This Q&A with Heather Marie, Founder of 72Lux, originally appeared in the I Am Omnichannel newsletter.
During this interview, Marie shares her retail industry experience, opinions of retail technology, insights on industry trends, and more.
How Did Your Career In Retail Begin?
At 15, I began working at Gadzooks. As a sales associate you see a lot of interesting characters and learn how to manage everything from hectic pre-holiday sales to the manic return process after the holidays and situations with stolen merchandise.
I ended up working very closely with the store manager who tried to promote me to Associate Manager, but corporate policy required that managers be at least 21. I was frustrated by corporate policies that wouldn’t let you move as quickly as you wanted or were intellectually capable of.
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Best Piece Of Career Advice:
No matter what job you were hired to do, always work for the job you actually want. Do everything you can to prove you already are doing that job before someone gives the actual title. Earn the title instead of expecting people will hand it to you.
Proudest Career Accomplishment:
Building a great team at 72Lux. I spend a lot of time with candidates up-front before making any offers. I do more reference checks than anyone else because through the process you learn particular things about a candidate’s working style that can help adapt your style to manage them more effectively.
Who Do You Admire Most?
Marc Gobé (Abercrombie, Victoria Secret), retail marketing and brand expert.
Retail Technology That Has Impressed You Recently?
My current obsession is Boomerang. From an email management perspective it really simplifies my life and makes it really easy to stay on schedule with clients when I say that I’ll follow up in a week. In contrast, [From a use-ability standpoint] my Mailbox app says that I have 1200 unread emails, which really means I don’t use that app well.
New Trend That You’re Watching Closely?
Content and commerce. The majority of digital commerce is trying to transform anything that you read into a chance to buy.
Retailers are beginning to realize that the eCommerce 1.0 investments that are in-house are not flexible, making it hard to innovate or change quickly. Mashery has done a lot of great work with different retailers helping them build API’s to be more flexible in product distribution and inventory management.
The most effective examples of content and commerce seem to be when publishers roll things out in a series of stages.
The Wall St. Journal curates products that fit their audience perfectly. They know their audience well.
Into The Gloss introduces each product with a story that opens up to the lightbox, allowing consumers to easily transition between content and commerce. Their layout in a more standard ecommerce grid also makes the products easy to navigate.
Refinery29 also does a lot of interesting shop-able videos.
Least Favorite Industry Buzzword?
Ninja. Everyone says they’re hiring a marketing ninja.
Recent Article You Read?
The New Yorker did a piece on the background of Instagram acquisition.
Last Purchase?
A dress from the Oscar de La Renta exclusive collection for Net a Porter. He used materials left over from a previous season to design a capsule collection.
