Zeynep Ekin Ates

About Zeynep Ekin Ates

Category Manager, Senior Merchant, Planner and Buyer with 10 years of experience in Apparel, Footwear, and Accessories business of global retailers. Built and managed collections of SKUs carried by 100+ stores with the resulting deep expertise in wide range of areas including Segmentation, OTB Planning, Assortment Building, DTC/Wholesale Merchandising, Go to Market Strategies, Pricing Strategy and Brand Positioning.

Experience

1. Merchandise Planner

   South Moon Under

   Mar 2023 — Present · Annapolis, MD, US

   Oversee the development of annual, seasonal, monthly & weekly merchandise plans. Construct inventory flow plans, with the goal to maximize inventory turn and GMROI. Manage weekly department level open to buy activities. Provide expert analysis on trends and recommendation to influence cancellations, future purchases, and assortment strategies. Analyze historic performance to identify areas of opportunity or risk. Prepare preseason promotional and markdown strategy through partnership with buyer and merchandising. Develop, maintain, update, and automate set of tools & reports to support the needs of the business. Establish appropriate process & tools to review product assortments; providing data & analysis to support decision making. Maintain business processes and serve as subject matter expert for process improvements. Partner with allocation & supply chain teams to implement consistent and profitable in-season replenishment strategies and practices. Develop enterprise wide risk mitigation plans. Manage SKU & style intensive business. Manage location intensive assortments.

Education

• Bilkent University

  Bachelor of Science - BS, Industrial Engineering

  2001 — 2006

Skills

• Inventory Management
• Data Analysis
• Product Development
• Sales Management
• Retail
• Supply Chain Management
• Advanced Level Excel
• Textiles
• Fashion
• Merchandising
• Apparel
• Marketing