If you’ve spent any time on SmartEtailing’s website, you’ve probably seen her. Suzie is also featured in many of SmartEtailing’s advertising. Her main role is helping retailers with marketing campaigns and sales growth, she also doubles as a model.
Who: Suzie Livingston (& Clementime)
Position: Account Manager
Team: Marketing Agency
Joined: 2016
Suzie came to SmartEtailing with bike retail and bike racing credentials. Suzie worked at a bike shop in Fort Collins while she was a student at Colorado State University. At CSU she joined the collegiate team racing both mountain and road bikes. She’s still active in her Fort Collins community, where she races cyclocross and mountain bikes.
“I would have never got into bikes or learned about racing without the collegiate team,” Suzie said. “It was the best way to meet other women who rode bikes and I do stay in touch with them. I’m the only person who works in the bike industry, but pretty much every one of them still rides bikes.”
At the Fort Collins bike shop, Suzie started in sales, became sales manager, and eventually managed events and marketing for the three-store business. She says that experience has served her well in her role at SmartEtailing.
Suzie’s advice for retailers is to invest in a website that is user friendly and communicates their shop culture, not just the brands they carry.
“Continue to market categories you’re good at, but also invest in categories you want to grow,” she said. “And one of the most important things, too, is employee education and making sure that they’re continuing to invest in their employees.”
Local bike shop employees are critical to the success of a SmartEtailing bike shop website. On the sales floor, employees can use their local website as a tool to see what is in stock at supplier warehouses or at other locations. Employees can direct cyclists to their bike shop's website so customers can easily shop 24/7.
Equally important, employees need to know the importance of offering great customer service to cyclists coming to the bike shop to pickup their online order. Click and collect is a huge component of local bike shop growth and the store employee's customer service is the last step in a successful online shopping experience.
Suzie loves working with retailers and she says her favorite thing about her job is meeting fun personalities and people who are enthusiastic about bikes, and finding ways to help them sell more bikes. “The bike industry is such a close-knit community in a lot of ways,” she said.
As an Account Manager, Suzie builds close partnerships with bike shop owners so she understands what their unique local opportunities are. She then works with other members of the Marketing Agency team to create effective marketing for those bike shops.
When a bike shop has an Account Manager like Suzie, it helps the shop save on the expense of needing to hire an on-site marketing manager.
Aside from her love for bikes and retail, Suzie is also passionate about her pack of rescue animals. She has two cats and one dog, Clementine, who often visits SmartEtailing’s Boulder office, which is dog-friendly.
“Clementine joins a lot of client calls so she’s well versed in the bike industry too,” Suzie said, laughing.
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