A former clothing store manager, Anne wanted to make the digital leap and launch her own online store. Discover her journey in this article!
Commerce and no-code: the perfect pair for your online store
Hey, Anne! Can you introduce yourself in a few words? What was your background before joining Wild Code School?
I'm 38 years old and have a background in commerce.
My grandparents owned a grocery store, and I seem to have inherited their flair for business from early childhood.
Already, at a very young age, I created my own small business from production to distribution! The idea? To propose "unique creations" made from seashells that I used to collect on the Belgian coast. Sitting cross-legged on my beach towel for long hours, I sold these objects for a few Belgian francs a day! What a pleasure!
From there, this seedling grew into a tree.
I experienced the field for 15 years in Lille and Paris as a boutique manager for everything from international brands and designers to lesser-known names. It was a great adventure that allowed me to develop professionally and personally through the hierarchy, the teams, and many exchanges with customers.
Why did you decide to move into digital after working in the ready-to-wear industry?
2020 was a year for reflection.
All the closures of "nonessential" businesses and successive periods of partial unemployment offered me a time for introspection.
I asked myself a few simple questions:
- "Are you professionally happy?"
- "Where do you see yourself in the next five or 10 years?"
- "Do you have integrity?"
Conclusion: I was deeply torn between an overall and my comfort zone.
If I had this taste for challenge as a Store Manager, daring a career change and leaving my security blanket (mastery of the job), put me in a delicate situation, generating insecurity.
But I made a cross-sectional analysis, and nothing happens purely by chance.
Indeed, the challenges my last employer encountered with straggling for an e-commerce strategy and a strong online presence also haunted me. The lack of dynamism in this necessary evolution sent me back to myself.
2020 marked the end of this professional cycle.
After the awareness comes the time to act: recycle myself! (You might even say "upcycle" myself. 😉)
This project, then, was therefore well thought out and matured.
It's the fruit of a real journey and is now an obvious choice: I realized that, to continue to flourish in the business, I had to see and serve it differently, taking into account the new B2C issues and business model.
Important concepts are now taking on their full meaning: showing agility, cultivating resilience, and aiming for continuous improvement!
Feedback from Wild Code School's first no-code training session:
You're currently in no-code training in Roubaix, France. What have the first few days been like?
The adventure's begun! My classmates profiles and backgrounds are varied, and this diversity is our biggest asset.
It's been an intense week of practice and getting to grips with the various creation and collaboration tools.
I've really enjoyed this first quest for a situation through the development of a landing page with the theme "selling yourself as a no-code creator." It's an interesting exercise: projecting yourself through a professional issue.
Our instructor, Valentin, suggested other solutions in terms of landing pages creation in order to have a wider panorama of all the possibilities to meet our targeted goals.
Through this first quest, and beyond learning by doing, I also noted my personal areas of improvement; impatience and internal nervousness are real obstacles to performance. I was also able to see that I was able to find some solutions on my own, which was pretty amazing!
Concerning soft skills quests (tips, tutorials, and best practices): they're also relevant and complementary to the training itself (e.g., support to improve personal organization or "learning to learn")
I'm very enthusiastic and energized with a fierce desire to learn!
Why were you interested in no-code?
I've been working a lot on my own these last few months on various subjects, some of them more interesting than others.
The goal was to build a web culture... that was inexistent! The margin of progress was therefore important.
Through webinars, white papers, and other readings, I've swept a wide spectrum: methods applied to project management, marketing strategies (content marketing / emailing, social media), UX/UI, design thinking, SEO/SEA/SXO, cybersecurity, GDPR... It was also an opportunity to familiarize myself with the jargon: anglicisms, acronyms and specific vocabulary.
As far as tools are concerned, I started practicing with HTML5/CSS3—recommended starters—before moving on to WordPress, which had been my initial goal.
I found WordPress relatively intuitive and easier to manipulate than pure code. That's what aroused my curiosity and made me want to dig deeper into the subject.
I learned about the possibilities of using no-code for e-commerce. The idea of "reappropriating" the means of web production by making the tools more accessible appealed to me.
In March 2021, Lille Campus Manager Mathilde offered a webinar about her experience as a no-code specialist that led me to confirm my interest and reinforce my desire to practice.
I don't feel I personally have the ambition to become a developer, but I found the no-code concept interesting insofar as these tools facilitate the process and offer various opportunities for creation, management, and automation.
The no-code movement is gaining momentum, and the trend seems to be accelerating with increasing mobility and ever-increasing needs for new programs.
What's more, in this common goal to go faster and faster, become more visible and accessible: for its online business, for its customers but also internally (between employees).
Saving time and therefore productivity, saving money while freeing yourself from these technical constraints: convincing arguments! .... without forgetting all the other advantages that I will discover during this training.
How do you see your career evolving following your training at Wild Code School?
I have several cards I can play, with one not precluding the other.
As a logical extension of my previous career path, I see myself in the position of e-store manager to know the business issues and develop a real expertise in order to:
- Oversee the digital transition
- Participate in the implementation/management of an e-commerce platform (management of the online offering, e-merchandising, monitoring, optimization of path, etc.)
- Develop online sales (identify growth levers and business opportunities by analyzing KPIs, etc.)
- Contribute to the improvement of sales and marketing strategies, boost online-offline synergies; develop contact points
- Design/manage a loyalty program
The idea of incorporating my own personal project—the creation of an online store in the concept-store format—gives me an adrenaline rush, motivating more me every day!
That said, I'm also cautious by nature: this project needs to mature, and I still have many skills, especially technical ones, yet to acquire.
Currently, I'm doing lots of monitoring: charters, designs, merchandise, structures, and site hierarchies—differentiating services offered on about 15 sites that inspire me. I'm also trying to identify the elements of friction, such as problems linked to categorization, search, and predictive writing.
In short, I'm convinced that mastering no-code tools is an invaluable asset for my professional ambitions. It's also a worthwhile competitive advantage to evolve in e-commerce (and other sectors!)
What do you like most about Wild Code School, and why did you choose this school over another?
Wild Code School is well known for the quality of its content and learning methodologies.
Learning by doing! It's obvious that theory means nothing without action. We jumped in right away.
Pushing people to surpass themselves, this very methodology also offers the possibility to develop self-confidence by tapping one's inner resources while cultivating resilience—great for discovering unexpected talents!
As for the program "Transforming an idea into a project and designing it into a solution", it became a convincing argument, as it was adapted to my skill set, needs and ambitions.
A promise marked off the checklist—and right in the first week to boot!
Benevolence and empathy are also present.
I was initially a bit dubious about this element... No, it's not a marketing argument! Campus manager, instructors and students all share mutual respect in a very relaxed way.
What a pleasure to work in this collaborative spirit and in socks! I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Team Roubaix, and especially some of them who have already helped me a lot. 😊
No-code at Wild Code School is THE winning combination: quality training and practical methodology in a professional, friendly atmosphere!
What advice would you give to those who want to get into no-code?
Stay informed and curious each day. You can discover many blogs, tutorials, podcasts, and other newsletters on this topic. In my opinion, a few sources are a must: Bypass, Ottho, no-code station—not to mention the animated videos of Shubham Sharma.
The offerings are huge.
Reading up on the subject also allows to understand the no-code universe and the extent of the possibilities of creation, management, automation, and many other "facilitating" solutions. The uses are extremely varied.
Invest and be proactive: "Practice independently on small personal projects, and have fun!" (Wise words from Valentin.) He summed it up here: combine pleasure with practice, and vice versa; project yourself onto what makes best sense for you.
Ah yes, I almost forgot: learn how to let go. Disassociate your commitment from your actions and the actual results (which can become obsessive). On the subject of personal development: it's all "work-in progress" on my end!
Thank you for all these answers! Do you have any final words for would-be Wilders?
Like every tool, no-code has its limits, but one thing is certain: it has a real future.
"In the end we are our choices. Build yourself a great story." — Jeff Bezos
What are you waiting for? Let's GO!!!
To learn more about no-code, check out our no-code tools guide!
