The complexity of managing ecommerce operations—from supply chains to customer service—poses a unique set of challenges. For companies that can effectively manage these tasks, the rewards are worthwhile: increased efficiency, scalability, and profitability.
Online stores are growing fast these days. In 2024, the number of new customers shopping online went up 17% since the previous year and 33% since two years prior. Even better, customers who come back to shop again increased by 59% in the past two years (that's 27% more each year), according to Shopify’s latest Ecommerce Growth Guide.
Ahead, delve into the components and complexities of ecommerce operations. Explore the role of an ecommerce operations manager, and get actionable advice to streamline your own operations.
What are ecommerce operations?
Ecommerce operations are the collection of activities and systems that enable a business to sell products online. Here are the key components of ecommerce operations:
Website management
This includes everything related to maintaining your online store, such as updating product pages, managing ecommerce SEO, publishing content, and ensuring your site is user-friendly and responsive on mobile devices. Most orders are now placed on mobile devices, with purchase volume increasing by 20% between 2023 and 2024 and 44% since 2022.
Inventory management
Running online stores requires inventory management: a solid system to track inventory levels, order fulfillment, and returns in real time to prevent overstocking or stockouts. Retailers using unified inventory systems report significant benefits. Shopify's unified commerce ecosystem delivers an approximately 1% improvement in annual GMV through integrated inventory management alone.
Warehouse management
This involves organizing and optimizing your physical storage facilities, including layout planning, bin/shelf organization, staff management, receiving procedures, and picking operations to ensure efficient storage and retrieval of products for order fulfillment.
Order fulfillment
The order fulfillment process starts when a customer places an order and ends when they receive their products. It includes the picking, packing, shipping, tracking, and delivery of orders.
Shipping logistics
Getting a package from point A to point B requires coordinating with carriers, planning the most efficient routes, managing freight costs, and dealing with international shipping regulations to ensure timely and cost-effective delivery.
Digital marketing operations
Bringing awareness to your brand requires marketing efforts like email campaigns, social media promotion, and pay-per-click advertising that drives traffic to your retail store.
Customer service
Responding to customer inquiries and complaints while providing after-sale service is key to maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty. Personalization is also important, as 50% of consumers say personalized offers and promotions from brands they've interacted with improve their shopping experience.
Data management
Collecting, analyzing, and leveraging customer information and data can improve your operations, marketing efforts, and customer experience.
Supply chain planning
This critical aspect of ecommerce operations involves inventory forecasting, planning for procurement, managing suppliers, and ensuring seamless production and distribution to keep your store stocked.
The role of an ecommerce operations manager
- Improve the user experience
- Strategize inventory levels
- Oversee order fulfillment
- Build customer relationships
- Advise the marketing team
- Optimize the supply chain
An ecommerce operations manager is a key figure in retail operations. Think of them as the architect of the ecommerce experience. They oversee inventory management, order fulfillment, and customer relationships. With a deep understanding of digital marketing, data analytics, and supply chain logistics, they create operational efficiency, drive ecommerce sales, and increase customer satisfaction. Here’s a breakdown of an ecommerce operations manager’s key responsibilities:
Improve user experience
An ecommerce operations manager works to balance aesthetics with functionality on their company’s ecommerce site. They guide their team in creating an intuitive and engaging environment for online shoppers to discover new products and return to purchase old favorites. They understand the customer journey, from the moment a potential customer lands on the site until they complete a purchase.
Strategize inventory levels
An ecommerce operations manager plans inventory strategies and predicts demand to optimize stock levels. They analyze historical sales data to identify trends and patterns in product demand, looking at seasonal fluctuations, bestselling items, and slow-moving stock. Their goal is to align product availability with customer demand, avoiding the pitfalls of overstocking and stockouts.
Oversee order fulfillment
To ensure efficient order fulfillment, ecommerce operations managers coordinate closely with internal teams to understand and optimize warehouse operations. They may also leverage a fulfillment network—a distribution system for order processing and shipping. The manager liaises with logistics and shipping partners to ensure timely pickups and deliveries, negotiating contracts with these partners and managing any issues that may arise during shipping, like lost or damaged goods.
Build customer relationships
An ecommerce operations manager nurtures excellent customer service, turning one-time shoppers into loyal repeat customers. They may set policies for quick response times, train customer service teams to provide empathetic and solution-focused service, and implement follow-ups to confirm customer satisfaction. They rely on market research to develop a deep understanding of their company’s customer demographics, sharing these insights broadly to drive organizational alignment.
Advise the marketing team
While an ecommerce operations manager is not directly responsible for marketing, they collaborate closely with the wider marketing team to shape a digital marketing strategy. Their aim is to bring targeted traffic to the online store and convert visitors into customers. If data suggests a product is popular among a specific demographic, the ecommerce operations manager might recommend focusing a marketing campaign on this audience. They’re keen to explore novel marketing tools and new sales channels, finding additional avenues to drive sales.
Optimize the supply chain
An ecommerce operations manager uses a centralized inventory management system to track stock levels in real time across warehouses and other locations. They also work with suppliers to ensure timely deliveries to warehouses. While their focus centers on getting products to customers, they also manage return logistics, providing a clear and easy process for customers to return products.
Omnichannel vs. unified commerce: The evolution of ecommerce operations
Many brands start by focusing on omnichannel: giving customers the same experience no matter how they shop, whether it’s through social media, physical stores, online marketplaces, or company websites. Omnichannel is a step up from multichannel retail, but it often requires connecting many different systems or apps that don't always work well together.
Then there's unified commerce. A unified commerce strategy puts data and processes from all shopping channels into one central system so everything—products, orders, and customer information—is managed in one place. This single information hub gets rid of the complications that come from using multiple back-end systems that might not communicate properly with each other.
Many legacy ecommerce platforms claim to offer omnichannel, but end up plugging gaps with separate third-party integrations. This leads to:
- Data-sync issues across platforms
- Integrations and maintenance costs for each third-party module
- Slower growth due to missed opportunities and slow time to market
- Tech overhead that drains budgets and bogs down IT teams
Unified commerce is about more than front-end coordination. It’s the behind-the-scenes consolidation of order, inventory, customer, and operational data—all in real time. This approach supports features like:
- Buy online, pick up in-store
- Real-time inventory visibility across sales channels
- Personalized marketing based on a customer’s entire history with your brand
- One hub for order data, so you can scale globally without juggling multiple systems
With one commerce operating system at the center, tasks that once took days (or relied on developer workarounds) can be completed in minutes. Retailers can drastically reduce time spent on manual processes, like copying and pasting data between tools, and focus on tasks that actually move the needle.
More accurate and centralized data means deeper insights into customer behavior, product performance, and supply chain. That clarity helps you find new opportunities, expand to new channels or regions, and launch campaigns that resonate with your target audience.
In a unified environment, you’re not paying for multiple overlapping services or building custom integrations for basic tasks. Maintenance overhead is much lower, which means your overall TCO declines and your profit margins improve.
How to improve your ecommerce operations in seven steps
- Harness technology for automation
- Value customer feedback
- Rely on data for making decisions
- Outsource non-core functions
- Simplify the customer journey
- Invest in customer support
- Embrace continuous learning and adaptability
Effective ecommerce operations blend strategic planning, efficiency, and customer-centric approaches. By using the strategies below, you can boost efficiency, stimulate growth, and stand out from other ecommerce businesses.
1. Harness technology for automation
Automation is essential in ecommerce for speeding up manual processes and giving customers a personalized experience with your brand.
Explore automation tools and ecommerce solutions that simplify tasks like order processing, inventory updates, and customer service responses. This frees up team bandwidth for more strategic work.
One powerful solution is Shopify Flow, a visual workflow builder that allows merchants to create custom automations without coding. With Flow, you can automatically:
- Tag high-value customers for special treatment
- Send personalized follow-up emails after purchase
- Route orders to specific fulfillment centers based on location
- Alert your team when inventory reaches critical levels
A unified platform helps here by creating a single source of truth where automation rules can access real-time data. When automation rules have access to current inventory levels, order statuses, and customer information, they can trigger the right actions at the right time, like preventing a targeted promotion for an out-of-stock item.
SilkSilky optimized their order management process using Shopify Flow to filter product returns and identify problematic orders, which helped reduce their return rate from 7%–8% to less than 1%. After upgrading to Shopify Plus, the Chinese silk products brand saw a 680% increase in sales within two years while significantly reducing procurement costs through better data analysis enabled by ERP integration.
2. Value customer feedback
Your customers are an invaluable well of insight—from their product preferences to their most-used marketing channels. Inviting reviews, conducting surveys, and engaging in direct conversation with customers can provide crucial feedback, illuminating what works and what doesn’t.
Pull product reviews, social media mentions, chatbot conversations, and post-purchase surveys into a single dashboard. Having a unified view of all feedback helps you spot trends quickly (e.g., repeated shipping complaints or product-quality issues).
3. Rely on data for making decisions
Data is the backbone of informed decision-making in ecommerce. Use reports and analytics from your ecommerce platform to understand customer behaviors, product performance, and overall operations. Leverage these insights to guide decisions, from marketing approaches to inventory management.
Consolidate all customer, order, and inventory data into one platform to remove the silos. This single repository makes it easy to see real-time, cross-channel performance (e.g., where you’re selling the most units, which ad campaigns are working, etc.).
A unified data architecture also helps:
- Cross-channel customer recognition: Identify the same customer, whether they're browsing your online store, shopping in your physical retail location, or engaging through social commerce, to create continuity in their shopping journey.
- Consistent personalization everywhere: Apply the same personalization rules, product recommendations, and customized content across all touchpoints for a consistent branded experience.
Shopify‘s analytics and reporting dashboards help you make sense of all this data. You can create custom dashboards focused on core product performance without exporting and cleaning data. If you’re on the Plus plan, you gain access to organization analytics that provide aggregate performance data across all stores within your organization. This allows enterprise retailers to review performance metrics holistically rather than store by store.
4. Outsource non-core functions
Outsourcing functions that aren't your business's primary focus can save you the effort of building capacity in-house. Strategic outsourcing allows you to leverage specialized expertise while keeping your team focused on what you do best.
Take fulfillment, for example. Scale your business with fulfillment partners like Shopify Fulfillment Network, which connects you with trusted logistics providers like Flexport. These solutions offer fast, easy, and affordable fulfillment options, allowing you to ship anywhere while saving time to focus on business growth.
If you're not an expert in marketing channels like SEO, paid advertising, or influencer marketing, partnering with specialized agencies often produces better results than building and training an in-house team.
The Shopify Partner Directory offers access to professionals across numerous specialties, including:
- Email marketing
- SEO and search engine advertising
- Social media and content marketing
- Sales channel setup
- Conversion rate optimization
- Analytics and tracking
- Custom apps and integrations
In the directory, refine your search based on price, location, and services. You can evaluate potential partners by checking reviews, work samples, and certifications before making contact. Partners are categorized into tiers (Select, Plus, Premier, and Platinum) based on their experience and proven success, helping you find the right fit for your needs.
5. Simplify the customer journey
By simplifying navigation, improving search functionality, and making product information easily accessible on your website, you can reduce customer frustration and abandoned carts.
A seamless and straightforward checkout process—including diverse payment options and clear shipping information—can enhance conversion rates, reduce operational issues, and ultimately drive revenue growth. Shop Pay converts up to 50% better than a typical/guest checkout, outperforming other accelerated checkout solutions by up to 10%, and Shopify Checkout's conversion rate outpaces the competition by up to 36% and by an average of 15%.
Some tips to improve the customer journey include:
- Add or improve services like buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), curbside pickup, or ship-from-store if applicable. Provide clarity on stock levels in real time across all channels.
- Ensure product details, prices, and promotions are consistent on your website, marketplace listings, and physical locations. Inconsistencies frustrate customers and slow their decision to purchase.
- If you use a unified or composable platform, you can integrate a secure, high-conversion checkout like Shop Pay or other accelerated payment methods. Reducing checkout friction is one of the easiest ways to boost conversions.
Dermalogica Canada improved the buying experience for their B2B customers after migrating to Shopify, making it more effortless and familiar while still integrating the complexities of their B2B business.
Since the migration, they've seen a 338% increase in average reorder frequency (from 46.9 days to 10.7 days between orders) and a 23% increase in conversion rate, with 75% of customers rating the buyer experience as 4 out of 5 or higher.
👉 Read Dermalogica Canada’s story
6. Invest in customer support
Dedicate resources to building an excellent customer service team. Prompt responses, effective problem resolution, and friendly interactions can transform a first-time buyer into a loyal customer, improving your customer retention rates.
Some easy ways to help customers on your website include:
- Integrate AI chatbots for repetitive queries or basic order tracking, and empower live agents to handle complex issues.
- Build out a robust self-service library so customers can find immediate answers. Then direct them to a human rep if more help is needed.
Many shoppers will post questions or complaints on social channels. With a unified commerce platform, you can track these inquiries, respond quickly, and tie these interactions back to the customer’s history.
7. Embrace continuous learning and adaptability
The ecommerce landscape is constantly evolving. Stay updated on industry trends, changes in consumer behavior, and technological advances. Regularly update and refine your strategies based on these learnings to ensure your operations remain efficient.
- Conduct regular tech audits: Every 6 to 12 months, evaluate whether your current ecommerce platform still meets your needs. Is there a new composable option that could streamline your operations further?
- Look for emerging channels: Explore where your audience is migrating (e.g., TikTok, new marketplace platforms, or B2B portals) and consider launching “test and learn” pilots there.
- Plan for global expansion: If you see interest from overseas customers, use Shopify Markets to scale internationally without juggling multiple store instances. Having a single set of currency, language, and logistics tools helps you pivot quickly.
Read more
- Supply Chain Optimization: How to Develop a World-Class Logistics Network
- Product Listing Ads [Gifographic]: How to Increase ROAS & Sales
- Ecommerce Customer Experience: Mastering Acquisition and Retention
- How to Block the Ad Blockers & Whether You Should
- Gift Wrapping in Ecommerce: How to Boost AOV This Holiday Season
- Why Leading Indicators in Ecommerce Are the Key to Success & How to Find Them
- How to Execute an Effective Ad Retargeting Campaign That Works
- Best Practices for Reopening your Retail Store after COVID-19
- Instagram Ecommerce Strategy: How to Create an Organic Marketing Plan
Ecommerce operations FAQ
What do ecommerce operations do?
Ecommerce operations are all the tasks that help an online store run. This includes keeping the website working, tracking products, shipping orders, and helping customers. These tasks make sure products show up correctly on your site, orders get processed quickly, and customers get their items on time.
What does an ecommerce operations specialist do?
An ecommerce operations specialist works on specific parts of running an online store. They might manage inventory, process orders, or coordinate shipping. They create better ways to handle daily tasks and fix problems when they come up.
What does an ecommerce operations manager do?
An ecommerce operations manager runs the whole operation of an online store. They work with different teams, create plans to grow the business, look at sales numbers, and make changes to improve customer experience and profits.
