This the second episode of our Amazing Women in Ecommerce series (AWIE). AWIE was launched by Yotpo in 2018 to celebrate how women are leading and shaping the ecommerce industry. In this episode we talk to Sera Volau, Kookai’s Ecommerce Product Manager, about her ecommerce journey and how Kookai is approaching ecommerce on Shopify.
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Tl;dr
- The skills a product manager brings to ecommerce
- Operational considerations for multi-store management
- Omnichannel ecommerce on Shopify
KOOKAÏ was originally founded in Paris in 1983 with a simple vision to offer fashionable, high quality pieces at accessible prices. In 1992, the founders of KOOKAÏ Australia introduced the Parisian label into the lives and wardrobes of the Australian woman, with the opening of their first boutique on Melbourne’s Chapel Street.
As part of our series celebrating the achievements of leading women in ecommerce, we sat down with KOOKAÏ’s ecommerce product manager to discuss how they’re using Shopify to grow online sales and deliver an excellent customer experience.
Tune in to listen to Sera Volau discuss her role as a product manager and explain some of the ecommerce technology selection decisions the business has made.
Listen to the other AWIE episodes
Discussion notes
- Congrats on being named a 2023 AWIE honouree. What attracted you to the community and what does being a part of it mean for you personally?
- You’ve been at Kookai for 10 years now, in diverse roles from HR to customer services and then into ecommerce in 2015 – how does this broader experience benefit an ecommerce team?
- In 2020 you moved into a product manager role. We’re seeing more investment in product management in the SME space in the UK, what specific skills does a product manager need that are complementary to what a traditional ecom manager brings
- What’s your approach to technology selection, as in do you ever build or is the focus on buying in specialist 3rd party tools?
- It’s a common refrain to hear people complain that a system doesn’t do what they’d hoped, or the UI isn’t intuitive enough. How do you ensure the business properly assesses the impact of 3rd systems and understands how it will impact day to day work?
- You’ve got 4 storefronts setup on Shopify, which I understand are separate instances – is there a reason you’re not using Markets, and do you intend to migrate over?
- You’re using Signifyd as a fraud management tool; what made Kookai decide this was need in addition to Shopify Payments native fraud screening, or is this more a play to increase acceptance rates?
- As with many Shopify merchants you have Klaviyo for marketing campaigns; what automations are you making use of and what impact are they having?
- How big is omnichannel selling for Kookai and how are you using Shopify to enable omnichannel capabilities e.g. Click & Collect, BOPIS, view store stock online?
- A big challenge for any retailer using different ecom and POS tech is enabling persistent baskets across the online to store journey; is cross channel browsing and purchasing important for Kookai and if so, how are you tackling this basket and checkout challenge?
Want to suggest a topic or guest for a future episode? Contact us via the website or on LinkedIn.
