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Role Call | Nicolas Pickaerts, E-Commerce Director

Nicolas Pickaerts, e-commerce director at MatchesFashion.com, says "Pace and innovation is key in making a difference among the competition. You can only progress if you look at how to improve what you do."
Nicolas Pickaerts | Source: Courtesy
By
  • Kati Chitrakorn

There are few sectors of the economy that offer as wide and interesting a range of career opportunities as fashion. Role Call highlights some of the industry’s most interesting jobs and the talented people who do them. For more information about fashion industry roles like this and others, visit BoF Careers.

LONDON, United Kingdom — Nicolas Pickaerts is the e-commerce director of MatchesFashion.com, where he is responsible for optimising customer site experience and driving online visibility. After studying business in France, Pickaerts spent eight years as the head of business development at Pixmania.com, an e-commerce company specialising in electronics and home appliances, before crossing over into the cosmetics industry to become e-commerce director for the NAOS Group, which includes skincare brands Bioderma and Esthederm. Pickaerts joined multibrand luxury retailer MatchesFashion.com in early 2013.

BoF: Please describe your current role.

As e-commerce director at MatchesFashion.com, I’m responsible for driving global visibility and profitable growth while ensuring that we make modern luxury shopping as effortless as possible for our customers. More specifically, I look after the whole journey of our customers online, overseeing the acquisition, trading, CRM, MyStylist (our 24/7 online and on-the-phone concierge service) and customer care departments. I make sure that we offer a consistent experience to our clients, regardless of how they choose to engage with us, driving the maximum exposure and reach for the business. As we aim to have a full 360 approach, I also work very closely with all our other departments: technology, buying, merchandising, editorial, PR, finance, logistics and retail.

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BoF: What attracted you to the role?

It was really the vision of the founders of the business, Tom and Ruth Chapman, that made me realise how unique this opportunity was; to be able to play a key role in the digital transformation of MatchesFashion.com from bricks and mortar retail to online. It offered me the opportunity to try something different, which was part of the challenge. But more importantly, it’s been such an exciting opportunity to work for a company that is really willing to innovate, especially in an industry where there was — and there still is — so much to do and literally create.

Be curious: you need a very versatile profile to work in e-commerce.

BoF: What is the most exciting project or initiative you have worked on?

The overall digital transformation of the business has been the most exciting of all. The company is almost 30 years old, but Tom and Ruth understood that the way forward was online. Today, MatchesFashion.com does 85 percent of its business online and more than 70 percent of sales come from international markets. To support the transition and growth of the business, we have to keep improving our operations and deliver new innovations at a luxury level. Over the past 24 months alone, we have fully replatformed our business, replacing literally every single piece of technology in all our departments. We launched four new websites on a responsive design, moved our warehouse and launched a next day delivery service in Europe and the US. We opened our 24/7 customer care service and introduced new solutions to more efficiently manage our acquisition and CRM operations.

BoF: How is your role changing? What are the forces driving this change?

With the growth and global nature of the business, my role is naturally changing to support a more localised approach, with a stronger emphasis on management. We also strongly believe in the support of technology to offer our customers the best possible shopping experience online. Therefore, testing campaigns and learning from data-driven analysis are part of my daily routine.

BoF: Tell us about a time you failed and how you learned from it.

A few years ago, I worked on a massive campaign that I knew would make a big difference for the business I was working for at the time. I was really excited about it as I knew it would drive maximum exposure and traffic, and have a strong positive impact on our sales. I worked especially hard on making sure all details of the campaign would be perfect and agreed for it to go live with confidence… only to see the site crashing just a few minutes after launch. Thankfully, we managed to bring it back up quickly, but I learned the hard way the importance of working closely with all departments to ensure a full success. I didn’t properly discuss it with our technology team at the time and we were not able to cope with the increase in traffic. It's a good lesson I’m still very much paying attention to today.

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BoF: What advice do you have for people who are interested in doing what you do?

Pace and innovation is key in making a difference among the competition. You can only progress if you look at how to improve what you do. If you keep patting yourself on the back, you can be sure you won’t do a great job for long.  Be curious: you need a very versatile profile to work in e-commerce. You need to know about online marketing, products, payments, logistics, CRM, technology, budgeting — which is why curiosity is the key in learning and progressing. Having a hands-on approach also really makes a difference. It's very important to stay connected with your market, customers and team. Last but not least, you’ll need a lot of energy to improve your operations at fast pace, so eat well and exercise when you can, as this will help you perform better.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

For more information about fashion industry roles like this and others, visit BoF Careers.

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