How to Build an eCommerce Team from Scratch: A Practical Guide

The ever-changing online shopping environment makes building a successful eCommerce team from scratch like building a winning sports team, with each member playing a critical role. From strategists who master digital trends to developers who meticulously implement ideas, having an ideal eCommerce team involves careful preparation and recruitment. In competitive digital commerce, your brand may soar with the proper skills and expertise. Learn how to build an eCommerce powerhouse from scratch in this practical guide, which will give you the skills you need.

Putting together a team for business e-commerce success

Every person on the team is critical to the e-commerce business running easily. Here is a more in-depth look at what each part does.

Manager of e-commerce.

As the leader of the ship, an e-commerce manager, also called a director of e-commerce, ensures that the business makes money and customers are happy.

They are in charge of everything about the business, such as:

• As a marketing manager, your job is to keep an eye on marketing programs and managers, such as SEO, PPC ads, email marketing, and social media marketing.
• Product management: making sure the information in the product list is correct by updating it. Making sure the e-commerce site is safe, easy to use, and SEO-friendly.
• In customer service, you are in charge of a group of people who help customers and answer their questions.
• Analytics and reporting: monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) like website visits, conversion rates, and customer retention.

Managing partnerships means working with outside suppliers, vendors, and partners to find goods, work out prices, and keep relationships going.

Manager of e-commerce activities.

This job is in charge of running the business on a daily basis. The job of an e-commerce operations manager is to make sure that the right customers get the right goods at the right time.

To put it another way, they are in charge of customer service, transportation, and completing orders. They might be in charge of a warehouse and work with outside delivery partners.

They keep track of stock levels and make sure that product catalogs correctly show inventory by using inventory management software. They also use continuous process improvement, which means that they keep an eye on real-time business intelligence to find ways to make service performance better.

For example, you should keep an eye on product accuracy, return rate, order cycle time (how long it takes to fill an order), and order accuracy.

UX and UI designers.

UX designers look out for the user. They develop the look and feel of an e-commerce website and a mobile app so that shopping is smooth and easy for customers. This includes the style, the colors, the fonts, and the pictures.

They also plan the website's information architecture, which makes sure that material can be found and moved around easily. The most important thing is that they make a sensible user flow, which is the path that a normal user would take to make a purchase.

By making sure customers can find the goods they need and finish the checkout process, optimizing the user journey can help lower the number of people who visit a website and leave their carts.

Writers of content.

Content writers and copywriters are in charge of writing honest, interesting, and useful product descriptions that get people to buy. They also raise a website's search engine score by writing good content with relevant keywords. This makes the website more visible to people who might buy something.

Customers will be more likely to buy if the content is well-written and gives them the information they need to make an informed choice.

They also support the "voice" of the brand by making content that fits the brand's values, tone, and personality.

Fulfilment.

Fulfilment teams make sure that orders are accepted correctly, processed quickly, and sent out to customers.

This is how the process works:

• Make sure that orders from the e-commerce platform and other sales channels are correct and full before beginning the fulfilment process.

• Packaging orders involves finding ordered items in stock, packing them safely for shipping, putting mailing labels on them, and working with carriers.

• Keeping track of inventory amounts and restocking items is part of inventory management.

• Quality control means checking things for flaws before they are packed up and sent out.

The HR teams.

The human resources team finds good people to work for the online store. They look for and hire new workers and train them. Another important part of HR management is making sure that workers have the skills they need to meet urgent business needs by managing their benefits and pay and giving them training and development opportunities.

The team that works on e-commerce.

Developers create and take care of the company's e-commerce website and other software systems, such as the frontend, backend, and server-side software. As an illustration, a programmer might create unique connections with outside services like payment processors or marketing automation tools.

One of the team's main jobs is to improve website performance, like uptime and availability, so that the e-commerce storefront runs quickly, works well on all devices, and lets customers safely make payments online.

IT.

IT teams are in charge of managing the technology infrastructure that supports the e-commerce website. This includes the company's network and computer infrastructure. This includes updating software and hardware, solving bugs, and figuring out what's wrong with the company's systems.

IT teams also set up systems to store e-commerce data and put in place security measures like firewalls and intrusion detection to keep the data safe and easy to access.

Lastly, IT departments usually have a "help desk" where workers and customers can get technical help.

Analyst of business.

Business analysts look at information about how well a business is doing, find places where it can do better, and suggest ways to help the business grow. This means looking at information about things like sales, customer behavior, website traffic, ad success, and more.

Analysts may work closely with the operations, marketing, and development teams to make sure that the suggestions they make are carried out correctly. They need to know how to analyze data, show data visually, and explain complicated ideas to people who need to learn more about them.

The accounting team.

An accountant is someone who keeps track of a business's money. They make income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, which are used to measure how well the business is doing financially. They are also in charge of paying taxes. This includes figuring out and paying taxes, filling out tax returns, and knowing about new tax rules as they come out.

Accountants also look at numbers to help businesses make big choices. For instance, they might look at financial information to find out what the risks and benefits of joining a new market might be. They need to know how to do things like bookkeeping, financial reporting, tax compliance, budgeting and planning, financial analysis, and audits.

Enterprise-level help for customers.

Enterprise-level support gives customers who need extra help with a complicated or technical issue individual support. Most of the time, this means finding a dedicated account manager to be the client's main point of contact.

Account managers keep in touch with clients daily, give them personalized advice, and help make sure they are successful, which means that the customer can reach their goals because they worked with you.

Help with the law.

Large online stores might have their own legal department to ensure compliance with privacy, customer protection, and intellectual property laws. The department is also in charge of negotiating contracts with sellers, suppliers, and other third parties to ensure fair and favourable terms for the online store.

Online stores run the chance of data breaches, product liability claims, and lawsuits, among other things. A lawyer can help you figure out these risks and deal with them so that you don't have to go to court as often.

Different types of structures for an e-commerce company

The best way for an online business to set up its e-commerce team depends on its size, the products and services it sells, and the industry it works in. The way a business is set up has a direct effect on the culture of that business.

Functional.

In a functional management structure, workers are put into groups based on their area, like marketing, operations, or finance. There is a manager in charge of each area who makes sure the team meets its goals.

Large, well-known e-commerce companies usually use this organizational structure because it makes it easy for teams to make decisions and sets clear lines of who reports to whom.

But it's not always easy for teams to talk to each other, which can cause information silos. Getting approval from more than one boss may make it hard to make decisions.

Product-focused structure.

Some companies hire people to work on certain goods. These workers are put together into teams with similar tasks. When Amazon hires people to work on its hardware business, like its Amazon Alexa and Kindle products, they put them on special teams.

Focusing on a single product helps workers come up with new ideas and improve existing ones, while also giving them a better understanding of the product's market and special features. This structure works best for big, well-known e-commerce brands that sell complicated goods that need to be updated all the time to meet new customer needs.

Brand-focused structure.

The biggest online stores have more than one marquee brand, which are well-known names that do well on their own. It makes sense to hire people to work on specific brand teams.

Teams are in charge of all parts of each brand, from marketing to operations. Each brand works like its own business unit. This structure helps business teams take responsibility and own their work.

Market-based structure.

Companies that serve many types of people, like adults, teens, and seniors, may divide their workers into groups based on the types of people they serve. Teams know a lot about the people who buy from them.

Companies that make very specialized goods, like medical equipment or B2B software, can benefit from this organizational structure. This lets companies use account-based marketing on a large scale (personalized marketing for a single group), which is useful if customers need to learn about the product over a long sales cycle.

Process-focused structure.

A process-focused structure sets employees up by purpose, like sales and managing the supply chain. This lets the company hire people who are very good at what they do.

For instance, in a company that makes things, the production team is in charge of making the things, and the sales team is in charge of finding leads, making cold calls, and finishing deals.

Conclusion

Building an eCommerce team from the beginning needs careful planning and execution. Follow this advice to build a strong, cohesive team to help your internet business succeed. Prioritize communication, collaboration, and training to create a happy workplace and inspire development. Your team will need adaptability and innovation as eCommerce evolves. You can build a strong eCommerce team to help your business succeed online with hard work. Build your dream team now!