Inventory merchandiser & allocation planner

Glassworks London is an independent fashion retailer with five UK stores and a growing ecommerce business. We operate a weekly product-drop model across stores and online and as such, source and produce on a weekly basis. As the business grows, we are strengthening the way we allocate, replenish and rebalance stock so that inventory decisions are faster, more systematic and less dependent on founder-held judgement.

THE ROLE

We are hiring an experienced Inventory Merchandiser & Allocation Planner to take ownership of our recurring inventory merchandising process, with a simple mission: the right stock in the right location, in the right quantity, at the right time. Glassworks already operates a substantial proprietary inventory model covering stock by location, sales, purchasing history, reorder logic and transfer recommendations. Your immediate priority will be to learn and operate that model safely, QA its outputs and apply strong commercial merchandising judgement where recommendations are incomplete or incorrect. You will own the weekly allocation, replenishment, transfer, capacity and reorder process, provide assortment and intake signals to Product / Buying, ensure agreed stock actions are followed through, and identify opportunities to improve stock availability, inventory productivity and sell-through. Reporting directly to the Founder / CEO, you will work closely with Product / Buying, Retail, Ecommerce, Warehouse, the Head of Business Operations and Business Systems & Technology Operations. Over time, you will help strengthen the decision logic behind Glassworks' proprietary merchandising systems, while Business Systems & Technology Operations owns their technical development.

WORKING PATTERN / LOCATION

This is a remote / offshore role. Applicants may be based outside the UK, including India, South Africa or Eastern Europe, but must work substantially within UK business hours, Monday to Friday, 9am–5.30pm UK time.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own initial stock allocation across five stores and ecommerce, using demand, historical performance, current trading, size requirements and store capacity.
• Provide assortment and intake planning signals to Product / Buying, using category mix, store capacity, stock cover, ageing, current commitments and demand to identify where the range is over- or under-optioned and where future intake should increase, reduce or rebalance.
• Drive replenishment, identifying where fast-selling product needs additional depth and where stock should be protected or redirected.
• Recommend inter-store stock transfers to correct understock, overstock and broken availability.
• Manage store capacity planning, ensuring stock depth and option count remain commercially productive rather than simply maximising units held.
• Monitor size and SKU-level availability, identifying broken size curves and missing core sizes that may be suppressing sales.
• Analyse sell-through, weeks of cover, stock turn, rate of sale and ageing to identify inventory risks and opportunities.
• Own the recurring weekly inventory merchandising rhythm, producing prioritised allocation, replenishment, transfer and store-capacity actions, reorder / hold / do-not-reorder signals, and clear exceptions requiring follow-up.
• Maintain clear stock-action queues and track execution, identifying delays or exceptions and working with Warehouse Operations and Retail to ensure commercially important actions do not silently drift.
• Improve store and channel stock productivity, balancing physical retail and ecommerce demand rather than managing either channel in isolation.
• Operate, QA and interrogate the existing inventory model, checking outputs against current trading evidence and applying merchandising judgement where model recommendations require challenge.
• Identify recurring model exceptions or logic weaknesses and work with the Founder and Business Systems & Technology Operations to improve decision logic over time.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE

This role requires strong hands-on inventory merchandising experience. You should be able to demonstrate: assortment, option or range planning, including translating category performance and capacity into intake recommendations; store capacity planning; multi-store stock allocation; replenishment ownership; inter-store stock balancing; sell-through, stock-cover and stock-turn analysis; size / SKU-level availability management; experience turning analysis into specific commercial stock actions; experience across both physical retail and ecommerce; overstock, understock and ageing management; making sound merchandising decisions where data is incomplete or conflicting. You must also be highly confident working directly in large, formula-driven Excel models, including: navigating complex workbooks; tracing and understanding formulas; distinguishing raw inputs, calculated fields and manual overrides; using lookups, pivots, filters and conditional logic; troubleshooting formula or output issues; safely maintaining existing models without breaking downstream logic. The requirement is not to arrive and replace the existing model. You must be comfortable using, understanding, interrogating and safely improving an established operating model. Fashion or apparel experience is strongly preferred. Candidates from closely comparable multi-store specialty retail may also be considered where their allocation, replenishment, capacity, SKU-level and omnichannel experience is unusually strong.

AI-AUGMENTED WORKING

You should be comfortable using AI as a practical working tool to support analysis, exception handling, QA and decision preparation, while retaining responsibility for commercial merchandising judgement and validating outputs.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

A successful hire should create measurable improvement in: stock availability; capture of best sellers; replenishment speed; core-size availability; stock turn; aged-stock reduction; store capacity productivity; balance of stock between locations; reorder and buying signals; quality and speed of stock-action execution; follow-through on approved stock movements; reliability of inventory-model outputs and exception handling; and the consistency of inventory decisions across the business. Over time, routine allocation, replenishment, transfer and reorder decisions should become substantially less dependent on Founder involvement.