Something we bemoan a lot around here is the failure of Australian retailers to offer us a compelling online shopping experience. Don’t they know that Australians LOVE to shop online? Why are they letting more than half our (multi-billion dollar) online spend go overseas, often to stores which are smart enough to actively court the Australian market, such as Topshop and The Book Depository?

We have heard various excuses thrown around – the market’s too small, early adopters were burned years ago when the market wasn’t established, franchisees won’t support it – but none of them are washing with us. We think the industry needs to put on its big girl pants and face up to the realities of 21st century retailing.

The fact is that Australians are big online spenders, and given that many of us are geographically isolated (from high-street retailers at least), and all of us are spending more time online, we’re only going to spend more this way.

There are a few local retailers who are getting it right: JB Hi Fi, Dick Smith, Sportsgirl and Witchery are notable for their online success. Just recently Big W has decided to make a serious investment in the digital space, which makes it the only department store in the country that’s bothering in any substantial way. Have the others not heard that the John Lewis department store in the UK sells more via their website than from their flagship Oxford Street store (which has ten times the staff)?

To add insult to injury, the websites of domestic department stores don’t contain comprehensive product lists, which makes them as useless for research as they are for actual shopping.

So, what do you think: will Australian retailers hurry up and get with the program or sit back and watch an increasing share of consumer spending go to savvy operators overseas?

Teresa Sperti, Head of Marketing & Technology at realestateVIEW.com.au and author of the Digital Marketing Lab blog shares some interesting statistics in this article:
Online Retailing – Unfashionable Down Under

This week we’re on the sofa with Justin Compton (pictured above with Yvonne Hughes and Katherine Incledon from our team), visual merchandising expert and lecturer at RMIT School of Design TAFE.

 How did you get started as a visual merchandiser?
 I actually started off doing graphic design, but then did a course in visual merchandising. My first job was with Henry Bucks on Collins Street, and from there I went to Nike, Daimaru and Myer. Department stores provide a great training ground for visual merchandisers because you get to work on such a wide variety of projects – everything from perfume displays to fashion shows.

 What makes a good visual merchandiser?
 Primarily, it’s about creativity and an eye for design, but there are a lot of other skills that you need, like being able to think on your feet and take directions. You need to enjoy a challenge and very hard work. It’s very hands on. Being able to interpret what the client wants – and help them work this out when they aren’t sure – is also very important. This means asking the right questions and really listening to the answers.

What sort of jobs are out there?
It’s really broad now – visual merchandisers are employed in all kinds of contexts including retail, events, photographic styling and exhibition design. Our course enables students to get a lot of hands-on experience and discover which aspect of the profession most interests them. We connect them with businesses for volunteer placements as part of our mentor program and we sometimes even get paid jobs for them. We also get them to work with third-year photography students so they can learn to style shoots.

What always surprises people when they start work as visual merchandisers?
The hours! It’s not a 9 to 5 job. Visual merchandisers often have to work around store opening hours or fit in with other people like photographers and contractors – or even the weather – so flexibility is important.

How do you select students for your course?
We look for people who are very creative and have a passion for the industry.

Finally, what is the job market for merchandising like in Australia?
 It’s actually very good because there are a lot of big retailers here who understand that visual merchandising is an important part of the marketing mix. Australia is right up there with the US and Europe in terms of the sophistication of visual merchandising. Jobs aren’t often advertised – usually it’s a case of word of mouth. It’s a small industry, so it’s important to build your network of people in the industry.

It’s been interesting for the rest of us to watch the process of Mel becoming (very vaguely and locally) famous. Her lack of vanity has shocked us: who would have thought she’d back up for a photo shoot sans slap?! We’ve also been surprised by her concern that she might be perceived as a “bit of a wanker” despite the fact that she is extremely self-aware and earthy.

Overall, we suspect she’s enjoyed the attention, but we’re pretty sure that the next person who asks her for an amusing anecdote about her childhood will receive a sharp slap.

Electile dysfunction

This will probably be the first and last time we blog about Federal politics, but how about that election…

We hope that when the votes are counted and the backroom deals done, we end up with a government that puts social justice and addressing global warming high on its agenda. (We also hope that we get to see a lot more of Bob Katter spouting wacko theories on TV.)

Lucy is an AFL player agent who was actually the first woman to gain accreditation by the AFL Players Association . Lucy works for Connors Sport Management, who manage many high profile players including Luke Hodge, Adam Goodes and Chris Judd (as well as his bride-to-be Rebecca Twigley!). Lucy completed a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Sports management at Deakin University.

What does an agent do?  Amongst other things, we negotiate contracts for clients, liaise with the media and work hard on building networks with potential clients and families.

How did you get started in the industry?  I’ve been with Connors Sports Management since 2002. After completing an 80-hour work experience placement for my university degree they offered me a part time job while I finished my degree, and I’ve been here ever since!

What do you enjoy most about the role?  I love the fact that no two days are the same. Dealing with a wide variety of people is really interesting and challenging at times. Also as ours is a very small agency so I work across all aspects of the business.

What is the toughest thing about you role?  Being on call 24/7.

When you hire someone, what are you looking for?  Someone who is enthusiastic and keen to learn. Someone capable of working on their own without constant supervision.

What are the biggest challenges facing player agents?  Well, it’s an interesting time to be working in the AFL industry! There’s a lot of change underway with the league expansion (inclusion of Gold Coast and GWS teams) and free agency is also coming in during the next few years.

What is the key to being a successful player agent?  Excellent communication and time management skills are really important. The job is all about dealing with managing people so you also need to have good interpersonal skills.

What advice would you give to someone trying to break into the industry? Contacts are the key!

Instructional or diary blogs have their place, but when you want a really good laugh – with a life-affirming side serve of shadenfreude– it’s a bitchy blog that you’ll be needing. So, grab yourself a cuppa, put a continence pad in your knickers, and check out our favourites…

Regretsy

The cleverly titled regretsy is the work of April Winchell, an American humorist who was only recently outed as the blogger behind this gem. Regretsy features (for which read ‘mocks’) art and craft works for sale on etsy.com. (If you don’t know what etsy is, do yourself a favour and get over there NOW.)

The blog has its own catchphrases and mascots based on particularly memorable etsy items and while it is funnier if you’re familiar with the bizarre etsy sub-culture (teddy bears with vulvas appliquéd on them, anyone?), you’ll find it a riot even if you’ve never lusted after a homemade dream catcher.

People of Walmart

What’s not to love about a blog with such a simple and compelling premise: it’s fun to look at photos of ugly Americans. This one isn’t good for the soul (fat people have feelings too, right?) but boy is it addictive. Keep an eye out for the fabulously flamboyant old black dude who is a repeat offender.

Unhappy hipsters

This witty blog is the perfect antidote to an afternoon spent leafing through Tyler Brule magazines at the hairdresser. It features photos from American interiors magazine Dwell, which we will admit to loving, with captions highlighting their pretentiousness. If you enjoy this one, you might also like Catalogliving which purports to be the blog of a couple trapped in a catalogue home, and Lookatthisfuckinghipster.com which features photos of prats so ironic they’re moronic. 

gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/

This blog takes aim at the fashion choices of US celebrities. The authors’ natural warmth and obvious love of celeb culture stops it from veering into vicious tabloid territory, but it’s still wickedly good fun. The imagined conversations between celebs posing on the red carpet are a highlight.

If you’ve discovered a brilliantly bitch blog, share the love via our comments section!

Yvette, you bravely took on the job of sorting out (GXYSearch Director) Mel’s wardrobe. What did her wardrobe say about her?

She’s a very casual, chilled-out person with a sense of fun.

Well, nothing says fun like a dozen fake fur gillets! What is the scariest thing you’ve found in a client’s wardrobe?

Sex toys aside, a particularly hideous ball gown that looked like something from a Disney film. It took me a while, but I finally helped the client to see that it did her no favours (even a cartoon Cinderella would have struggled to pull it off!) She eventually agreed to give it to her daughter as a dress up.

What makes someone call you?

It’s usually one of two things: they’re bored with their look and ready for a makeover or their wardrobe is a total mess and they can’t face tackling it alone.

What exactly do you do for your clients?

A range of things: whatever it takes to get their wardrobe working for them, basically. Usually a clean out, an audit and some help with shopping and putting outfits together. I can help organise other areas too: desks are a favourite of mine.

Are people nervous about letting you into their inner sanctums?

Definitely! It’s not unusual for a client to try to cancel just before I arrive because they’re so embarrassed about the state of their house. I usually manage to talk them into proceeding by reassuring them that I’m unshockable. Let’s face it, if people weren’t in a mess, I wouldn’t be in business.

Is it an emotional experience for some clients?

Yes, but in a good way. The process can be confronting, but overall my clients find it very freeing. I had one client who threw out 10 garbage bags of quality clothes she’d collected over decades. She said it made her feel ready to start the next phase of her life.

Does anyone really have one of those 12-item capsule wardrobes you read about in magazines?

Not in my experience. Let’s face it, most women can’t pop out to buy milk without coming back with a new scarf.

What’s your own wardrobe staple?

For me it’s black pants. No matter how many dresses I buy, I end up back in the dreaded black pants!

Yvette Sormann is a Melbourne stylist and wardrobe consultant. You can read more about her business, Closette, here .

How did you get started in the industry?
I served a life setence in corporate HR before realising that if i wanted to use a really excellent recruitment agency I’d have to start it myself.

What do you love/hate about working in recruitment?
Love – I still get a real buzz from connecting talented people with great employers. Hate – the dodgy reputation that the industry has.

How do you maintain a work/life balance? If at all…
I’m really big on this. I do tai chi (which everyone thinks is hilarious given how hyper I am) and take regular holidays.

Where do you find inspiration?
Everywhere! I’m always travelling and meeting people and reading (embarrassing) management books. If I stop learinng I get really bored.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made at work?
Thinking I could get surfers to act like ’suits’ (when I was at RipCurl).

Who do you think is the most stylish Australian celebrity?
Pip Edwards.

When you hire someone junior, what are you looking for?
Someone who has loads of initiative because I haven’t got time to micromanage people (and I don’t want to anyway). I’d rather someone make mistakes than sit around waiting for instructions.

How do you know when it’s time to change jobs?
If I start turning up to work in my Ugg Boots that’s usually a bad sign…

Finish the sentence: I wish Gen Y….
Would loosen up (hideous sweeping generalisation alert!) Maybe I’m just a brazen old hussy, but I am constantly surprised by the conservatism of youth.

LinkedIn – the dominant social networking site for professionals – is often referred to as “Facebook for grown-ups”. It’s not. There’s nothing fun or goofy about LinkedIn. You can’t play idiotic games on it, you can’t join stupid fan clubs, and you definitely wouldn’t use it to share photos of yourself desperately necking a bottle of Bacardi at your bogan cousin’s 21st. Put it this way: if Facebook is Buenos Aires, LinkedIn is Brussels.

So, given our preference for beach parties over bureaucracy, we were as surprised as anyone by how much we’ve fallen for LinkedIn. And apparently we’re not alone, as it now has over 70 million users worldwide.

Basically, LinkedIn is really good at what it does, which is connecting professionals and helping them manage their careers. It doesn’t look sexy (I’ve heard it described as “myspace designed by Microsoft”) but it is easy to use and much of its functionality is free. Currently, it’s dominated by the more conservative professions, but this is changing. We’re seeing more and more people in fashion, media and sport getting on board.

LinkedIn is also becoming extremely popular with recruiters, who can use it to search for people by organisation or job title. We even know of one recruiter who claims to rely on LinkedIn exclusively to find candidates (we think he’s bullshitting, but he could just be way ahead of his time).

As a job seeker, you can use LinkedIn to

• Create a user profile, with photo, outlining your career history

• Create a network of contacts (you must know them or be introduced to them by someone you know)

• Mail people (which is handy if you don’t have someone’s email address)

• Research organisations

• Start or join professional or interest groups

• Save (i.e. bookmark) jobs you want to apply for

• Publish references about yourself.

So, in short, you’d be nuts not to be on LinkedIn. It only takes about half an hour to set up a profile and now is the time to do it (as opposed to the week before Christmas when you’ve just been made redundant and your broadband’s on the blink). Joining LinkedIn may not be as much fun as hanging out on Facebook, but it’s a smart thing to do. And if you don’t, we just might throw a sheep at you :)

Check ours out… GXY Search LinkedIn

Looking for a graduate position in fashion is a bit like searching for the perfect bikini: you know it’s out there somewhere, but you suspect that by the time you find it you will have lost all your self-esteem (and found yourself wearing bondage gear with a straight face).

So no, it isn’t easy. But nor is it impossible. As specialist fashion recruiters, we’ve seen a lot of people successfully launch careers in fashion (and even helped some through our XYG Graduate Service). Basically, there are two things you need to do to get a great first job in fashion (apart from being talented and passionate): stand out from the crowd and make yourself a low-risk proposition to employers.

Let’s start with your resume: it needs to be short, sharp, visually appealing and convey who you are. The creative types who work in fashion will no more wade through an 8-page CV than they will forgive an ugly font. Get it down to two pages and make it sexy. Show that you speak the same language as the tribe you’re approaching. Your CV for a job at Roxy needs to be very different from your CV for a job with Ralph Lauren. And don’t skimp on the personal details: talk about the magazines you love, the websites you frequent, the designers you admire, the books that inspire you. You are trying to convey that you ‘get’ their brand – you are one of them.

Secondly, make sure your folio is ready to go in case you get an interview. And keep it fresh. Your folio needs to show that you understand current trends. Generally speaking, you should omit work that is more than two years old unless it is award winning or exceptional and unique (and not just in your mother’s opinion).

Thirdly, GET SOME WORK EXPERIENCE! Even if it involves scrubbing out a skip on Christmas Day (for free), you need some industry experience on your CV. Technical experience in fashion is all well and good, but employers place a high value on practical on-the-job experience (and are attracted to candidates who demonstrate initiative by finding their own work experience placements). A placement will also help you start building your industry network and, if you’re a star, will often lead to a job offer or at the very least a fabulous reference.

Remember, in fashion it’s very much as case of who you know trumping what you know, so you need to get out there knocking on doors and making calls until someone gives you a break. (And if all else fails, skip the hair wash for a few weeks and hang around American Apparel in your bondage bikini looking depressed. You’ll be snapped up in no time.)

If you’re anything like me, you find updating your CV to look for a new job about as enjoyable as cleaning up vomit. In fact, a good friend of mine is so intimidated by the thought of putting a new resume together that she’s stayed with the same organisation for 15 years. Seriously.

Accordingly, when I heard rumours that the CV was “dead” – or at least dying – I could not have been happier. What I didn’t realise, however, was that it’s being replaced (or supplemented) by something involving a lot more work: a compelling online presence.

At this stage, the trend is confined pretty much to creative and digital fields because blogs, web profiles and social media provide an excellent showcase for creative work. They also provide evidence that you’re social or digital media savvy, which is increasingly valued by employers. That said, the trend isn’t confined to sexy industries. A linkedin profile, for example, is pretty much expected if you are a professional in middle or senior management.

The benefits to employers of these ‘alternative CVs’ are obvious: a person’s online presence tells you way more about them than a static 4-page document ever could. Some sites, like Linkedin, even help employers head hunt potential candidates.

There are many different ways to construct an online profile, and what you do will depend on your industry and the time you’ve got to put into it. Tying the various strands of your online profile together is a good idea. For a great example of this, check out this academic’s profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/clay.spinuzzi#about

As you can see, it links to all manner of social media as well as a more formal CV and blog. A potential employer only has to glance at this profile to realise this is a dude who is seriously into what he does.

A blog is usually the best way to showcase your talents and yourself, but it will take serious work and there’s no point starting one unless you are committed to making it work. An unloved blog is worse than no blog at all and screams “this person is not a finisher”.

Also, if you’re going to use a blog – or any form social media – as part your resume, you need to put enough of your personality into it to make it interesting, but hold enough back not to alienate recruiters. Your views on Web 3.0 are interesting, your love of authentic Thai food is cute, your commitment to the legalisation of cannabis is not something you need to share! And you’d better believe that employers and recruiters are Googling you, whether or not they admit it.

So, to answer the question at hand, it would seem that the CV is not so much dead as on steroids. If you don’t want yours to look weak, start thinking of ways to beef it up online.

And if you’ve got any great examples of online resumes – or want to showcase your own – be sure to leave a comment below. We’d love to see your stuff!