In conversation with… Schuh ecommerce director Sean McKee

Established in 1981, Schuh has become a household name and now stocks a plethora of shoe brands, including Nike, Ugg, Vans, Converse and Dr Martens, across its 120 physical stores and online – and has retained its Scottish roots.

From Schuh’s headquarters in Livingston, ecommerce and customer experience director Sean McKee spoke to Retail Week about his career journey from shop floor to the boardroom.

McKee joined Schuh over 20 years ago as a deputy store manager and made the move to ecommerce 11 years later, giving him a wealth of experience to draw on in the new multichannel retail world and create better customer experiences online.

Last year, McKee gave his backing to Retail Week’s Be Inspired initiative as he seeks to drive diversity and inclusion in his team and beyond.

Each month, Retail Week introduces an inspiring figure in retail to find out more about their career journeys and their visions for the future of the sector. This month, McKee speaks of his love for encouraging the talent of the people around him and why diverse thinking is necessary in retail.

A traditional career path

“I’ve been at Schuh a long time,” says McKee. “I had a very traditional bricks-and-mortar retail career, working my way from deputy store manager to store manager to regional manager to divisional manager.”

McKee switched remits from physical to digital in 2010 and took on his current role as ecommerce and customer experience director in 2017.

Retail wasn’t always in his career plan, however, as he had been considering teaching as a profession. A self-confessed Francophile and lover of fine art, a career as a French teacher or art teacher were both on the cards – but McKee says “reality eventually caught up with him”. Instead, art and French remain his hobbies and passion.

Despite his enviable career, McKee jokes that he still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up, preferring to take any opportunity that arises.

Placing people at Schuh’s heart

McKee’s favourite part of his job is getting to work with the Schuh team on a day-to-day basis.

“I enjoy being surrounded by people who are lot more talented than me and watching them blossom.

“At Schuh, we give them the opportunity to think for themselves and genuinely empower them with decision-making ability that affects the business.

“It’s a real pleasure to see people grow over time because they’re inherently talented and all they need is the space and encouragement we give them.”

As part of his role, he also helps to craft training and development programmes for his employees, giving them opportunities to grow.

“It is just right that our workforce looks like the world around us, and it is inherently right that we build our teams in the right way to reflect that”

Attracting and retaining talent is a key goal for both McKee’s ecommerce team and the wider business as more people are required to drive real growth.

“Our business has a need for talent and talent is entirely agnostic about where it comes from,” says McKee when asked about why diversity and inclusion are important to Schuh.

“Above and beyond that it is just right that our workforce looks like the world around us, and it is inherently right that we build our teams in the right way to reflect that. It is also important that we get the right people for the right skills that we need, regardless of age, race or gender.”

Charitable goals

In recent years, Schuh has made a commitment to doing good and giving back to the community.

McKee details the charity work the retailer undertakes, giving every employee the chance to do a charity day each year.

In the lead up to Christmas, the ecommerce team takes part in local charity Social Bites’ Sleep in the Park event, raising money to tackle homelessness.

“The business has done a lot of work recently in articulating the values that are important to us, making sure that everyone is aware of our ethos and shares in our beliefs.

“Whether its mental wellness, empowering young people to do well, thinking about the environment – we need to make sure we’re reflecting those values in how we behave day-to-day and the people we recruit.

“There are no formal rules and regulations, we’re just trying to live up to our genuine values and always do the right thing.”

Schuh also launched its ‘Sell your Sole’ recycling scheme last year, which allows customers to return any “old but wearable” shoes of any brand to a Schuh store in return for a £5 voucher.

“Sell your Sole is our effort to make a contribution to the sustainability agenda but do it in a way that’s relevant to our brand. We take the old shoes in, repurpose them via our charity partner and do some good.

“We also have colleagues who are currently working on the broader sustainability agenda for the business, for example in delivery and packaging,” says McKee.

The rise of quality service

The retail landscape is changing and as ecommerce and customer experience director McKee has shared his predictions of the trends set to shake up the industry. He believes the amplification of data analytics and the impact of data on the retail workforce are the biggest changes to come.

“A future retail leader needs to be extremely analytical, which may require some formal training in statistics or data management,” he says.

“They need to have a high level of numeracy skills, but also be able to convey results in simple terms to an audience. Essentially, numerate, articulate, data-oriented people.

“They also need to be pretty grounded with common sense, and quite commercially minded as they are selling products that are nice-to-have rather than need-to-have.”

“Customers should expect to see themselves reflected back in the way that we communicate with them and present ourselves to them”

McKee also sees this data-orientation feeding into customer service for frontline retail staff, to ensure products are absolutely relevant to consumer preferences at any given moment.

“Over time, there’s going to be fewer retail jobs in more consolidated organisations, so the overall quality of people is on an upward trend,” he predicts.

“We’re more demanding of people and our needs, therefore shop assistants need less old-style selling skills and more understanding of data to influence customer decision making.”

Diversity of thinking

McKee cites Lush as a retailer that inspires him and has its customer proposition spot on.

“It has to be Lush – it has really good products, produced in the right way, messaged efficiently so we understand what they’re about, sold in an environment with fantastically trained staff who care about making the customer happy.

“I also think the fact that you can smell them down the street is a strategic stroke of genius – you can always tell when you’re near a Lush.”

He also believes diversity of thinking is key to retailers understanding their next steps

“Customers are diverse – it’s no more complicated than that. Customers should expect to see themselves reflected back in the way that we communicate with them and present ourselves to them.

“They come in many shapes, sizes, backgrounds, forms, belief sets, and our job is to be relevant to the consumer in the moment and where that consumer is.”