eCommerce Manager profile it is becoming consolidated, but its position is still not entirely clear. It’s about sales, so… should it be within the commercial area? You handle a lot of advertising… should you be in the Marketing area? In some cases, they create a new position at the height of both selling on marketplaces. Should the sales channel area manage it? A cyclical situation that does not finish materializing.
That is why for this chapter 39 of our podcast we have invited Veronica Lopez Burgos who has gone through both minimal structures, setting up his own eCommerce, to large companies such as El Cortes Inglés and now works at Totto, to talk to us of the functions of the eCommerce Manager.
2:53 To put us in a situation, how was your evolution from tourism to ecommerce?
My passion for eCommerce came by chance. I studied tourism, did internships and, between employment and employment, I was looking for stability. After 7 years in commercial positions in Santillana, I got pregnant in the middle of the Prisa group crisis. We knew it was a matter of time before my business unit was removed, so it occurred to me to create the Corner of my jewels. An online silver jewelry store that was active for almost 7 years. I started with no idea, the first year was a disaster, the second, I changed the platform I had and learned digital marketing. After years of working, I closed it and started working at El Corte Inglés.
7:58 Jumping from a “personal” ecommerce to the English Court had to be quite a strong cultural change. How did you adapt?
It was a tough change. When you have been your own boss for 7 years and making your own decisions, move on to a structure like El Corte Inglés. It is a great school to learn eCommerce, you do not do the same function as in a normal store, because you have many limitations. He was proposing things and changes, some were more official that he could take quickly and others affected the entire infrastructure. I had a hard time handling this. Based on insisting and working on persuasion with data, many departments and people involved, we managed to implement some changes that still remain and that at the time gave us great results in sales.
9:55 And now you’re in Totto
It is a very special brand huggable. In fact, the logo features two people hugging each other. We have been engaged in backpacks and suitcases for 30 years. In Spain we are known for wheeled backpacks and school accessories.
We are also an option for the rest of the ages with other products that have technical features and are focused on younger segments or athletes, travellers, professionals… A fairly wide catalog, although the most recognized are the backpacks for children. He is of Colombian origin and We are present in 57 countries: we arrived in Spain 10 years ago. It has 600 physical stores, here in Spain there are 10 and we work with a very wide network of distributors.
12:30 In this podcast we want to focus on the figure of the eCommerce Manager, if you set up a company from scratch, where would the eCommerce Manager be located?
It should have its own entity, without dependencies on any other department. Must work with transversal leadership together with the rest of the areas of the company. It has operational dependencies with almost all departments of a company. They have an increasingly growing impact on turnover and it is necessary to be very well coordinated with the rest of the commercial areas, for example, at the level of catalogs or prices. They are very sensitive elements for the user and also for business results. It is about the company taking the channel seriously and for that it is necessary that it has a visible head.
14:30 What is on the boss’s table?
Yes. The area of digital sales and commerce has evolved, saying eCommerce is too small. Digital sales have a very high impact at the level of operating costs, It affects the logistics department, it has implications with the rest of the commercial channels and with the physical stores. It is something that is growing more and more and is here to stay.
15:25 Is it usually the usual?
We are living a stage in which brands of a lifetime disappear and brands that remain are aware that the way of selling must be changed. The consumer is no longer the same and you have to adapt to him, Until a traditional company passes through this inflection point, it is not given the importance it deserves in the traditional area. Slowly the digital area is becoming relevant in companies.
19:05 There is more and more demand for the eCommerce Manager profile, but it is still not clear what they should know, what they have studied, their experience… What does an eCommerce Manager do?
On the one hand, there are retail tasks, and others more specifically digital. The position, if we wanted to classify it would be commercialwith the difference that you use digital media to get that sale.
Within the traditional homework block would be the definition of commercial strategy, that you have to agree with the rest of the departments that are in charge of selling. Know how to resolve the conflict of channels, both physical, such as distributors and other companies that sell your product. Construction of product catalog, Be clear about the content that you are going to use to describe the items that you are going to sell. And it is very important, when we talk about eCommerce, organize stock provisioning methods. Knowing that you have merchandise to sell is the gasoline of your store, if you don’t have it, you don’t sell.
Within the digital part you have your online store and the digital marketplaces where you have a presence. You have to know what part you are going to sell from each area, with what prices, what promotions you are going to apply or what stocks you are going to assign to each one. In digital tasks I like to prioritize them in reverse of how they happen. Usually we talk about start attracting traffic to the web and I like to start at the end, start with fine-tuning the payment process. Have my cash register flow perfectly and make sure that when the traffic has already seen what it wants it doesn’t get stuck at the end.
You have to make the shopping experience fast and comfortable, visibility to the catalog so that there is a dynamic offer, present the product sheets in an orderly way and as complete as possible. work the findability of the products, that is, if a user does not find what they are looking for, that we can offer search tools that help them before they decide to leave. It is important to work on traffic sources. In an online store you have to call people to come visit you, there you work the , the ads in Google Ads, and the .
And of course customer service. You have to ensure adequate sales assistance through the means of communication that you have integrated into your eCommerce. If you give it the right deal it can be the lever to make an instant sale. It’s like humanizing online sales. Also an attention focused on after-sales, which is responsible for resolving incidents or managing returns.
26:28 In the end, the eCommerce Manager can be stepped on with other profiles, for example, with the Digital Marketing Manager.
If the company has these two figures, they will have to work collaboratively. They are figures that complement each other. If not, the eCommerce Manager will have to do all the tasks or someone will have to be hired to the team. In the end it depends on how a company structures this department. It is key to have a collaborative attitude between the sales managers and the , who work in their departments, but complement each other and flow focused on continuing to grow and looking for what the user needs.
30:52 What equipment does an eCommerce manager need to function?
Specialists in traffic acquisition, experts in SEO, Google Ads, affiliate channels, content generation and production and design teams. In the case of generating content, it covers both the product sheets and the creation of blog posts or . You also need communication experts with commercial vision and familiarity with technological tools: how to distribute the home page, prepare emails or promotional calendars.
34:00 We have a traffic generator, one specialized in content, marketers specialized in window displays and mail. Are there any more missing that you want to add to the team?
Developers who help you implement the technology that is available and put it at the service of your business. Depending on the business model and the objectives and resources, there are platforms for all types of models. I would add two more profiles, commercial, with communication skills and special sensitivity in customer service, and specialists in strategies and data analysis, which take into account operations such as logistics and the level of stock.
36:05 What would it be like if the company sold on marketplaces? Would it be in charge of an eCommerce Manager?
At Totto it is my responsibility: I design the business strategy for each of the digital models, but we prioritize our online store for all decisions. You have to define which are the most profitable, what you sell in each one, if you respect the same prices and the same promotions. For all this I need people and equipment because it is a world apart. Depending on how the company wants to structure it, that responsibility may or may not be with the eCommerce Manager. We work with an agency that helps us with the integration of the catalog in marketplaces. All the daily operations are becoming more and more complicated for us and our team is very small and we need external help.
38:45 In the case of Totto, what are the digital marketing actions that you work the most?
In our case we work on SEO and acquisition through Google Ads. It is not enough to generate visits to the web, but rather that it be a quality visit, because it is expected that you will not lose interest and in the end you will not buy.
We also work on guide navigation through the content that interests us at all times, choose which images to place in each space on the web, when you have a catalog as in our case, which is about 4,000 references, you have to get them to see what interests us the most, depending on the objectives. Another action would be: we polished the database to impact the audience with campaigns more segmented by interests and purchasing habits.
45:50 Where do you think the world of eCommerce is heading? For example, Amazon is becoming an important part of the Marketplace world. How do you see the future?
We cannot ignore the business potential that marketplaces have, there is no choice but to coexist and coexist in the most profitable way. It is where you have to be because you have an audience that you are not going to reach in any other way, but they are not the most profitable channels. I think you have to get that digital sales areas are really profitable and not focus on selling without taking into account if it is beneficial. You can sell a lot but your cost structure is much higher, which is what usually happens.
We must to fight for buying their own places and saying that the marketplaces are there, take out the…
Facebook Comments
Disqus