Ecommerce managers ensure customers can easily buy a company’s products online, and they work with other departments to test and innovate new web features and discover the “why” behind both successes and problems. Bringing on an ecommerce manager can strengthen a company’s ability to generate online sales.
What is an ecommerce manager?
Ecommerce managers oversee the day-to-day operations of online stores. “It’s basically leading our web strategy,” says Mike De Lia, ecommerce manager at accessories company Ridge. Depending on the online business, this role can take on different responsibilities, including making the site user-friendly and running promotional campaigns.
Mike manages six Shopify stores and analyzes online sales and other data points to improve the online shopping experience. For Mike, the central question of ecommerce management is: “Are we using the native real estate that we have the best that we can?”
To achieve this, he aligns the ecommerce store with the company’s overall marketing strategy by ensuring the content featured in the company’s SMS marketing, email marketing, and search engine marketing (SEM) efforts match what’s on the website.
What do ecommerce managers do?
- Develop ecommerce strategy
- Maintain online stores
- Innovate new digital experiences
- Oversee product rollout on ecommerce sites
An ecommerce manager’s job description varies depending on the industry and size of the company, but they typically do the following:
Develop ecommerce strategy
An ecommerce manager’s main responsibility is guiding the ecommerce strategy for online businesses. This includes setting and meeting key performance indicators (KPIs) for the website.
The ecommerce manager’s responsibilities might cover:
- Improving conversion rate (CVR), also known as conversion rate optimization (CRO), or the percent of people who carry out an action, like visit a website
- Hitting revenue targets and increasing average order value (AOV) using techniques like cross-selling and upselling
- Increasing customer lifetime value (CLV)
- Monitoring website traffic
“A lot of my day-to-day is just cross-departmental meetings—making sure that the website is tracking with the commercial goals of the other departments and that we’re bringing all the campaigns that we can to life on the dotcom,” Mike says.
Maintain online stores
A main component of ecommerce management is ensuring your company’s website runs smoothly to increase customer retention and satisfaction. The ecommerce manager also oversees regular site audits and troubleshoots usability and conversion issues as they arise.
Web standardization is another important element. According to Mike, it entails “making sure we’re using the same font typeface across different pages and within the Shopify theme, as well as within third-party page-builders to give the site some continuity.”
Innovate new digital experiences
Keeping up with industry trends, brainstorming ideas, and analyzing the results of A/B testing and website data can help you innovate and build new capabilities online.
Working on a partnership with MKBHD challenged Mike to unlock the co-branded landing page experience. An early test showed that adding an influencer to a landing page resulted in a higher average order value. When they ran the test again, they saw different results.
“My job is to figure out why,” Mike says. “So we had to dig deeper, and this particular issue happened to be related to the media-buying landscape at the moment. Working cross-departmentally helped me get the data I needed to pause the test and not make any brash decisions.”
Oversee product rollout on ecommerce sites
For Mike, a new product rollout involves translating commercial goals into briefs for Ridge’s creative and website development teams, then implementing any changes to the homepage and creating a new landing page and collections pages for the new item. After quality assurance, the new pages go live and he syncs the international versions of the site.
Some products require adding new capabilities to the ecommerce site. “We know that 90% of the traffic we drive is looking for the classic Ridge wallet,” Mike says. “So how do we get classic Ridge wallet shoppers into the MagSafe silhouette? That’s a question I had to answer. The answer is a button that gives you the option to switch between classic wallet and MagSafe wallet.” This lets customers explore the magnetic version of the wallet without having to navigate away from the product detail page (PDP). “We had a record sales day, so it worked.”
Key skills for ecommerce managers
Ecommerce management requires a mix of hard and soft skills like:
Building ecommerce websites
“The operational stuff, like building PDPs, building landing pages, those are kind of the hard skills I think you need for the job,” Mike says. Good ecommerce managers typically have experience working within ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, Squarespace, or WooCommerce.
A degree in business or marketing isn’t necessarily a requirement for an ecommerce manager. Mike was an English major who started a blog and then helped local businesses with their websites. Online courses and certifications, such as Shopify Academy and Google’s certificate in digital marketing and ecommerce, can help ecommerce managers develop the requisite skills.
Communication
Ecommerce managers must effectively communicate their channel’s needs and understand other departments’ needs to ensure alignment. “Being a good and proactive communicator is really important,” Mike says. Effective communication skills may involve proficiency creating slide decks, writing briefs, and leading conference calls, along with project management.
Data analysis
“You have to have an appetite for establishing KPIs,” Mike says. “As someone who’s not very numbers-oriented, I’ve had to get numbers-oriented.” Some of the numbers you’ll analyze include conversion rate, cost per click, and average order value. Mike asks questions like: “What does it cost to drive people to the site and how are we best optimizing that traffic?”
Ecommerce managers track and analyze metrics, then prepare and present reports on the data. “You have to be hungry for that and you have to really want to learn,” Mike says.
Ecommerce manager FAQ
How do you hire the right ecommerce manager?
The right ecommerce manager will have a mix of hard and soft skills and a demonstrated ability to analyze data and generate actionable insights. Ecommerce managers typically work across different departments, so a collaborative spirit is a must.
What do I need to be an ecommerce manager?
To be an ecommerce manager, you need excellent communication and interpersonal skills, as well as a deep understanding of the ecommerce landscape.
Is ecommerce a good career path?
Ecommerce is a growing industry, and the ecommerce manager role might be a good fit if you enjoy collaborating with different departments, analyzing data, and digital marketing. According to Glassdoor, the average ecommerce manager salary in the US for 2024 is $82,073.
