What is a Director of eCommerce?

1. Defining the role of a Director of eCommerce

As a senior executive, the Director of eCommerce is responsible for managing a company’s online/digital sales and marketing strategies. Consequently, their focus is leveraging multiple sales channels, software, and consumer insights to enhance customer service and drive revenue. They develop a strategy and leverage software that creates a scalable company primed for growth.

As highly organized, strategic individuals, the Director provides focus and keeps your business on track with ongoing industry and company performance monitoring. The ideal Director has excellent collaboration and communication skills, is highly organized, and delivers by deadlines, improving your time to market.

2. The responsibilities of a Director of eCommerce

Directors of E-commerce take the reins in the following areas:

Strategy

The Director of eComm is all about strategy. They take your business from a task-oriented enterprise to a strategic company operating with purposeful objectives that facilitate growth. They are strong collaborators working with your cross-functional teams to develop comprehensive eCommerce strategies. These strategies are specifically aligned with your goals, putting them into action and using metrics to mark benchmarks of success.

Everything is done with purpose, identifying target markets, optimizing product offerings, and constantly evaluating all business opportunities that help meet objectives. In some cases, they might create new objectives. The internet is an expansive place where you can miss new opportunities if you aren’t prepared to pivot. A Director is always forward-thinking, using their experience to differentiate fads from trends, so they jump on the right bandwagons.

Website management

With a director helping steer your business, they consider your eCommerce website’s design, functionality, and performance. Because they use consumer insights to drive decisions, they have an intimate understanding of what consumers need to make buying decisions. As a result, they ensure your website is consumer-centric with user-friendly navigation, seamless checkout processes, and continuous improvement of the online platform. They know that a website needs to live, breathe and adapt to changing consumer habits, and more specifically, the habits of your customers.

Digital marketing

Their keen sense of the industry leverages effective, proven digital marketing strategies to drive traffic to not just your website but also other sales channels. They can identify marketplace opportunities to either a) reach more of your current target or b) expand to new targets most likely to need your products. Nothing is left to chance with a Director of eComm on board as they make decisions based on consumer insights and market trends. They also leverage proven marketing tools to improve the discoverability of your brand, including:

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
• Email marketing
• Social media campaigns

Through ongoing performance metrics, they can focus your marketing strategy, ensuring you are reaching your audience in the places they frequent. You improve marketing ROI and also attract the types of customers who will offer the highest value over their customer lifecycle. Tactics they enlist also help contribute to increasing average basket value.

Increased sales

By monitoring eComm KPIs, the director develops strategies to boost revenue. Their understanding of key performance indicators tracks successes and failures so you can monitor growth based on your growth targets. As a result, you can:

• Optimize pricing strategies
• Implement promotions
• Explore lucrative partnerships

3. Managing a team

Although some companies hire lower-level, lower-paid team members first, they need more direction to succeed. The ideal Director knows how to develop and lead a diverse, high-performing eCommerce team. They know what roles to fill and what skills to look for in team members. They provide a structure designed to attract top talent and use effective onboarding to set new hires up for success.

However, they also deploy workflow software that streamlines processes and removes time-consuming manual tasks such as product information management (PIM), digital assets management (DAM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) so their team focuses on their core talents. As a result, the Director creates a growth and career-oriented business where new hires experience practical training that prepares them for success. Direction ensures that you foster a culture based on innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning.

A Director of eCommerce provides leadership and focus so you can establish yourself as an authority in a highly competitive market.

A PIM/DAM system like Pimberly can help facilitate success for your team. Learn how with a free demo.