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We are working with Nylon Holdings in their search for a Director of Ecommerce for their online store at InkedShop.com based in NYC. Some of you readers know “Nylon,” an award-winning American magazine that focuses on pop culture and fashion. It’s pretty boss. Anyway, these folks own Inked Magazine, whose brand has extended smartly to InkedShop.com.
BEFORE WE CONTINUE …
Historically, we have respectfully declined searches in the Adult category and will continue to do so. We have reviewed InkedShop’s website and while it is definitely edgy, its product mix is no more Adult than what’s in the Personal Care section at VermontCountryStore.com,
a 67-year old family owned and operated IR-500 e-tailer “Run with Old-Fashioned Values and Pride.” InkedShop’s core business remains the sale of tattoo apparel and art, skull jewelry, punk jewelry, and “Inked” branded merchandise.
Are we cool?
HARRY’S COMMENTS: The first thing that hooked me about Inked Shop was that they’re building a fantastic brand by engaging a reachable, rabid subculture of tattoo aficionados. These folks take their tats VERY seriously, and they’re super social.
Although no hard figures exist on the exact size of the U.S. tattoo industry, Inc. magazine has estimated there are roughly 15,000 tattoo parlors in America earning $2.3 billion annually. A Pew Research Center study claims that one-third of Americans ages 18 to 25 have a tattoo, as well as 40% of Americans ages 26 to 40. The same study found that only ~10% of people ages 41 to 64 are tattooed.
The whole point of a tattoo is to start a conversation, so it’s completely natural that this market would be “self-referencing,” meaning these people proactively communicate with each other about the lifestyle and the products.
This enables what I like to call “Marketing Nirvana.”
It is no surprise then that Inked is killing it on Facebook with their two pages, Inked Mag (1,481,665 likes) and Inked Girls Mag (385,100 likes), and it even has an app for Inked Girls Magazine. They’re on Pinterest, too.
These assets have created a massive marketing tailwind for InkedShop.com, the company’s online store which launched last year and did $2.7 million in sales.
As InkedShop’s new Director of Ecommerce, you’ll preside of this heady growth. You’ll inherit the career-enhancing opportunity — but you’ll also inherit the growing pains. My colleague, Allan Seibert, was on this kickoff call and he can share my notes with you.
The client runs Magento, so the new Director will need to deal with the technical aspects of that platform. You won’t be doing the programming and getting into the weeds of Magento’s integration with the business, but you will need to be snow proofed in Magento in order to deal with the people who will. Additionally, InkedShop uses drop shippers for part of its online business, so a working knowledge of purchasing, logistics / supply chain, inventory management, and customer service is required. FYI, the company’s fulfillment center is based in New York.
On the people side of the equation, you’ll inherit a designer, a merchandiser, and an analyst. For the most part, there are no fires to put out: The current Director is leaving to pursue other opportunities, and InkedShop’s ecom team, processes, and technologies have worked well up to this point. Whether these things are scalable to $20 million remains to be seen. If you are not a growth oriented ecommerce executive, this probably isn’t the opportunity for you.
More than anything, it is absolutely essential that you understand multichannel, multitouch customer acquisition and attribution. In InkedShop’s case, that starts with an industry-leading knowledge of social media, including the legal aspects of social media marketing. Not that the client’s market is a legal minefield, but InkedShop gets so much of its traffic through social media that a thorough understanding of how to grow and manage the risks of that is channel critical.
Responsibilities:
- Drive traffic to internet sites through, search engines, keywords, banner placements and other appropriate placements.
- Work closely with internal and external resources in the development and execution of marketing strategies.
- Kindle digital word of mouth marketing and consumer awareness through relevant and targeted promotions.
- Oversee all online marketing investments, from budgeting to ROI justification and team management for search, SEO, Affiliate and Email, etc.
- Work with the Marketing and Creative group to improve site performance visibility.
- Manage all content strategy, contact strategy, and promotional calendar.
- Work with selected media outlets to secure free publicity regarding our differentiated retail offering.
- Communicate plans, programs, and results to the management team and board.
- Work with designers and web master to create variants and test pages necessary for testing.
- Work with internal and external resources to ensure that new web site content, designs and feature introductions are optimized for search engines.
- Ensure proper selection and representation of merchandise on the web.
- Supervise the customer service function on internet questions, purchases, returns, order tracking, etc.
- Communicate with the Distribution Center on fulfillment issues.
- Ensuring shipping method and delivery schedule meets customer requests.
- Develop and manage a process for customer feedback including regular reporting to executive management.
- Oversee the hiring and reviews process for the ecommerce team and ensure proper training and development.
- Create and maintain budget for company and develop tracking mechanisms.
- Develop and execute the email marketing strategy.
- Work in conjunction with Marketing to develop a successful strategic email marketing campaign calendar.
- Build file of marketable email addresses with better internal email capture programs across multiple channels, third party email acquisition programs, more flexible and targeted email permission options, win-back strategies for opt-outs, and new approaches to improve deliverability.
- Experience managing PPC campaigns across Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
- Expert knowledge of performance marketing, conversion, and online customer acquisition strategies.
- Proficient in Microsoft Excel. You should love spreadsheets and lots of data.
- Expert with web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Coremetrics, etc.
Background Requirements:
- College degree (MBA a plus).
- 3+ years experience in web environment; 3-5 years experience in retail operations capacity, preferably with a multi-channel retailer (with management experience).
- Deep knowledge of Ecommerce operations and thorough familiarity with the online space.
- Experience designing online customer experiences.
- Demonstrated competencies in ecommerce technology, supply chain, fulfillment and call center functions.
- Proven experience in creating effective teamwork and an environment conducive to developing cross-functional collaboration
UPDATE: THIS SEARCH IS CLOSED
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