The Structure of an Ecommerce Team

Author: Kapil Sharma

When we talk about the structure of an ecommerce team, it mainly depends on the structure of the ecommerce company. The ecommerce company may run as an individual company or as a part of a larger omni-channel strategy. When we talk about omni channel, it means combining both your on- and offline operations. Whereas in a small online company, there are a limited number of professionals for handling different responsibilities, for a large-scale organisation, the team structure of an ecommerce company usually comprises the following:

  • Product Team: Here the head is the VP, who is an e-commerce specialist. The role of this head is to ensure that all components of the website worked together to fulfil the vision of the entire unit. Under him comes the product managers who are assigned various roles specific to various parts of the site.
  • Editorial/Content Team: As per
ecommerce news, one most important requirement in an ecommerce company is the content and editorial team, dedicated solely to all content online, comprising product descriptions, articles, blog posts, email marketing, off-site marketing content, social media posts.

  • Project Management/IT Team: The team includes project managers handling various projects. They see the proper execution of the said projects, coordinate with all business stakeholders, engineers and developers who build and maintain the site. They are also in association with the daily IT needs of the company. The IT team is also responsible for ensuring latest up-gradation and integration on the site. For instance, most e-commerce sites are opting for hybris implementation. It is the duty of the IT head to see that the software is properly integrated on to the site. Usually, the head of such a team is the CTO of the company, and there is a technical lead on the e-commerce side.
  • Production and operations team: The most important team who does the actual work of uploading of products SKUs on the site along with content, images, videos in a proper manner. This team works hard and makes sure that everything within the CMS system works well. With 1000s of SKUs being uploaded every day on a site, this is a very key part of the enterprise e-commerce company. The production team is also the creative team responsible for the design and the overall look-and-feel of the online site. The team is responsible for monitoring the site’s performance, including checking of load speed, managing the CMS, checking broken images, links, faulty promo codes, etc. It comes largely under the IT team.
  • Analytics/SEO team: Ecommerce consultants recommend to invest more in the analytics and SEO function. Google Analytics, Omniture as well as Optimization, SEO, PPC, Google adwords, advertising are all handled by this team. In short, this team is responsible for making your ecommerce company come to the top in Google organic search.
  • Social media marketing team: Today, this is another important part of the e-commerce team. Social media marketing has evolved over the years from just FaceBook and Twitter, to Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Snapchat and many more. So you really need an efficient team to constantly promote your company, products and services in social media.
  • Customer support team: In an enterprise ecommerce implementation, customer service is fast becoming an important segment for proper running of ecommerce business. It is this team who is responsible for answering to queries, orders, delivery, pricing, complaints through live chats and social media. This team is headed by the customer service manager that looks after the call center as well as the live chat agents.
  • Merchandising team: For a large-sized e-commerce website selling varied products from different sources like as Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal etc. you need a merchandising team which source products and work with manufacturing. It is this team which ensures what products should be uploaded on the site, the quantities available, pricing and so on