Ekta Chopra

I started at Charming Charlie, a women’s fashion accessories brand based in Houston, Texas. That’s where I got introduced to eCommerce. My role had always been in technology. But technology plays a huge role in eCommerce in general. The eCommerce platform connects to various other parts of the business and ties together the whole consumer journey.

Now, I’m leading eCommerce at e.l.f. Cosmetics. I’ve been part of this huge initiative to upgrade the eCommerce platform. Over time, eCommerce has evolved from just selling online to creating this brand presence and brand engagement. So I was in charge of leveraging data to really engage with the consumer. I was so curious about how you can take the data and incentivize people to purchase, learn their behavior, and personalize their digital and eComm experience.

My typical work day starts off with looking at sales. Then I have a couple of meetings around merchandising, how the site is set up, and any big promotions going on. We then look at our weekly plans so can we say, “Day one sales look like this, do we need to do anything differently to make sure we meet the plan?”

We also have a huge push around big products that we want to launch on a quarterly basis. How are we going to launch them onsite, what is the experience is going to look like, are we going to do a homepage takeover or is it going to be a small story, what sort of content needs to be associated with that product, and so forth.

There’s never a dull moment. It’s just it’s so interesting. The landscape is constantly changing, and there are other new players starting their own brands. How do you keep up with that momentum? I never know what to expect.

Know what you’re selling. Really understand the product. Know how are you going to sell it. And know who your target consumer is.

If you want to get into this industry, you need to understand the content, the product and the consumer: those three things.

It’s about understanding your consumers, so personalization is huge. For instance, in the beauty industry, it’s about understanding what type of skin type your customers have, what type of products they buy, and what colors they like.

If you ask the consumer for that data, you better use it. You better make their experience worth it. So whenever you offer them a promotion or an experience, you want to make sure it’s very personal to them and excites them. I think this is what everyone in the industry is trying to unlock.