Skills to consider when hiring an eCommerce Manager
Market forecasts predict exponential growth in the eCommerce sector over the next 10 years. For this reason, more and more retail companies launch their operations over the internet, and those that are already present online are concerned with boosting their digital market share.
To do this, retail companies need to hire trained professionals to manage all their e-commerce operations. It is the role of the eCommerce Manager, which today is one of the most demanded profiles in the retail sector.
At PayPerTalent, we are experts in selecting Digital Marketing profiles for companies in the retail sector. In this post, we tell you which are the most important skills to take into account when hiring an eCommerce Manager in your company.
What's an eCommerce Manager?
An eCommerce Manager is the person in charge of online sales for a retail company. It is a profile that is usually very involved with the company's website, especially with the marketing, advertising and content elements.
They iare dedicated to developing and carrying out digital marketing plans. They also take care of the company website and possibly run it entirely for smaller eCommerce stores. They collaborates with others as needed, especially web developers, content creators, CRM experts, and digital marketers.
The eCommerce Manager's responsabilities will depend heavily on the type and size of company for which they are working. In smaller companies, it will be a more transversal profile that will be in charge of both setting up the website (Magento, Shopify, etc.) and promoting it on the different digital channels (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.). In larger companies, you will have more of a role as coordinator of the team in charge of these tasks.
What are the responsabilities of an eCommerce Manager?
Market research
Knowing how to conduct market research is a skill that you have probably acquired when starting your business. It is simply knowing who your target audience or buyers person is, to verify the relevance of your product and/or service. An eCommerce Manager has to know how to investigate your competition and understand how to position your products against it.
eCommerce Strategy
One of the key responsibilities of the eCommerce Manager is the creation of digital marketing plans. To attract customers, the eCommerce manager would have to know which channels to invest in and how much to invest in each medium (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.). For customer retention, they would need to know how to implement an email marketing and retargeting strategy on social networks and Google.
All these elements must be included in a well-structured Digital Marketing plan, with a clear presentation of all the metrics and ROI forecast. Ideally, the eCommerce Manager should present you with her Digital Marketing plan during her first weeks of work in your company.
Data analysis
Without a Data-Driven vision, it will be difficult for your eCommerce to become competitive. This is one of the key tasks of the eCommerce Manager, who would have to compile monthly reports of your business's main KPIs, such as the generation of sales broken down by channels (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.), the ROI of each channel where your eCommerce is investing, churn data (that is, customers who stop buying), cart abandonments during the purchase process, ... and much more!
Web Design
The eCommerce Manager does not need to be a programming expert (that's a different job), but they should have good knowledge of web design. In the case of small eCommerce companies that work with CMS solutions, it is necessary that you have a sufficient domain to create a page in Shopify or Magento from scratch. In the case of larger companies, you would need to understand the technology used to be able to request realistic changes to the web team, or to be able to add tracking codes (Google Analytics, Tag Manager, facebook retargeting codes, etc.).
Supervision of the eCommerce department
No matter how big your business is, by the time you hire an eCommerce Manager or assign responsibility for that part of your business to someone else, you already have an eCommerce department.
Whether there are more employees in that department will depend a lot on your company. In this case, your eCommerce Manager will be in charge of their supervision, and must demonstrate the soft skills necessary to position themselves as a department leader.
Essential skills of an eCommerce Manager
As with any job, an eCommerce Manager will need a certain set of skills. Several of these skills will be directly related to the job tasks we just talked about.
Identifying these skills in your eCommerce Management candidate will help you decide if they are the right fit for the job.
1. Knowledge of e-commerce platforms
An eCommerce Manager should master the most popular e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, 3dcart, Magento or Squarespace.
Ideally, they should have created an online store with one of these platforms at some point in their working life.
2. Sell on Marketplaces
It is important that an eCommerce Manager has experience working with Marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay or even Etsy.
This is essential, because to sell on marketplaces you have to understand how they work, how to promote yourself on them, how the commissions of each of them are structured and, in general, how to get the most out of these channels.
3. Digital Marketing
Together, marketing includes everything from content strategy to social media advertising.
Being familiar with search engine optimization (SEO) is a must for most online stores. Also ads on Google, Facebook and even Instagram, Amazon, LinkedIn, TikTok or Twitter are great marketing opportunities to consider.
Make sure you hire someone very familiar with these concepts, ideally someone who has already launched campaigns on the different digital channels for their own project, or for another eCommerce company.
Your eCommerce Manager should also have created digital marketing plans in previous positions, with budgets, goals, forecasts, etc.
4. Optimization of conversion rates and data analysis
A good eCommerce Manager should be independent when it comes to analyzing sales data and identifying opportunities to improve the conversion of our website. This includes churn data, that is, forecasts to know when a customer needs to receive communications to encourage them to continue shopping in our store.
Conversion rates and analytics are crucial to knowing if your ads and social posts are getting the desired results.
Make sure you hire someone with good knowledge of Google Analytics, who knows how to do A/B tests to optimize ads and landing pages on different digital channels.
It is also important that your candidate handles Excel at an advanced level, since much of the web and CRM data needs to be exploite to draw conclusions and make informed decisions.
Tips for hiring an eCommerce Manager
Set specific goals
A good way to start a selection process is to create a list of specific goals that you would like to achieve and then proceed to the hiring phase based on your candidate's ability to achieve them.
Now, this phase of the hiring process is possibly the most important (it's the reason you're bringing someone else onto the team), so you shouldn't base your decision on claims a candidate makes.
You have to rely on level tests to ensure that a candidate has the knowledge required for the position. If the candidate also comes with a full portfolio and can give you detailed accounts of times they've tackled situations similar to yours, then it's probably a safe bet.
Ask the right questions
Here are some sample questions you can ask a candidate:
- How would you address the challenges we are currently facing?
- How would you analyze the data to achieve your goals?
- What aspects would you focus on when presenting a conceptual project or design?
- What do you like about this business? What do you not like so much?
- Is there anything you would change about how this business is running?
- Where do you see e-commerce technology innovation trends?
- Do you have any questions for me?
This last question is very important. Not only does it let you know if you're dealing with a restless profile, but it also lets you know how much research the candidate has done about your company before the interview.
Don't limit yourself to your niche
An eCommerce Manager may not have experience in your specific niche, but may meet all other qualifications. Are you sure she would not be a good fit for your company?
A good eCommerce Manager must know how to adapt to fit in industries in which they have not yet worked.
Look at their online presence
It is always a good idea to look at the digital presence of your candidates before moving forward in a hiring process. Do not hesitate to enter their social networks, LinkedIn profile, portfolio, companies they have worked for, etc.
At the very least, you should Google your potential new hire. Professionals in the digital world tend to take care of their digital footprint. That will give you an idea about the type of profile you are about to hire. If it is someone who knows how to take care of their image on the internet, it is most likely that they will also know how to take care of the digital reputation of your company.
These are some of the guidelines to follow when hiring an eCommerce Manager. At PayPerTalent, we have a long history helping companies, both SMEs and multinationals, in the recruitment of eCommerce talent. Leave us a message to find out how we can help you in your selection process.