Niki Susskind from Interning at Fashion Magazines to Website Merchandiser at Net-A-Porter without studying Fashion

Niki Susskind, 25 is the Website Merchandiser at Net-a-Porter. Without a fashion education background, she has built her way up in the industry through many internships from when she was 18, working at fashion magazines to build her CV. In this interview, she shares with us how she went from working in the editorial world to the e-commerce department, leveraging internships at Vogue, Elle, WWD and other publications to land a job as Assistant Web Merchandiser. We discuss also her fascinating role, what she likes the most about her job and her tips for those who want to work in fashion.

Enjoy it!

1. Hi Niki! Could you please introduce yourself to the Glam Observer Community?

Hi! My name is Niki Susskind, I’m 25 living in London and I work as a Website Merchandiser at NET-A-PORTER. 

2. What did you study?

I studied French and Spanish at the University of Nottingham in the UK. 

3. You got internships at fashion magazines even without a fashion education background. We always encourage our community by saying that also people who don’t study fashion can make it in this industry. Can you give us your opinion on this based on your experience?

I personally think it’s not compulsory to study fashion if you want a career in the industry as I’m an example of this! So for me as I lacked formal experience (in the form of a fashion-centric official degree) what I instead focused on was my practical experience in Fashion as I knew I wanted to study languages at uni. So I made sure every summer from when I was 18 I was interning at Fashion magazines to help bolster my fashion experience and grow my CV each year! 

4. You have many experiences as a Fashion Intern at Fashion Magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Sunday Times Style, WWD daily. How did you go from one to another and what have you learned the most? 

I made sure that I was squeezing the most out of each internship I did, in the way of working really hard, trying to really make a difference/bring ideas to the table/making really strong contacts with key people I was working with! These relationships I fostered allowed me to access more opportunities as the years went on. 

5.After all your internships at many big fashion publications, you have decided to go into Website merchandising at Net-a-Porter and not working at a fashion magazine. Why?

Although I definitely had a passion for the editorial world, I knew I also really wanted to explore digital fashion as nowadays so much of what we know is stepping over to an online, paperless realm. For me, this job at NAP is a perfect mix of true fashion/trend/style/brand knowledge and a commercial/business/strategy/data driven outlook – the business side is something I’m really grateful to be learning more about. 

6.How have you used your previous experiences at Fashion Magazines to get your first role as Assistant Website Merchandiser? Have you done something special during your job application?  

The skills I had been growing and refining at all the fashion magazines and in fashion PR  were extremely transferable when it came to applying them to the Assistant Web Merch role. I made sure to express my real passion for fashion and my extensive brand knowledge and this was key in how I knew I could trade product on the NAP site. I think it’s also of course really important when interviewing to be really enthusiastic and personable and show you’re willing to work really hard! 

7. Could you please describe your role as Website Merchandiser at Net-A-Porter and tell us what do you do?

As a Website Merchandiser I am responsible for trading specifically the Clothing site section of the NET-A-PORTER website on a global scale. This means that the product on the first page of Clothing/Dresses/Tops etc is hand-picked and curated by me, ensuring I am reflecting current seasonality, trends, key product, supporting our buy, giving good visibility to highly invested pieces, and refreshing this multiple times weekly. I also am responsible for the visual merchandising of the What’s New section for the European region of our website (our site is divided into 3 regions globally: Europe, America and Asia) – ensuring I am again curating every new batch of product that comes into the business and ensuring I am merchandising according to all the aforementioned, but also responding to our European customers’ needs: ie what designers do they shop from most? What product type do they buy more of? All of this is informed by data – which is another key part of my role – using adobe analytics which tracks our customer behaviour to inform our VM. We look into top viewed designers/pages/how our customer filters/what they search. This not only informs our product selection but also allows us to amend the navigation/taxonomy of the site – for eg we noted the customer searching for tie dye in the thousands at the start of the year so we took that data and manifested it on site in the way of a “trending now – tie dye” page which we added to the Clothing “shop by” section in the drop down when you hover over Clothing on desktop. We also product select and curate the pages of trend-led pages in all emails sent to our global customer and homepage features. It’s very much about site optimisation, ensuring we are being as fashion forward and trend led whilst being really reactive and giving the customer as sleek an experience as possible! 

8.What do you like the most about your job?

I absolutely love coming up with innovative ideas, working with amazing people and seeing these ideas come into fruition on site! I recently project led NET SUSTAIN which is our new destination on site dedicated to only sustainable product.

9.What is the first thing you do when you get into the office?

I get a coconut milk flat white, chat with my amazing colleagues and go through my emails – and of course open the NET-A-PORTER website 😉

10. What are your tips for those who want to start a career in fashion?

 I would say find any contact you can and grab hold of it, show your passion and enthusiasm for fashion and ensure you’re really making strong bonds with whoever you work with. An opportunity always leads to more opportunities if you make an amazing impression! Also always chase! If someone wasn’t replying I would keep emailing until they did (haha – not in an annoying stalker-ish way but just to show I wasn’t being lazy or letting an opportunity slip away!)

Want to get a job in fashion? Check out our online course How to break into the fashion industry and join other girls who got their jobs at Vogue, Dior, LVMH…