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.