Buyer/Planner

About the Company

The company is a major duty-free travel retailer with more than 20 stores across international airports, private airports, and U.S. border crossings. Its assortment includes spirits, tobacco, fragrances, skincare, and accessories, and it focuses on creating a strong travel-retail shopping experience for a global customer base.

Role Summary

The Buyer/Planner will manage the complete merchandise journey for the Tobacco category across all store locations. The role combines vendor strategy, open-to-buy control, and inventory planning to support sales growth, healthy margins, and strong in-stock levels. Success in this position requires solid category expertise in duty-free or travel retail and the ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving, multi-location business.

Buying and Vendor Management

This role is responsible for shaping the Tobacco assortment, negotiating commercial terms, and maintaining strong supplier partnerships. It also includes evaluating vendor performance and bringing in new brands and suppliers that fit customer demand and profitability goals.

• Lead the assortment strategy for Tobacco, including brand mix, SKU cleanup, and seasonal or promotional planning.
• Negotiate pricing, commercial terms, promotional support such as SPIF, co-op, and A&P, as well as supply agreements with domestic and international vendors.
• Develop and sustain strong supplier relationships, including with major tobacco manufacturers such as Altria and Philip Morris International.
• Source and onboard new brands and suppliers that align with traveler profiles and margin objectives.
• Assess supplier performance using KPIs such as fill rate, lead time, pricing accuracy, and promotional compliance.

Planning and Inventory Management

The Buyer/Planner will create purchase plans, manage open-to-buy, and keep inventory aligned with demand across a multi-store network. The role also involves controlling excess stock, coordinating inbound flow, and supporting planogram updates.

• Build monthly and seasonal purchase plans using annual forecasts, sales patterns, and inventory levels across more than 20 locations.
• Manage open-to-buy for assigned categories and adjust purchasing based on sell-through, traffic patterns, and promotional activity.
• Work with logistics and warehouse teams to ensure inventory arrives on time and safety stock levels remain appropriate.
• Track slow-moving and surplus inventory, and carry out markdowns, transfers, and vendor returns when required.
• Support Merchandising in updating planograms for all assigned store locations using sales speed, trend insights, and brand requirements.

Analytics and Reporting

The position requires regular analysis of sales, margin, and inventory data, along with budget tracking and market benchmarking. Findings will be shared with senior leaders, and the role will also contribute to financial planning and reforecasting.

• Review weekly and monthly sales, margin, and inventory reports, and present insights and recommendations to senior management.
• Measure category results against budget and identify gaps with corrective actions.
• Perform competitive analysis across duty-free channels to benchmark pricing, assortment, and promotions.
• Partner with Finance on annual budgeting and quarterly forecast updates.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Collaboration is a key part of this role, with regular coordination across operations, merchandising, marketing, logistics, finance, and compliance teams to execute commercial initiatives and maintain regulatory alignment.

• Coordinate with store operations and merchandising teams on resets, new brand launches, and promotional activities.
• Work with Marketing on in-store promotions, brand takeovers, and traveler engagement initiatives.
• Create and monitor sell-through reports that connect inventory movement with vendor sales.
• Support compliance and regulatory requirements for tobacco and alcohol products across different jurisdictions.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate brings several years of buying, planning, or category management experience, preferably in retail, travel retail, or duty-free, along with strong vendor, analytical, and planning capabilities. Knowledge of tobacco or spirits categories is important, and experience with planograms, retail planning tools, and U.S. tobacco regulations is an advantage.

• 3 to 6 years of experience in buying, planning, or category management in retail, travel retail, or duty-free.
• Hands-on experience with Tobacco and/or Spirits categories, including vendor negotiation and assortment planning.
• Ability to use retail planning tools, open-to-buy processes, and inventory management systems.
• Strong analytical ability and comfort handling large datasets in Excel, including pivot tables, XLOOKUP, and demand modeling; use of AI is a plus.
• Proven success in improving category sales and margin.
• Strong negotiation skills and the ability to build productive vendor relationships.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience specifically in duty-free, travel retail, or airport retail.
• Knowledge of premium tobacco and related regulations across U.S. jurisdictions.
• Experience creating or updating planograms with merchandising software.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Merchandising, Supply Chain, or a related field.
• Bilingual ability in English and Spanish is an advantage because of the traveler mix.

Additional Information

This is a full-time onsite position based in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area. The role is focused on the Tobacco category within a large, multi-location travel-retail operation.