What are the e-commerce professions? This is one of the most typed queries on search engines by those looking for information on emerging digital professions and in particular among those who want to understand what it means to work in e-commerce.
Among the jobs of the future, e-commerce professionals are the ones that are experiencing exponential growth in demand from companies. Discover the E-commerce Manager Course to make a career in this field and become an e-commerce professional.
The numbers provided by Netcomm and Osservatori.net (visit the site) speak for themselves: the lion’s share of this “digital ranking” is the e-commerce market.
On the wave of the success of “e-monsters” such as Amazon, e-Bay, and Zalando, more and more Italian companies, having realized the profitability advantages of selling products online, are deciding to focus on e-commerce, thus triggering a real hunt for e-commerce managers.
There is a widespread belief that e-commerce is a world unto itself, detached from the rest of the digital machine, whose reins are managed by a lone, all-rounder figure: the e-commerce manager.
It is no coincidence that Google is constantly consulted on how to become an e-commerce manager and find the most sought-after e-commerce professionals. This is an undoubtedly legitimate and ambitious goal, but rest assured that an e-commerce manager without the rest of the team will be no more useful than a canoe in the desert.
If your dream is to work in an e-commerce business, you should start by asking yourself which figures work together with the e-commerce manager. In this guide, we will find out in detail what an e-commerce manager does and which figures are necessary for the creation of a successful online sales platform.
How E-Commerce Works
The structure of an e-commerce site is extremely articulated, which is why we make it clear from the outset that we will not limit ourselves to singing the praises of the e-commerce manager, relegating the rest of the professionals necessary for the realization of this business to the role of garden dwarfs.
E-commerce presupposes the existence of a site that provides a product catalog that the customer can consult by completing the entire online purchasing procedure. For this machine to be efficient and generate profits, it is necessary to build a team of B2C and B2B managers and specialists.
But who are the e-commerce professionals who contribute to successful sites?
E-commerce professionals, what are they?
E-commerce professional figures could be divided into two macro-areas: one relating to purely managerial ones, with transversal tasks and skills, and another, broader, encompassing the more operational and specialized ones.
The planning of strategies and the supervision of online sales activities will be entrusted to managers:
- E-commerce Project Manager
- E-commerce Manager
- E-commerce Web Marketing Manager
These e-commerce professionals will have the task of coordinating specialists in the area of web marketing, but not only:
- Programmer and Web Designer
- SEO Specialist
- SEM Specialist
- Web Content Editor
- E-mail Marketing Specialist.
Project Manager
The E-commerce Project Manager can be, depending on the choices made by the company, an external figure or an in-house resource.
This is one of the e-commerce professionals most in demand by companies interested in expanding their market share by setting up an e-commerce business.
An e-commerce project manager knows perfectly how to sell on the Internet and has the task of bringing the company customer online by planning the entire strategy from scratch.
In fact, it coordinates all the digital departments involved in the project, whether they are internal to the company or offer support activities from outside, in case a web agency is decided upon.
But what skills should the e-commerce project manager have and what tasks does he or she perform?
- In-depth knowledge of all web marketing tools
- Knowledge of e-commerce regulations
- Knowledge of retail marketing
- Drafting company budgets and business plans
- Planning advertising campaigns
- Market research and competitor analysis
- Planning content creation guidelines (copywriting and visuals)
Read the interview with Valentina Sala, e-commerce project manager for several leading companies.
E-commerce Manager
Often the professional figures of the e-commerce project manager coincide with those of the e-commerce manager, as the work in the start-up phase is followed by management in the medium to long term.
Sometimes, however, once the e-commerce platform has been launched, the project manager passes the ball to the e-commerce manager, who is responsible from then on for all the company’s online achievements.
To understand what an e-commerce manager does and to better understand the small differences that distinguish these two figures, we need to identify the requirements of an e-commerce manager.
The e-commerce manager will have the task of coordinating the work of all the teams by interacting with all the operational figures necessary for the operation of a B2C platform, ensuring that the marketing strategies and sales plans drawn up are adhered to.
Web Marketing Managers and Seo Specialists, to give some examples, are just some of the figures within an online sales platform that the e-commerce manager will have to deal with. But not only that, this managerial figure will also have to supervise non-typically digital areas:
- Studying Analytics reports (visit site)
- Dealing with management control
- Developing strategies for traffic acquisition
- Monitoring customer service
- Overseeing marketing strategies to improve the user experience
- Planning logistics
To get a taste of the work of an e-commerce manager, I suggest you take a look at the video interview that our Alessandra De Lulli and Elena Boccalini did with Maura Frusone, Business Development Manager & Online Sales at Kaspersky Lab and Fabrizio Malpighi, E-Commerce Manager at Goodyear.
Download the free GA4 guide and start tracking your online store’s sales
E-commerce Marketing Manager
If you search for e-commerce professionals, you will also find among the search results in the figure of the e-commerce marketing manager, who focuses his strategic activity exclusively on the marketing department.
Its transversality mainly requires:
- Web design skills to define graphics and site structure together with the web designer and programmers.
- Seo skills to coordinate specialists in the development of search engine positioning strategies. We recommend you take a look at our SEO Copywriting Course.
- Sem expertise to plan advertising and affiliate marketing campaigns that strengthen the company’s business.
- Inbound marketing skills to create funnels for lead generation through tools such as email marketing.
The success of a marketing strategy passes through his hands because it is he who is asked to coordinate all e-commerce specialists according to the set goals and budgets.
E-commerce Programmer
Creating an e-shop is no longer as complex as it used to be. Thanks to open-source e-commerce platforms such as Magento, setting up an unpretentious e-commerce site certainly does not require the work of a programmer or web designer.
However, a company that intends to attack the market with a functional, high-performance e-commerce, certainly cannot rely on DIY.
It is at this stage that programmers and web designers (a figure further fragmented into more specialized ones) intervene. These e-commerce professionals do not infrequently converge in a single role that is entrusted with the task of developing the graphics and structure of the site.
That of the e-commerce programmer is certainly one of the most sought-after jobs in digital, but what exactly does he do?
- Elaborates a functional architecture for the product/service offered and studies effective and attractive graphic solutions.
- Creates customized product sheets and graphic interfaces for each product in the catalog.
- Installing and managing plug-ins to integrate platform functions.
- Plans product inventory and is responsible for catalog management.
- Develops management software: CRM (customer relationship management) and ERP (accounting/warehouse/sales management).
SEO Specialist
The Seo Specialist within e-commerce is mainly responsible for indexing pages for product-related terms.
Its aim is to direct traffic to pages that might offer a higher conversion rate, i.e. that induce the customer to buy the goods on sale in the store.
The Seo Specialist has the task of structuring the categories of the e-commerce site, facilitating the work of the search engine when scanning product pages, while at the same time making the user’s navigation more pleasant.
What in particular is required of the Seo Specialist?
- Identifying alternative and related searches for the product requested by the user.
- Studying effective link building, i.e. identifying the best ways to link the various pages of the site together, intriguing the customer with similar and complementary products, inducing them to continue browsing the site and make online purchases.
- Optimizing text and image content.
SEM Specialist
Advertising strategies are the main lever for an e-commerce company to attack the market and quickly make its products/services known.
What does a Sem Specialist do in e-commerce?
- Increase contacts through the creation of sponsored advertisements published within Google Serpentine.
- Promotes brand awareness through the creation of banners on Google’s display network.
- Increase conversions through banner displays.
Delve deeper by looking at all eCommerce industry training tracks
Email Marketing Specialist
Among e-commerce professionals, the e-mail marketing specialist plays a strategic role both in the new customer approach phase and in customer care.
Even in the world of e-commerce, e-mail marketing is an indispensable lever for attracting new customers, retaining them, and increasing conversions.
But what does the email marketing specialist do?
- Interacts via e-mail with users who register on the platform by welcoming them.
- Contact customers who have not completed purchases.
- Contact the customer at the end of the transaction.
- Follows and supports the customer in the post-purchase phases.
- Invites the user to visit the store by proposing advantageous offers and exclusive promotions.
- Analyses data on customers’ purchases and interests.
- Performs A/B tests to assess which e-mails convert the most.
E-commerce professionals: what skills are required?
Managing an e-commerce site requires not only increasingly transversal skills but also knowledge that goes far beyond the digital world.
So what will be the requirements for companies?
- In-depth knowledge of e-commerce regulations, consumer protection, and security of online transactions.
- Knowledge of the online trade legislation of the countries in which one wants to operate.
- Payment systems and online transactions.
- Transport logistics and warehouse management.
It is these skills that will turn e-commerce professionals into real tasty morsels for companies that want to have a real competitive advantage over their competitors.
But what are the other requirements for companies to find work in the world of e-commerce?
A brilliant e-commerce manager, in tandem with the web designer, will have to study an attractive and functional graphic layout for the type of product being marketed. He/she will have to evaluate with the programmer how to optimize the user experience in the navigation phase and enter the product details in the catalog: title, technical characteristics, and price.
In addition, he will be in charge of planning costs and shipping methods, payment systems, and customer care management.
Finally, it is also useful to know about trade marketing.
What are the most sought-after figures?
Let’s see together which e-commerce professionals will be most sought after to respond to the increasing competitiveness in the world which online sales specialists.
Affiliate Marketing Manager
Among the e-commerce professionals destined for great success in the coming years is certainly the Affiliate Marketing Manager.
In recent times, companies specializing in online sales are trying to boost their business by creating a strong external sales network.
The demand for “business intermediaries”, capable of converting traffic passing through one’s own site/blog into customers for e-commerce, is constantly growing.
Amazon, to give one example, has focused heavily on this acquisition channel, making it a de facto backbone of its online business.
Web Content Editor
One of the fastest-growing e-commerce professions will be the e-commerce web content editor. Informed and demanding users require specialized copywriters capable of creating quality textual and visual content.
So what does a web content editor do in e-commerce to make his company sell more online?
- Produce product data sheets full of useful information and attractive images.
- Create useful and stimulating content.
- Make the product more desirable with storytelling.
Content creation is indeed proving to be one of the main success factors, especially in the world of online sales, for three main reasons:
- Search engine indexing
- Traffic and lead generation
- Improved user experience
Digital Retail Specialist
The exponential growth of mobile, together with the transformation that e-commerce has imprinted on the traditional retail concept, has forced retail managers to revolutionize not only their know-how but even the concept of retail itself.
Consumers’ shopping patterns change every day and so the user experience in recent years, both online and in-store, has required a change in the figure of the retailer.
The digital retail specialist of the future will have the task of making the customer experience unique and engaging.
E-commerce, from simple “online warehouses” containing hundreds or thousands of products, is turning into customized “sensory paths”.
The digital retail specialist, as if he were a “digital tailor”, on the basis of the data collected by the analysts, has the task of creating tailor-made customer journeys. Working closely with the retail manager, the team’s ultimate goal is to increase user interaction, guiding the user through the virtual aisles of the online store.
The new frontier of e-commerce will be this: to offer within a physical store a strong digital customer interaction, with the possibility of customizing the product, making it in fact unique.
Every operation, from product search, through reading data sheets to purchase, will be based on the interaction between mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets) and online applications/software.
Social Commerce Specialist
The promotion strategies of e-commerce, from its image to the products in the catalog, are closely linked to the ways in which companies interact with their customers via social networks.
The increase in online sales is increasingly passing through social platforms, real catalysts for e-commerce traffic.
But what does a social commerce specialist do?
- Creates engagement around the product and encourages user participation on the social platform.
- Exploit social spaces to advertise exclusive promotions.
- Generates traffic to e-commerce through content sharing and call-to-action invitations.
- Develops and disseminates viral content that improves brand reputation and awareness.
- Collecting customer satisfaction data through communities.
Do you want to start your e-commerce adventure?
If you liked e-commerce and you think you can work in e-commerce by attending one of those courses that promise to turn you into a brilliant e-commerce manager in a couple of hours, you better come back to earth first.
A high level of preparation, such as that offered by the E-commerce Programme, is certainly a good starting point for anyone who dreams of training in this area of digital marketing and becoming a successful e-commerce manager.
Request more information on how to become an e-commerce professional
