“We collaborate a lot and it’s just a fun place to be; It never really feels like we’re at work!”
Since starting out as an assistant manager with Peter Alexander, Megan has well-and-truly worked her way to the top and loved every minute of it!
Busting the misconception that retail is a ‘starter job,’ her career journey spotlights the career progression opportunities in retail and how you can go from sales assistant to senior visual merchandiser (and even lead international teams to success)!
If you’ve ever considered pursuing a career in retail but aren’t sure where you want it to take you, tune in to our latest interview. Megan spills all her insider secrets about:
- Why she’s stayed with the company for over 11 years
- How she progressed from assistant manager to senior visual merchandiser
- What the day-to-day of a visual merchandiser might look like
- The opportunities offered to entry-level employees for career progression
- The best bits about being on the Peter Alexander team
And much, much more!
Find Out More
Whether you know it or not, The Just Group has likely had a major impact on your personal style journey: after all, it encompasses some of the most well-known brands in Australia and abroad!
With Smiggle, Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Jacqui E, Peter Alexander, Portmans and Dotti under The Just Group’s umbrella, it’s safe to say that they’re truly a fashion powerhouse. And the best part is that they want you on the team! Trust us: if you want a career in fashion, The Just Group is the place to be.
So, what are you waiting for? Kick off an incredible career journey by heading to their employer profile and start curating your dream career today!
Interview Transcript
It’s OK to not know exactly what you want to do.
Hi, my name is Meg. I’m the senior visual merchandiser here in NSW. I look after the stores here in NSW, ACT, WA, and New Zealand.
I started with Peter Alexander back in 2013. I was hired as an ASM. From there, I moved from the assistant manager role into the store manager role. I was in that role for about two years and then moved into a visual merchandising role on the state team.
So then not only was I responsible for my one store, I was then responsible for a whole region. I stayed in that role for about five years. Then I moved into the senior visual merchandising role probably about three years ago.
So now I manage the other VMs across the state to ensure that we’re making all the stores look good across NSW and the other states as well. Our roles are to use the product to try and maximize sales as much as possible.
So it’s reworking the styles all the time, keeping up to date with what’s happening and with what the people want and the top sellers and moving those lines around based on collection and putting them in the prime real estate to make sure that we’re making the most of what we can and what the people want.
As well as that, we also do our beautiful creative windows, which are always a proud favourite with customers in the shopping centre. So it’s the windows as well. It’s in-store displays, door openings where we start from scratch.
So it’s literally going in with the completely empty shell of a store. I love the fact that you can come in as a casual, as a part-timer, and you can really choose what path you want to take. Everyone from head office, the executives, the team around you, the state teams—there’s lots of people around us that can really help guide you and support you in the pathway that you want to take.
But we also probably love the fact that we can wear our pyjamas to work as well. With the training, it’s always putting yourself out there and being open to learning. I was always putting my hand up to go to different stores to see different demographics and different store layouts and seeing how different stores were not all the same. We’re all different.
So I wanted to really expand my knowledge so when I actually went into a role, I already had the skills, so when I got the role, I could just hit the ground running. I’m very passionate about the actual product; it’s just so beautiful.
You see all the different textures and materials and fabrics, and it’s just a really fun place to be. It’s always so important to surround yourself with really positive and motivating people. We collaborate a lot, and it’s just a fun place to be. It never really feels like we’re at work.
We offer so many different training plans and there’s so much area for succession. We also offer for our part-timers and casuals what we call our VM overlays. They’re just our more junior team members that are currently in store in casual sales assistant roles that have expressed interest to us and to their regional managers and said, “I am interested in a VM position.”
So what that role is about is during our peak periods—say for example, now around Mother’s Day and Christmas—they get into a limited tenure contract for a month or two, and they work side by side with our state team VMs. They get a bit of a taste of what’s involved. They do windows with us, they do floor moves, they do all those kinds of things.
So it’s really good for them to see what we actually do. But it’s OK to not know exactly what you want to do. You just have to be very open-minded and try and gain as many skills and as much knowledge along the way because eventually, you will figure it out.
Don’t stress about it, it’s all good. Just get out there and be open to learning and get as much training as you can, and it’ll all just fall into place at the right time.
