Saturday 27 December 2014

New Resolutions

Christmas came, the boxing day sales started (as early as 14th December - as I observed it anyway!) and soon it will be 2015.

So here are some deals for New Year's Eve:

Hoss Intropia Lace Maxi Dress £258 (from £430) ; Closet Floral Dress £34 (from £48) ; French Connection Misty Mountain Shift Dress £44 (from £110) ; Oasis Lurex Drape Dress £28 (from £42) ; Jigsaw Metallic Court Shoe £69 (from £139) ; Mango Leather Pumps £29.99 (from £59.99) ; Nine West Ispy Wedges £49 (from £85) ; Sophia Webster Xavier Pumps £350 (from £495)

And, in the spirit of introspection and scrutiny of the year gone-by, here's a list of things I am resolved to do at work over the next few months:

1. Really sink my teeth into some reports, simplify them and make them more efficient. Among other things, these reports flag products that are missing from our pages - every lacuna is potential inconvenience to customers and/or lost sales. I will have to be disciplined and scrape together some time to do this now, to save time later.
2. Evaluate the habits I'm falling into when I prepare to, and go about, remerchandising a page:
- I do a lot of research before I start work on a page - into sales values, sales volumes, page views, new and discontinued products, marketing strategy, market trends, supply issues... But I need to make sure that I am not forgetting anything and that nothing is being considered out of order or unnecessarily.
- I think sometimes I waste time starting from square one, when I could refine what's already there. Sometimes I try to work with what I have, but ultimately change everything, in which case it would have been quicker to start from scratch.
3. Last, I want to pencil in some time to step back and see the big picture. Something of a perfectionist, mired in the little details, I can fail to spot big changes that could make big differences. I should step back more often.

Well, very happy New Year to you then x

Saturday 13 December 2014

Holidays are coming...


Wooden House Decoration £3 John Lewis, Tomte Grankvist £23 for 3 cloudberryliving.co.uk, Paper Twirl Decorations £14 for 6 Designers Guild, White and Red Bauble £5 Madam Stoltz at Skandium; Geometric Shape Decorations £4 House Doctor at Tate Modern, Multi-Coloured Baubles £8 for 6 Debenhams; Glitter Tree Decoration £3.50 John Lewis, Coloured Jute Baubles £9.99 for 3 Zara, Deer in Snow Glass Bauble £4 Paperchase

So Christmas is nearly upon us again! I for one can hardly believe it, but then I have been very busy at work over the last month and a half, merchandising as many of my pages as possible. 

It was a little hard to know where to start, since every page could do with some attention and there was no way I could see to them all.

Marketing strategy led me to focus on certain seasonally-relevant areas (wintery products, products that make good gifts, products that lend themselves to celebrations). I definitely did my best to look after key Christmassy pages.

At the same time, I didn't want to neglect other important departments just because this isn't meant to be their time of year. So I identified pages with potential and spent time working on them too. I also tried to maintain the pages that were already performing well - you can't let them lose their lustre. 
When selecting these extra sections to merchandise, I was looking for pages that weren't growing commensurately to the website/to their category and for pages that were outstripping average.

There are still whole areas I haven't been able to touch, though I wish I could have.

So it's been very much a matter of splitting myself and not spending too long on one thing.

And on that note, I should probably get on with some of my own Christmas preparation. Presents to buy, cards to write, outfits to pick, meals to plan - oh, how I love Christmas!