Melissa Ng

This is technically my first role in eCommerce. I started out my career at an ad agency in Santa Monica and made my way through project management and client services. Then I worked at Shazam in client services there and later at BuzzFeed in product. From BuzzFeed, I landed at Society6. It’s been a really fun ride. I’ve wanted to work in eCommerce for a while. This has been a really good opportunity to transition into doing something that I love and getting to work in a space that really excites me.

It’s a little bit of everything — a little bit of planning, a little bit of replanning, a little bit of bugging everyone to get things back on schedule. It’s definitely a lot of corralling, specifically working in product — we work with engineers on the frontend and the backend, designers, and our internal business stakeholders. I have to figure out all the moving pieces and make sure that everybody is held to what they’re telling me they’re going to deliver. I come in with an idea of what I want to accomplish each day, and then it changes hour-by-hour.

I like that I work with such a great team. I’ve truly never been able to work at a place that’s so collaborative. Everyone here rallies behind the goal of making Society6 better, making the site better, making the shopping experience better, and trying to deliver the best-in-class products. I think that’s really exciting. It’s cool to see that energy around — it makes this a truly great brand.

What I always usually tell people is “don’t be afraid to try something new.” Don’t be afraid to take risks, take chances, try new things — don’t ever feel like you’re pigeonholing yourself. I’m such a shopping junkie myself, I was used to being the target customer. So it was really interesting to transition behind the scenes into what makes things work in eCommerce. When I started my career, I never would have thought that I would have wound up working in eCommerce.

From my perspective as a Millennial shopper, I think eCommerce is going to be more and more about the lifestyle and message behind each brand, as well as ease of experience. More and more, you’re seeing brands that are making products that are a little more like custom made.

Like, you can feel like you can design your own couch and then have that delivered to you. Versus the friction of needing to drag yourself to a store and sit on 50,000 couches only to find that each one is like a little bit off. So, I think the next big trend is minimizing that friction and making things easy and tailored to the customer. Making it easy to shop, easy to buy, and doing amazing things outside of the purchase experience, like supporting a cause or helping out in the local community.