My Ecommerce Hero is a series celebrating brilliance in ecommerce, in association with eCommerce-speakers.com, an initiative from Entropy‘s Alex Tait to encourage more female speakers at industry events. We’re asking leaders in the ecommerce sector to nominate their own heroes and explain what they’ve done that’s so important.
Launching the series is Sue McVie, Director, Direct to Consumer / Managing Director, Oakhouse Foods at Kerry Foods.
Who is your ecommerce hero?
I would nominate Mark Pizey, my own digital marketing manager at Oakhouse.
What has he done to win hero status in your eyes?
He has educated me on the various DTC business models in the market to enable me to make good decisions as a newly-installed leader of a DTC business.
Secondly, he has put the consumer at the heart of the business and built a bold, but fabulous and differentiated ecommerce site for Oakhouse which is 100% based on consumer insight.
How has his heroism helped drive ecommerce?
His results speak for themselves. Reducing our acquisition cost per customer and increasing our online sales.
What the biggest challenges in ecommerce we need another hero to solve?
Simplify the area to ensure build a broader understanding of ecommerce across the organisation (a personal mission of mine!).
Far too many people are making ecommerce into a dark art and presenting huge degrees of complexity – which means it is still seen as an area for specialists rather than an essential channel for all to embrace as part of a go to market strategy.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in ecommerce?
Building expertise in DTC and ecommerce over the last couple of years after many years in more traditional channels.
Proving that is possible to learn new skills, even at my ripe old age!
Is there a diversity problem in ecommerce and how can we best address it if so?
Yes, there is – I love Alex Tait’s campaign for ‘no manels’ at conferences… that is a great start.
