Expert Interview I Dick de Leeuw from MR MARVIS

In the first episode of Conway Expert Interviews, we talk to Dick de Leeuw, e-commerce director at MR MARVIS, who revolutionises online retail by blending technical expertise with strategic vision.

We had the pleasure of talking with Dick de Leeuw, the e-commerce director at MR MARVIS.

With a tenure starting in August 2022, he has swiftly established internal tech teams and streamlined workflows, ensuring that MR MARVIS’s online presence not only meets but exceeds omnichannel expectations.

Educated in programming and having studied information sciences in Amsterdam, Dick’s foundation is deeply technical. While he acknowledges the temptation to dive back into coding, he emphasizes the importance of focusing on strategy and leveraging his team’s skills to meet goals, especially under tight deadlines.

Dick's approach is hands-on and strategic, reflecting a deep commitment to not just maintaining the status quo but actively enhancing MR MARVIS's e-commerce journey. His ability to balance the technical with the commercial, to stay involved without overstepping, exemplifies the modern e-commerce director's role: one that demands both a deep understanding of technology and a clear vision for its application in driving business success.

• Find Dick de Leeuw on LinkedIn.

• Explore the digital experience of MR MARVIS.

Watch the interview recording

Table of contents:

On playing the game of e-commerce
What does the life of an e-commerce director look like?
On the ambition and goals of MR MARVIS for 2024
Ways to emphasize the importance of technology to a company's stakeholders
Practical ways to stay customer-centric
Metrics, KPIs and looking at your North Star
How to find the best talent?
Growth flywheel: demand generation, capturing, and retention
On designing an e-commerce technology stack

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On playing the game of e-commerce

Jons: Dick, let's kick off with a general question. How do you approach the game of e-commerce and what aspects do you find enjoyable about it?

Dick: I've been driven by curiosity since a young age. My brother and I shared a fascination with programming early on. Nurturing this inquisitiveness is a key aspect of team culture for me.

I strongly believe that our ability to learn directly impacts our success. This encompasses various aspects like education, A/B testing, and the pace of work. Each website launch presents a valuable learning opportunity for me.

Jons: E-commerce is a continuous learning journey. How do you personally stay informed about the latest news and innovations?

Dick: Twitter is a valuable tool for me. I'm a bit of a Twitter addict, I admit. I follow many people, and their updates appear on my timeline, keeping me well-informed.

We encourage the whole team to do the same. It's not just me; the entire team should stay current. This includes staying updated on the latest React version or exploring domain-driven design. Curiosity is key in following news channels, websites, podcasts, occasionally purchasing books, and sharing them with employees, saying, "You should read this."

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What does the life of an e-commerce director look like?

Jons: Could you elaborate on your day-to-day role and how you handle its complexity?

Dick: Managing complexity for me revolves around agility. I break down large, intricate releases into smaller, more manageable ones. In technical terms, we often introduce new features using feature flags, gradually enabling them for a small percentage of users. While this approach may be challenging and not perfect, labelling it as a beta version allows us to gather valuable feedback. It's crucial to ensure both yourself and the team fully grasp any new updates.

As the Head of E-commerce, my daily responsibilities mirror this approach. I also serve as the scrum master, ensuring alignment within the team, maintaining appropriate backlogs and sprints, and overseeing feature releases. The website is always a work in progress, keeping us constantly engaged.

My team consists of seven individuals, including engineers, UI/UX designers, researchers, product managers, catalogue maintenance staff, and the head of e-commerce focusing on operational aspects.
There's much more to it than just a website. The website is ultimately just a link in the whole chain of the infrastructure. I recently did a quick count: 55 sub-systems have to interplay with each other to have a well-performing website. We have to make sure that those systems are aligned and all online, being monitored, being maintained. That's also where our team's time goes.

Jons: Could you provide further insight into the day-to-day operations? How would you describe the rhythm you maintain with your team?

Dick: We've combined Holacracy and SCRUM to create a unique working model that merges the best aspects of both approaches. Our e-commerce team operates in two-week sprints, a practice that has been embraced by other teams as well. These sprints kick off with what we call an e-commerce weekly meeting, where we not only focus on sprint planning and the backlog, but also delve into OKRs, KPIs, and review session recordings from our website to gather qualitative and quantitative insights. We share intriguing findings with other teams, fostering a culture of collaboration throughout the company.

Our E-commerce Weekly serves as the starting point for initiatives and encourages bottom-up input within my team. During the development phase of the sprint, we emphasize the importance of allowing ideas to flourish, embodying the core principles of Scrum Sprint. Our approach prioritizes rapid shipping, deployment, and an agile workflow, enabling us to learn and iterate swiftly by deploying features behind a flag and gathering insights promptly.

Following the sprint cycle, we conduct a retrospective to acknowledge achievements, unwind with a beer, and share a laugh before gearing up for the next sprint. On a broader scale, our team convenes every three, four, or five months for an e-commerce strategy session to anticipate upcoming priorities and align our tactical plans. These strategy sessions are synchronized with the management strategy updates, ensuring that our e-commerce tactics align seamlessly with the company's overarching direction. Should management decide to expand into a new market, we collaborate to break down the strategic vision into actionable steps for the e-commerce team and other relevant departments.

Jons: If you infuse a touch of personal touch into your digital leadership role, what do you consider truly crucial? I presume this is a key aspect, correct? Connecting with the management team, elucidating the intricacies of the technology we previously discussed, what do you believe are essential skills or capabilities for a digital leader?

Dick: Curiosity, pragmatism, and the ability to cut through the noise are crucial. While curiosity drives the exploration of new systems and technologies, filtering out distractions is equally important. Continuously jumping on every trend only leads to revisiting existing systems without adding real value for the end user or customer.
Simplifying complexity is a valuable skill. Communicating intricate concepts to non-technical individuals is challenging yet essential. Alignment among people and teams on a shared subject is key. My role is to clarify technical depth, identify obstacles, and address bottlenecks to facilitate progress.

Jons: Yeah, I can totally relate. It might be a bit personal, but what do you think about your personal growth? What are the areas you'd like to improve on for yourself?

Dick: I want to be able to communicate more. As someone who started out as a developer, my comfort zone is behind the laptop, coding, and delivering features. I thrive on building amazing things. But I find it important to overshare too. I prefer to communicate a bit too much in our Slack channels, reaching out to other teams and management. We could benefit from more frequent communication. This principle applies to the entire e-commerce team. It's all too easy to get caught up in the cycle of focusing solely on shipping tasks and tickets. When there's a mountain of work to tackle, communication often gets overlooked.

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On the ambition and goals of MR MARVIS for 2024

Jons: Technology in itself is not a goal, but it supports the business ambition and business goals and strategy, right? So, it also brings me to my next question. What is your team focusing on in 2024?

Dick: At MR MARVIS, we have expanded our product range significantly in the past year and are continuing to do so this year. This includes introducing new colours for existing products, new product lines, and new styles. In January, we launched our first shoe collection in collaboration with Filling Pieces. However, the growing product catalogue has created challenges for our IT systems, particularly in catalogue management, sorting, and filtering. This has now become a bottleneck for us that we aim to address by redesigning our website, which is the final piece in the chain. To ensure proper filtering and sorting, our content management system, Sanity CMS, needs to efficiently handle and store data for easy querying. Our headless website stack separates the front end from the back end, allowing for a more composable system.

Improvements in the data model for products are crucial too, but they must align with our ERP website, point-of-sale systems in stores, and Shopify, which serves as our order management system. Aligning these systems is a primary focus for us this year as we expand our product catalogue. Enhancing user experience with the catalogue involves not only standard sorting and filtering options but also personalized recommendations on the website. For example, based on the products a user already owns, we can suggest items that complement their outfits. This personalized approach goes beyond basic basket analysis, as we curate complete outfits in our backend. If a customer owns a specific pair of trousers, we can recommend a matching top in the right colour, enhancing their shopping experience.

For example, based on the products a user already owns, we can suggest items that complement their outfits. This personalized approach goes beyond basic basket analysis, as we curate complete outfits in our backend. If a customer owns a specific pair of trousers, we can recommend a matching top in the right color, enhancing their shopping experience.

Jons: Yeah, that's smart. And is your backend also fully composable? Or is there just one system currently, like Shopify?

Dick: Various systems are at play here. The line between the backend and the frontend is becoming blurred, with a significant amount of data residing in Sanity CMS. This platform offers extensive flexibility in structuring content and querying it. Within our headless architecture, once products are added to the cart, a connection is established between our website and Shopify. Subsequently, Shopify takes on the role of order management system and payment provider.

Ways to emphasize the importance of technology to a company's stakeholders

Jons: How do you explain the complexity and importance of those 55 different systems that you mentioned to your company's stakeholders and the management team?

Dick: When I first started at MR MARVIS, we had an IT chart overview in place. It soon became clear that this was just a part of the larger IT overview, so I created a new one.
And then it immediately became very visible. We could see a web of systems, nodes, and connections between them - the linkages were right there, unmistakable. It was very much in your face: the complexity we were dealing with.

We also have a dashboard that runs continuously, allowing everyone in the company to see our tech stack and the e-commerce team's activities. While we do have uptime monitoring in place, alerts are only sent to us if something goes down. I prefer not to alarm everyone unnecessarily; our setup is robust. However, I have held sessions within the company where I presented the e-commerce vision, explaining our operations, workflows, and objectives. The goal is to help others grasp both the day-to-day and strategic aspects of what we do.

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Practical ways to stay customer-centric

Jons: By having both online and offline stores, there are numerous avenues to boost customer centricity. What practical tactics does your team employ for this purpose? Do you conduct user research, for instance?

Dick: We conducted this activity where a member of our e-commerce team visited the store to observe customers, both silently and sometimes engaging with them for valuable insights into customer behaviour. Our focus is truly customer-centric, as IT serves as a means to achieve the ultimate goal of customer satisfaction and value delivery. This includes not only the physical product but also ensuring a seamless purchase experience, whether online or offline.

On our dashboard, we prominently display information about our customers, making it consistently top of mind. We also have developed personas, initially starting with three in the e-commerce team, but the concept has gained traction across other teams due to its practicality and enthusiasm. We also give names to these personas. For example, we have "Rudolph", and we may say "Rudolph would not understand this". It serves as a conversation starter.

Metrics, KPIs and looking at your North Star

Jons: Could you elaborate on the relationship between the metrics model you utilize? Did this model also stem from your e-commerce team?

Dick: We currently do not have a sophisticated metric model. While we haven't reached that level yet, our company benefits from having an excellent data team as a distinct business unit. This team supports us with our e-commerce metrics, primarily focusing on Conversion Rate (CVR) and Average Order Value (AOV). As a proxy for CVR, we track "Add to Cart" actions since our checkout process is predominantly managed by Shopify, limiting our ability to make significant adjustments. AOV is progressively gaining importance as we delve into personalization efforts and expand our product offerings, emphasizing cross-selling and the average item count per order.

Regarding the metric model, we do employ a funnel, as expected. However, our data team predominantly analyses things that have already happened. As we transition into a new phase, we aim to leverage the data silo and data warehouse proactively. We are exploring reverse ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) solutions to apply this information for on-site personalization initiatives, among other strategies.

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How to find the best talent?

Jons: How do you address talent acquisition and retention? Is this a challenge for you or do you find it easy to identify digital talent?

Dick: Easy and hard, let me explain. I follow, perhaps, an unconventional interview process, kept intentionally brief. I believe it's unfair to stretch out the evaluation unnecessarily, both for the candidate and ourselves. To me, it's more about assessing soft skills and personality first. It's crucial to envision a collaboration with this individual before focusing on technical skills. Given the rapid pace of the digital industry, today's crucial skills may become outdated in just five years. Hence, we prioritize a person who is adaptable, easy to work with, and quick to learn over someone who is solely an expert in a specific technology like React.

To me, it's more about assessing soft skills and personality first. It's crucial to envision collaboration with this individual before focusing on technical skills. Given the rapid pace of the digital industry, today's crucial skills may become outdated in just five years. Hence, we prioritize a person who is adaptable, easy to work with, and quick to learn over someone who is solely an expert in a specific technology like React.

However, I'll admit that it's challenging to hire senior roles, particularly in programming. Many boot camps produce programmers in three months, some of whom exhibit impressive qualities, while others show a strong appetite for learning during interviews. If a boot camp graduate struggles, we provide on-the-job education. Internal growth is vital. We allocate resources for self-improvement, including training, courses, off-site activities, knowledge-sharing within the team, and pair programming exercises. Recently, our team engaged in a hackathon where we utilized AI to create a new size guide using a GPT chat.

Growth flywheel: demand generation, capturing, and retention

Jons: There's a distinction between demand generation and demand capture, right? Typically, demand generation is associated with the Meta ecosystem, while demand capture is more linked to Google Search Ads. As MR MARVIS, where do you lean towards? Is this also part of your responsibilities?

Dick: Generating demand falls under the marketing growth team, distinct from the e-commerce team. Alignment is crucial. We furnish the necessary infrastructure, such as telemetry data tracking and conversion tracking, to support the marketing team. As for demand capturing, that's where the e-commerce team plays a role: helping people get rid of their money, ultimately.

Jons: Where does retention fit in - is it under the e-commerce team or marketing?

Dick: Retention can be viewed from various perspectives. It involves encouraging repeat purchases through targeted ads, assisting users with account management, and curating complete outfits. These aspects are handled by different teams within the organization, such as marketing and e-commerce.

Jons: Can you elaborate on how the growth flywheel functioned? What are the primary successful growth and acquisition strategies you've observed?

Dick: MR MARVIS heavily relies on successful ads, often serving as the initial touchpoint for many users before they visit the website and undergo retargeting. While the hope is for them to make a purchase, a soft conversion like subscribing to a newsletter is also valuable. Surprisingly, email marketing remains a robust revenue source, especially through newsletters, catering to a wide age range from the 20s to even the 70s and beyond.

Moreover, customers particularly appreciate the variety of colours available, prompting us to introduce new colours as an added incentive for them to revisit the website and explore the expanded range. Capitalising on the familiarity of sizing and styles, introducing new colours creates an excellent opportunity for cross-selling and outfit building.

As our product range grows, we are increasingly focusing on complete outfit suggestions, evident in our recent website updates featuring full MR MARVIS ensembles. Simplicity holds significant value across industries, guiding our emphasis on straightforward user interfaces, seamless experiences, and website development. Interestingly, despite being a men's brand, around 40% of our customers are women, either shopping for themselves or as gifts for others.

Jons: Are there any patterns you can observe or share between online and offline contexts? Do you notice any correlations in buying behaviour?

Dick: Many initial purchases are made in physical stores, especially by customers residing near a store, with subsequent purchases often shifting to online platforms.

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On designing an e-commerce technology stack

Jons: You mentioned the complexity of the stack and aspirations for personalization. I've come to realize that no technology stack is flawless; there are always drawbacks. Is there a specific area you wish to reinvent or one you wish had not been present before you joined the team? Any aspect that leaves you feeling dissatisfied?

Dick: I often find myself wondering why tasks like order processing or payment capturing have to be so challenging. We use Shopify and Shopify Payments, which work seamlessly online and offline. Yet, there's this persistent thought in the back of my mind that I should be able to code this myself - it's just the programmer in me. It shouldn't be this complicated. The complexity arises when dealing with shipping carriers, form field validations, and international addresses. Despite these challenges, I grasp the intricacies involved.

Jons: On the flip side, which system could be considered the most essential, the true core of the operation?

Dick: In today's landscape, it's Shopify and our laptops. Yet, the true essence lies in the people we have – fostering a culture of learning, flexibility, and adaptability. Every system is replaceable, albeit with potential costs.

Jons: Are there specific systems that they really cherish or get a lot of value out of?

Dick: I highly recommend Elevar, which essentially serves as a data layer as a service. It seamlessly integrates with Google Tag Manager and Shopify. Elevar simplifies the usual engineering tasks associated with events on a website, streamlining the process of sending data to Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and other systems. Essentially, Elevar manages all of that efficiently.

Jons: What specific feature do you believe truly sets MR MARVIS apart?

Dick: The concept of "shop the look" that I mentioned earlier is something we are continuously developing and will play a more significant role in the future. "Shop the look" will serve as the initial point of the customer's journey instead of simply browsing through categories. When you walk into a physical store, you also don't typically shop by category; you are drawn to what catches your eye, perhaps making a purchase based on an appealing display or style showcased on mannequins. In contrast, online shopping often starts with browsing categories. We are implementing numerous updates to enhance this experience. Personalization will play a crucial role for MR MARVIS, especially given the expanding product catalogue.

Jons: Thanks a lot, Dick. I think it was very insightful and we went quite in-depth, which I really enjoy. Hope to talk to you soon!