About Annie Schtevie
My name is Annie Schtevie and I am currently an E-commerce Merchandise Manager and Buyer for the contemporary women’s clothing and lifestyle brand, Splendid. I also run a vintage clothing company based in NYC with my husband, called Table & Thread Co. Vintage. I’ve worked in various areas of the industry–buying, planning, sales, & e-commerce within many product categories – men’s, kids, women’s, and even watches & fine jewelry. My relevant passions lie in sustainable/circular fashion, trend forecasting, e-commerce, fashion history, and vintage clothing.
I studied Fashion Merchandising at the University of Delaware, where I was able to take classes that prepared me for the fashion workforce through various networking opportunities and valuable buying and product development projects that simulated real day-to-day tasks those roles would have to complete. In Delaware’s FASH program, we also learned about international trade & tariffs in relation to apparel which is SO important to understand in today’s climate.
Question 1: As a Buyer/E-commerce Merchandise Manager, what are your primary responsibilities? What does a typical day or week look like to you? Which part of the job do you find most exciting? Were there any aspects of the position that surprised you after you started?
Annie: My primary responsibilities include both developing and executing a sitewide merchandising strategy for our direct-to-consumer website (www.Splendid.com) that does about $22 million in sales annually, utilizing various merchandising & analytics software such as Bloomreach and Shopify Plus. I also plan and write omnichannel buys for almost all categories we carry – we actually have 17 stores in the U.S. and they are in my purview, as well! I would say I am somewhat of a liaison between the buying teams and the e-commerce teams because my job involves the best of both worlds.
In my day to day, I ideate and implement curated shops and capsules on site to align with email marketing, homepage content, and social media. I choose all the products we feature in our emails, categorize products in Shopify, merchandise different pages on the site, write buys, & work with many different teams (planning, marketing, e-commerce, etc.). A lot of my tasks involve looking for ways to boost conversion and sales metrics on our site through double-exposure opportunities, grouping collections together, and adjusting the website in real-time based on results, pricing, and inventory.
My favorite part of my role would have to be the actual site merchandising itself – part of it is left up to an algorithm, but other parts can almost feel artisticlike I am making a collage – I get to decide where the products sit on every page on the site, making sure the products flow visually and make sense to the customer (& encourage them to buy more items!) for the entirety of their journey on our site. When I started, I was surprised at how much involvement the buying team had with the e-commerce business; I hadn’t experienced that as much in my previous roles.
Question 2: Before your current role as a Buyer/e-commerce merchandise manager, you held positions as an assistant buyer and then an associate buyer. How did the responsibilities differ across these roles?
Annie: When I was an Assistant/Associate Buyer, my role was a lot more product and store-focused, I was consistently communicating with vendors, preparing for style-outs (where we lay up the product assortment and make sure there is no duplication/that all bases are covered), working on smaller category buys, communicating with stores, & making decks that showed how the stores should layout their product, etc. I regularly traveled to some of the stores to get feedback/see the product merchandising. My involvement in website and email marketing was more limited, but I had more involvement in products and stores.
Question 3: When developing an e-commerce merchandising strategy, how do you determine which product categories or styles to prioritize? What key factors do you evaluate in this process?
Annie: There are many different factors when it comes to why a certain product or category would be prioritized on our website and it is definitely both an art and a science! Here are some factors I consider:
- Styles with the most units bought/the biggest marketing stories are generally prioritized: Things highest up on the site landing pages will have the most eyes on them
- Styles that are featured in specific marketing/homepage content/an ad leading to that particular landing page: If a customer is on the home page and sees a photo of a dress with a button saying “shop all dresses”, you want to make sure that dress in the picture is at the top of the respective page they are ending up on even if it isn’t the biggest buy or best seller
- Best-Selling Product: In general, I make sure our best-performing products are closer to the top of the given pages. Performance can be more than just sales – look at sales units, sales volume ($), conversion rate, add-to-cart rate (ATC), and even reviews (products with good reviews also usually mean less chance of getting returned). On the flip side, sometimes I want to push slower-selling products with a lot of units left over maybe during certain sales, so I have to consider when to boost slower sellers in order to move through inventory
- Styles that are most relevant to a given page’s product set: For example, if you have tees and tanks both living on “The Tee Shop” on-site, it would usually make sense to lead with Tees for relevance
Question 4: How important are data and technology, such as business analytics tools, in supporting your merchandising decisions like selecting products and pricing? How do you balance data-driven decision-making with creative merchandising in an e-commerce environment?
Annie: Data, in general, is super important in merchandising decisions – this could refer to selling data or also our site metrics. All the business and sales results we see on a weekly and even daily basis impact how I adjust the site in real-time. The true proof of customer behaviors and preferences lies in the numbers and sales. It is a difficult balance to make the merchandising/color story flow on site (appeasing the buying/creative team) and letting the algorithm do its job and/or using data for merchandising decisions (which the e-commerce team would prefer). I tend to use my best judgment, and I’m not scared to experiment or take an A/B test to figure out what the best choice is!
Question 5: Omni-channel retailing continues to grow in popularity among clothing retailers. What unique merchandising challenges does this model present, particularly in inventory management, pricing, and assortment management? Additionally, what key industry trends should we watch in omni-channel retailing and e-commerce clothing businesses?
Annie: One big challenge we are facing in this space is that we recently opened up the capability for ship-from-store (so our web customers can order products even if the warehouse has run out of them if our stores still have the stock on hand). There were definitely a lot of learning moments and speed bumps for the team with this: making sure the stores’ inventory was properly cataloged so they didn’t get orders for things they already ran out of, making sure the items they were shipping were not “store worn” or pilled from being on the floor, having the proper staffing to account for web orders, training the store teams on picking/packing web orders, how that changes our buy unit amounts if we expect web customers to be able to dip into store stock–does that mean we should buy more inventory for stores? How can we financially plan for that? And what happens with returns? Do we need to turn it off during high-traffic times like Black Friday (if the speed at which things are selling in-store is too quick to update the stock in Shopify.) So much to consider with this one and it took a lot of careful consideration and testing first in a small group of doors.
Today’s customers are very smart/aware of what they are buying and expect a lot in the way of convenience when they shop online (& in stores) it is important for retailers to have a streamlined experience, where a customer can buy/return from anywhere, other stores can easily transfer stock/sizes around, discounts/promotions are the same across channels, assets are shared and tell a clear message in-store/email/social. It can be hard in larger (non-digital native) companies when people tend to work in silos and sometimes don’t even realize they are requesting duplicate work or should be incorporating a visual or signage based on stories we are pushing in marketing. But I would say this is one of the most important things for larger/legacy companies to make sure they have covered.
Question 6: What advice would you give to students interested in pursuing a career path in buying and merchandising? Are there any specific experiences or opportunities at UD and in the FASH program that you would highly recommend for our students?
Annie: Don’t be afraid to share your opinions/ideas and have a point of view, however, definitely take the time to listen and take notes, and learn from others when you start in your role. Buying can be volatile at times so be able to adapt to different situations/timelines that may come up. Getting to be creative is my favorite part of buying and site merchandising, so I definitely try to take on those types of projects, when possible. And, of course, I also have my vintage fashion side hustle, which keeps things fun/hobby-like in addition to my full-time job! It is fun/valuable to be multi-faceted.
A couple of my favorite experiences in the UD Fash program were studying abroad in Paris (taking the Trend Forecasting course and Haute Couture Course covered both sides of the trend pendulum–past & future, which definitely sparked a passion for me). I also appreciated getting to participate in the Fashion Scholarship Fund case study and attend the FSF Gala, as well! Some of my favorite courses were Professor Lu’s course on international trade & sourcing (which was so useful/informative & up-to-date), the Fashion Art studio course (I love being creative), 20th Century Fashion History (which I was taking at the same time as a music history course and it was cool when they overlapped e.g. Woodstock & 60’s-70’s fashion of that era!), and one class where we got to plan a merchandising assortment & create our own department store/buying plan/strategy!
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