In order to survive in the e-commerce world, it’s necessary to keep up with the constant changes happening in the industry. Specifically, you must pay attention to:
- New trends being introduced and the old ones being forgotten (and adapting strategy in a timely manner)
- New algorithm updates that can affect search engine rankings, social media performance, and website traffic
- Changing seasons and how this affects purchasing behavior and seasonal sales
Given all these constant changes, business owners may find it challenging to be consistent and to keep up. Realistically, when it comes to e-commerce, one person can’t do it all and expect to find success. Ideally, you’ll recruit a team of specialists who can connect the dots and ensure that every move is based on a study of best practices.
The last quarter of the holiday season is the time of the year when e-commerce businesses are the busiest. It can be stressful and exciting, but most of all? It’s a lot of work.
Because of these things, the holiday season is a great time to evaluate the effectiveness of your e-commerce team. They’ll be put to the test when dealing with the most popular holiday sales: Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
If you’re considering adding to your team, or even building one up from scratch, here’s how to find individuals or an e-commerce agency to help you find success during the holiday season—and during the rest of the year.
Quality Over Quantity
When it comes to building an e-commerce team, having a large number of people is not always necessary. What matters more is having the right people on your team.
Smaller teams that are composed of skilled, smart, motivated, and just simply the right people are more effective than having a large number of people that deliver less. These small teams, comprised of the right professionals, have the edge in terms of communication and collaboration.
In Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace report, it was found that about 42% of U.S. employees working at companies of 10 or fewer people felt they were “engaged” at work. Small teams with the help of an e-commerce agency can certainly accomplish big things!
Knowing The Requirements for an e-commerce Team
Building an e-commerce team is not as simple as selecting skilled people then handing over tasks. It’s about choosing the right people that fit within your existing organization. It’s also about knowing what and who your business needs.
Before hiring the help of a new employee or e-commerce agency, make sure to clearly define job roles and responsibilities that you’re currently lacking. Expanding businesses must look at their existing structure and see if their team needs rebuilding or improvement.
If you’re not sure where to start with expansion, these roles are the keys for the growth of e-commerce businesses:
- Product and Content Administrators: Responsible for managing the products, inventory, and other related content on behalf of the business.
- Sales: Responsible for new customer acquisition, selling products to big accounts, and conducting direct transactions with potential customers.
- Marketing: Responsible for building the brand and making customers aware of it. They are also responsible for producing content and other digital marketing efforts that aim to get traffic and conversion.
- Customer Service: One of the most important roles for a company to provide through employees or outsourced to an e-commerce agency. People with this role are responsible for dealing with issues and complaints from customers. They must promptly answer inquiries and guide customers who need help. According to Harvard Business Review, customer service is the #1 most important factor in customer loyalty.
- Order Process and Fulfilment: Responsible for preparing orders as they come in. They make sure that orders are delivered to the right customers. If your e-commerce company handles dropshipping, you’re essentially outsourcing this role (but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to it).
- Developers & Designers: Lumping these together is an oversimplification, but essentially, an e-commerce business wouldn’t be possible without hiring people to build and maintain the online property that enables visitors to make purchases. These e-commerce team members are responsible for creating and designing a website that follows best practices. They are also responsible for dealing with technical issues. An e-commerce agency can be a great place to start with building out this part of your e-commerce team.
The size of your company will determine if these roles are handled by individuals, teams, or even an outside e-commerce agency. Anticipate the need to build these roles out as your e-commerce business grows.
e-commerce Operational Focus
Now that you have an understanding the key roles you’ll need in place to grow your e-commerce business, the next step is finding the right people to fill each role. Appointing the right people to their respective roles is one of the most important steps when building your e-commerce team.
Filling out these roles involves coming up with certain operating rules that will help the team effectively monitor their focuses and priorities in their respective roles. This is also necessary to get the team focus on a common set of objectives.
When it comes to e-commerce, there are three major priorities that should drive your efforts:
- Acquiring customers
- Converting customers
- Retaining customers
These items should make up the team’s common objectives, while each role will focus on their own respective functions in achieving the team’s objectives.
Building an e-commerce Team with Individuals & e-commerce Agencies
What is the current structure of your e-commerce team? There’s no time like the present to take a look with fresh eyes and see what roles you may be missing. Take the opportunity to see if your current team members are overburdened and if an e-commerce agency can help fill in the gaps with specialized expertise.
Ready to build your e-commerce dream team? Whether you’re just starting out or ready to scale, we’d love to be the e-commerce agency you turn to. Get in touch to learn how to get started!