Building an Ecommerce Development Team: The Best Practical Guide 2023

When starting an eCommerce business, many owners manage more than one role in the eCommerce team structure. From managing inventory to communicating with your customers, you handle it all on your own.

Yet, earlier or later, eCommerce business owners have realized that it’s impossible to handle all the tasks independently. That’s why you can hire dedicated eCommerce development team and other experts to help you out.

In the past decade on the market, IT Delight has witnessed many startups scaling to the enterprise level, and we know how hard it is to build an eCommerce team. So, we’ve decided to write this guide for you and show you where to start.

From the purely technical side to marketing strategies, in this article, we’ve covered all the aspects of how to find the top talents and build the best eCommerce development team for your projects.

Let’s get to it right away!

Main Roles in Ecommerce Team Structure

There is no unique rule for the eCommerce team structure; it all depends on the size of your business, what types of products you sell, and your business priorities. However, a few roles in eCommerce will always be present in the eCommerce development team.

Ecommerce Developer

The website is the most important part of your company; it’s the head and the heart of the online business. Very few people without a professional background can code on enough level to create a website, so it’s better to delegate this work to the eCommerce developer.

Without a skilled eCommerce developer, you won’t be able to build a coherent eCommerce website architecture. When making a custom website, you’ll need more than one developer. One to code the front-end user interface and another for working on the back-end website logic. Besides, it’s necessary to have a full-stack web developer who combines both roles.

When choosing to build a website on one of the eCommerce platforms, such as Magento, you still need an eCommerce team in the long run because they will handle the security of your data, work on developing a catalog of products or services, and third-party services integrations.

You can hire eCommerce developers in-house, outsource, or find a dedicated eCommerce team. We’ll discuss each of these options further in the article.

In case of any difficulties finding the right eCommerce developers, you can always contact the IT Delight team. We provide our clients with dedicated teams, individual developers, and development project managers to handle the work on your behalf.

HR Manager

Don’t be too surprised by this chapter. You do need to hire an employee to handle the recruiting process. An HR manager will track your staffing needs and the employee’s performance and payroll. They will provide you with regular reporting, which will allow you to make informed decisions when looking for potential candidates to fill further positions.

Besides, HRs are also responsible for onboarding new employees, saving you a lot of time. You can also utilize HR management software to optimize the employment processes.

Marketing Manager

Impeccable marketing is the backbone of your eCommerce business’s development and expansion.

A marketing manager is a person that will spread the word about your goods and services. They work with customers’ data, analyze it, and develop efficient marketing strategies to increase sales and drive traffic to your online store.

Graphic Designer

You need to ensure that your website is not simply visually appealing but also devoid of distractions. Graphic designers are responsible for such visual details as logos, button positioning, charts, data visualizations in blog posts, etc.

Content Writer

Content writers are often behind the scene, but their job cannot be overlooked. They provide engaging content for marketing campaigns, luring product descriptions and website content that turns users into marketing leads.

Nearly 83% of consumers stated that product content is crucial in purchasing decisions. If you have a startup, a marketing manager will work with content writers and form your marketing team structure.

Logistics Manager

This specialist is responsible for the safe and high-quality delivery of bulk orders from suppliers. This employee is also responsible for international transportation and transport insurance as well as quality control.

Inventory Manager

Those employees keep track of all the goods and ensure that the number of goods displayed on the website matches the actual number stored in the warehouse.

Customer Support Specialists

Those are employees who will help your customers with all kinds of problems. They usually communicate with customers via chat, phone calls, or chatbox. They are also responsible for returns and complaints.

Accounting and Finance Specialist

The financial side is often outsourced to professionals. Sometimes, large companies hire their own employees to handle budgeting, market speculation, and income statements.

Designing an Efficient Ecommerce Team Structure

In order to create an efficient team structure, you need to consider your requirements and priorities. Here are a few tips on how to approach the building of an eCommerce team.

Start With E-commerce Business Strategy

You must first remember that the new roles in the eCommerce team structure appear with your project moving onto the next stages of business development. So, determine your business needs, goals, and values, set the appropriate budget, and define the key things you need to implement first.

With the eCommerce strategy, you’ll understand the first roles you need to fill. For example, if your main goal is to increase sales, you’ll need to invest in marketing first. Meanwhile, if you want to boost your conversion rates, it’s time to hire a dedicated development team to make the necessary changes to your websites.

Stay Cost-Effective

When we say stay cost-effective, it doesn’t mean cutting your employee’s salaries; it’s more about spending your budget wisely.

The recruitment process should be based on your business processes; in other cases, you’ll just spend money for nothing. Let’s imagine you hire a content writer but don’t have the structure of your marketing department or content marketing strategy. Your new employee won’t have any tasks to do, or even worse, will create content that doesn’t fit your business goals.

Establish Clear Expectations From Your Ecommerce Team

Before opening the hiring process, think about what your ideal employee looks like. There is also the rule of thumb: always hire people who are better than you and never compromise for less.

Determine the company’s values and culture and whether your candidates align with them. Only 10% of applicants will be great employees, so take your time when conducting interviews. If you decide to choose IT Delight as your partner, check the About Us page first to learn some important details.

Make Hiring a Collaborative Effort to Assess Candidates Objectively

Create a group of people who are unbiased to make the hiring decision.

Involve the future subordinates and colleagues of the candidate in the interview process. Of course, a professional HR has to be present as well. Make sure that everyone takes notes and you return to them from time to time, comparing them with the new employee’s success to evaluate your assessment skills.

Also, it is important to ask behavioral and situational questions. They will help you to understand the candidate’s skills and see if they are the right fit for your company.

Hire Your People

Make a clear distinction between in-house employees and external contractors. Yes, you can cut some costs when delegating some tasks to third-party specialists, but they won’t be as committed to your business growth as the in-house employees. They are a good option only when you need short-term help on some aspects of the business.

In-House, Outsourcing, Dedicated team: What’s the difference?

These days, no matter the industry, you get to work with professionals all over the world. You can build an ecommerce team of highly skilled professionals and cut the costs associated with work in the office. Let’s review the pros and cons of in-house, outsourcing, and dedicated teams.

In-House team: Pros, Cons, Pitfalls

In-house means that all of the employees complete tasks only for your company. They are part of the company culture and contribute to developing your business strategy.

Pros

• Higher employee retention rates. In-house employees are interested in professional growth within the company. Spend enough resources on their training and motivation, and they’ll stay loyal to your business.
• They also show more engagement and dedication. Those employees are just as committed to your eCommerce project as you are. They are also more productive because they all work together.
• There are no communication barriers or delays. You have greater control over the project implementation.

Cons

• Costs. You pay not only the salary but also taxes, insurance, sick leaves, etc.
• Burnout. It’s a common issue among in-house employees and might lead to poor productivity.
• Time-consuming hiring process. Finding a highly skilled specialist is rare luck in today’s market.

Outsourcing: Pros, Cons, Pitfalls

This means that you delegate the eCommerce tasks to third-party contractors and freelancers. For eCommerce businesses, it’s a standard practice to outsource web development to freelancers.

Pros

• Agility & flexibility. You don’t spend time on employee hiring and onboarding.
• Outsourcing agencies often have higher expertise and more experience in the field. If you face specific problems, they can provide eCommerce consulting services at quite a reasonable price.
• Lower costs. They usually charge a fixed rate per hour, and you don’t have to pay taxes, insurance, etc.

Cons

• You cannot be sure about the quality of working with a freelancer. They won’t know the details about your business, and the quality of the work might not meet their expectations.
• Less control over the tasks and project progress. Freelancers work with multiple clients, and you can’t expect them to fix your issues right away.
• Communication barriers may appear due to time differences or poor internet connection.

Dedicated team: Pros, Cons, Pitfalls

A dedicated team model is a team that works on the project remotely, which reduces the product’s time to market and boosts the client’s business processes. Important to note that such a team isn’t an extension of the customer’s team but a separate unit that has its own framework and management.

Pros

• Cost-effectiveness. Outsourcing the team from Eastern Europe won’t cost you more than hiring an in-house team. Meanwhile, they’ll have the same, if not better, skills and experience. This is a great chance to reduce HR costs.
• Focused approach. All the people involved will be concentrated exclusively on your project without additional distractions.
• Transparent management. Dedicated teams work with time tracking and time management solutions that you can get a hold of upon request. This way, everyone can be on the same page regarding the project’s progress.

Cons

• Not efficient for short-term projects. Hiring dedicated teams for long-term and bigger projects that constantly evolve, have flexible requirements, and change all the time is way more effective. Otherwise, it’s better to opt for another model.
• This is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Before opting for a dedicated team, double-check whether it’s exactly what you need. Even if your project is long-term and your requirements and goals don’t match, signing a contract with a dedicated team may be unwise.

Final thoughts

Building your eCommerce team is a long and tedious task. However, you can take a shortcut and delegate some work to the eCommerce development agency.

Most businesses opt for combining the in-house and outsourcing approaches or go for the dedicated team. Here’s an offer for you.

IT Delight is a web development agency that has created eCommerce solutions since 2012. We focus on crafting scalable and all-inclusive solutions that bring real results. Contact us today, and we’ll start working on developing tailored solutions for your business tomorrow.