delvinamckinson.com

Ecommerce and Digital Marketing Apprenticeship

juan@mrjohnvanilla.com — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 13:16:06 +0000

Ecommerce and Digital Marketing Apprenticeship

About the Apprenticeship

My job title was Ecommerce and Digital Apprentice, and I worked for the womenswear fashion and lifestyle brand Hush. I joined Hush in June 2019 as a Customer Services Associate before transitioning to my role as an Ecommerce and Digital Apprentice in January 2022, working with the Ecommerce team.

I worked under the direction of Digital Visual Merchandise Manager and reported to Ecommerce Trading Manager.

My role involved tasks related to visual merchandising and product building. Visual merchandising the site included managing the main and sub-categories on the storefront, ensuring the layout was both visually appealing and practical by positioning best-selling and new products at the top. Product building involved preparing products, particularly new collections, for launch.

Job Responsibilities

Imagery upload

I upload product and content imagery onto the website. I also created imagery XML paths in preparation for new products launching on the site. I worked closely with the creative team.

Website checks / maintaining products

I have an understanding of the product lifecycle and day-to-day website management to carry out daily website checks, responded to issues or requests reported by the merchandise and buying team.

Product set up from start to finish

I ensured imagery for the collection was provided by our creative team and ready to be uploaded by myself to Salesforce.

Created new colour XML’s that I uploaded to Salesforce

Created product colour swatches using Photoshop.

Uploaded and assigned new PDP, PLP, Campaign, Double width and flatlay imagery to the website using the file transfer tool WinSCP.

Created categorisation XML files that I uploaded to Salesforce to batch-populate products into their correct main and subcategories.

Weekly trade reporting

Produced reports that highlight co-buys and home page performance for desktop and mobile to help make informed decisions to improve the website and maximise sales.

Website optimisation

Worked with the team to deliver the online customer journey strategy, utilising tools to optimise onsite search, product features, filters, and attribution.

Preparing PLP’s for marketing emails.

Site content maintenance

Supported the delivery of the digital content strategy, scheduled the following content; homepage, content landing pages, z mags, product ads.

Monitor competitor activity

To support commercial activity and help to identify opportunities.

Visual Merchandise

Visual Merchandised across all the main and subcategories on the site.

Turned online and scheduled products due to be launched on the site

Created and scheduled promotion campaigns

Created and applied sort order rules on parent and child categories

Prepared the new-in page for a collection launch

Positioned product ads in selected categories.

Ad hoc support

Provided ad hoc support to the team in the delivery of duties and project milestones aligned with the overall digital trading strategy.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Liaise with and build a close working relationship with the key stakeholders across Merchandising, Creative, Buying, Customer Service and Operations.

Tools used

Platforms

Salesforce CRM
Amplience CMS
Asana
Microsoft teams
Sublime Text

Analytics Tools

Google Analytics
ContentSquare
Salesforce Analytics

Work management app

Trello
Asana

For communicating across the team and the wider business

Microsoft teams
Microsoft Outlook email
Zoom
Trello
Amplience CMS

Software programs

Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Word
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Business Central- ERP

More about my role

As part of my role, I liaised with teams from other departments, this included
Customer Services – Responded to customer services team enquiries and reportings of any issues with the website such as imagery missing.

Creative Team – I worked closely with the creative team in ensuring imagery is ready on their side so I could upload the imagery onto the website, or I liaised with them for any missing or delayed imagery.

Merchandise Team – I was in contact with the merchandise team regarding stock availability and product sku’s.

ERP Testing Team – I also sat in on meetings with the team testing the new ERP system and carried out scenario tests

Buying Team – Regarding visual merchandising, pushing key line products and high stock products to the top of categories and ensuring best imagery was used on the website to show off the products.

CRM Team – For marketing emails and products that needed to be pushed for the emails and imagery available for those products featuring in the emails.

Product Launch and Visual Merchandising

juan@mrjohnvanilla.com — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:05:47 +0000

Product Launch and Visual Merchandising

About Project

During Hush Homewear’s annual End of Season Sale in the summer, I collaborated with the eCommerce and CRM teams to support the launch of the ‘Holiday Hit List’ marketing email campaign. My primary responsibility was to prepare and visually merchandise the associated landing page, “Sale Holiday Picks,” on Salesforce.

This landing page was linked to the email campaign’s call-to-action buttons, serving as a key entry point for customers. I ensured the featured products from the email were positioned at the top of the page for optimal visibility and customer engagement.

This project provided an opportunity to apply my visual merchandising skills, ensuring a cohesive and enticing presentation of sale products aligned with the campaign’s holiday theme.

Tools used

Landing Page

Ecommerce Website Creation

juan@mrjohnvanilla.com — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 10:25:03 +0000

Ecommerce Website Creation

About the project

In 2020, I created an e-commerce website for my brand, Beautyfro Prints, which sold illustrated products such as cushions, mugs, tote bags, prints, and postcards.

Tools used

Homepage

I built the website using WordPress, integrated WooCommerce for seamless product management, and set up payment gateways (Stripe and PayPal), using developer sandbox environments to test and optimise the customer shopping experience before going live.

I managed all aspects of the product imagery, descriptions, and cross-selling strategies. Additionally, I researched and integrated print-on-demand services (Prodigy and Inkthreadable) to support a dropshipping business model, allowing me to sell my artwork on white-label products without holding inventory.

The website featured customer accounts, order tracking, and secure storage of payment and shipping details. I also developed key informational pages, including an About Me page, privacy policy, and shipping details, ensuring a professional and user-friendly site.

Product Listings Page

Product Display Page

Shopping cart and checkout

The results

The project was an invaluable learning experience in e-commerce operations, web development, and digital business management. I gained hands-on experience with payment gateway testing, SEO optimisation, product photography, and customer journey design. By creating and maintaining the website, I developed skills in integrating third-party services, managing staging environments, and executing a dropshipping model. While the website and business are no longer active, this project provided me with a strong foundation in creating and running an e-commerce business, teaching me the intricacies of web management and customer-focused online retail.

Landing Page Development with Salesforce

juan@mrjohnvanilla.com — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 16:32:57 +0000

Landing Page Development with Salesforce

About the project

In November 2022, I took ownership of website content building and management tasks on Salesforce, including creating landing pages, updating existing pages, and scheduling content. One of my first key projects was developing a landing page for a collaboration with Manucurist—a competition exclusively targeting hush’s 35,000 most loyal customers. The project required coordinating with the brand, editorial, and creative teams to deliver a GDPR-compliant landing page and update the terms and conditions page.

Tools used

Landing page

Before

Previous landing page

After

Updated Landing page

Editing the terms and conditions page HTML on Sublime Text

Sublime Text

Terms & Conditions Page

The results

I successfully built my first landing page in Salesforce, leveraging HTML for the first time to integrate customer forms and resize image assets using Adobe Photoshop. I ensured GDPR compliance by incorporating clear data collection permissions and providing access to terms and conditions. Through proactive problem-solving, such as collaborating with creative teams and referencing previous campaigns, I delivered a polished landing page that aligned with the brand’s vision and objectives. This project highlighted my ability to adapt quickly, collaborate effectively, and execute detailed content management tasks with precision.

Homepage Creation and Performance Optimisation

juan@mrjohnvanilla.com — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 11:06:37 +0000

Homepage Creation and Performance Optimisation

About Project

For Black Friday 2022, I worked on hush’s homepage content strategy, leveraging Amplience, a headless content management platform. My responsibilities included publishing and scheduling homepages for the UK, USA, and International sites, aligning with hush’s segmented Black Friday approach.

Hush’s unique campaign supported the charity Crisis, donating one item of clothing for each item purchased in the UK, while offering a discount campaign exclusively for USA customers. This project marked hush’s transition from Salesforce to Amplience for content management, requiring collaboration across teams and careful execution to ensure all assets, links, and layouts were accurate and met deadlines.

Tools used

Homepages

UK Site Black Friday Hero Homepage

UK Site Hero Homepage

USA Site Hero Homepage

International Site Hero and Contentspots Homepage

The results

Over the 8-day promotional period of the USA Black Friday campaign, key performance indicators significantly exceeded forecasts, highlighting the success of targeted promotions and regional segmentation.

Top Market Shift: The USA became the top-performing international market during weeks 35 & 36, surpassing Ireland, which is typically the leader.

Sales Performance: Demand sales exceeded the forecast by 14%.

Conversion Rate: The campaign achieved a conversion rate of 1.65%, 53% higher than the forecasted 1.08%.

Average Order Value: The AOV was 20% above the forecast.

This campaign demonstrated the effectiveness of tailoring content for specific regions, successfully leveraging Black Friday’s cultural significance in the USA to engage a targeted customer group.