inventory data
- Ageing visibility, sales velocity, lead-time/MOQ database
- Initial ABC/XYZ classification and reorder-point methodology




- Monthly buying recommendation process in place
- Transparent visibility into excess and dead inventory

6–12 months: Materially improve inventory efficiency while maintaining healthy availability of key products.

Who We're Looking For

4–7 years of experience in merchandising, merchandise/inventory/demand planning, buying, supply chain, or retail planning — ideally in consumer products, lifestyle, home, fashion, furniture, or D2C.

You should be

- Highly analytical and detail-oriented
- Excellent with Excel/Google Sheets and inventory mathematics
- Experienced with demand forecasting and purchase planning
- Comfortable speaking directly with factories/vendors
- Commercially minded
- Comfortable in a small, fast-moving company — and willing to build systems, not just follow them

What We Don't Need This isn't a fit for someone whose core experience is warehouse management, logistics/dispatch, PO administration alone, pure production follow-up, or reporting without decision-making. We need someone who turns data into better buying decisions.

Why Join Ware?

This is a chance to build an important business function from the ground up at a growing design-led consumer brand — working directly with the Founder, with genuine influence over what Ware buys, how much, how it manages working capital, how products move through their lifecycle, and how it works with manufacturing partners. Significant ownership, with scope to grow as Ware grows.

📌 Merchandising & Inventory Planning Manager (Mumbai)
🏢 Ware Innovations
📍 Mumbai