Building an eCommerce Team

Reading Time : 8 Minutes 

Building an eCommerce team,  best practice guide from successful china companies

Building an eCommerce team has always been a tough management task in any organization of today, as the concept of running an eCommerce department has always been  filled with decisions of uncertainty.

Any new growth will always bring new challenges and new re-structuring processes in eCommerce departments, especially if you are just starting to grow!

The next few  pointers shown by Ms Sophie Li on our Day 2 camp was definitely information that I believe would benefit many young and aspiring eCommerce entrepreneurs that is expanding. 

Identify Your Team Players

First things first, have you ever thought of the level of competency any of your current team members have? How do you gauge these competencies you might ask? The awesome Swiss army knife chart below will give you some clues. 

Which type of Employee do You have?

From here you can roughly gauge the talents that your current team have. Level A talent would mean somewhat super functional and a powerful multitasker (usually the bosses like us fall within this category of slavery haha). Level B talent would be a downsized Level A, where competency and multitasking abilities would still be apparent, but more limited. Level C talent would mean people that, well, can only execute single activities at any given time.

This does not mean Level C talent people are useless! They will still play an important role in your organization if you do have people like that, and the management of these people would be the key into making your whole operations flow better!

Before we get to the part where you can manage your talents and their responsibilities, let’s take a look first at what kind of key activities a successful eCommerce company would have first.

Key Activities of an eCommerce Company

Key eCommerce Activities Pentagon Map

Most of the things here are rather self explanatory. Any seasoned eCommerce player would understand this chart from the get go. However, most of the business owners would actually leave out a thing or two from here. 

In my opinion, every single activity within this chart is crucial and to be successful, you better start recruiting or growing talent that will fit within each or multiple pentagons if possible. 

Let’s now take a look at how we fit our talent into their respective roles and responsibilities. 

Managing your Level A, Level B, and Level C Talent

Placing your talent in suitable positions

This is a very useful chart where we can see how big eCommerce companies in China actually place their talents across the roles and responsibility pyramid. 

With clear directions and  job placements, your team and you as a business owner would then have a clearer overview in terms of management and operation processes.

Afterthoughts

Your business will never be successful, if you first don’t have a suitable team. A company’s execution team is key to any future achievements it might get. However the lack of experience in handling and managing an eCommerce team would certainly be rough with a road full of trial and errors. Hopefully with this sharing, fellow entrepreneurs can plan more properly, or have a deeper thought on how to structure and manage their eCommerce team! 

For further reading, have a look here!

Do get back to me with any questions or uncertain elements within this article =) 

Check out what happened during the other days in my trip! 

• Read Pre-Day 1 : (A Day Using China’s Tech Ecosystem)
• Read Day 1 :  (Hot Pot Anyone?)
• Read Day 2, Part 1/3 : (Tao Bao Village, A Thriving Rural eCommerce)
• Read Day 2, Part 2/3 : (eCommerce Overview of Malaysia vs China)
• Read Day 2, Part 3/3 : (Building an eCommerce Team)
• Special Intermission : (The 996 Work Culture in China)
• Read Day 3, (The 50 Billion RMB  Muji for Snacks in China)
• Read Day 4, Part 1/2 : (A Glimpse of an E-Wallet Future in Malaysia)
• Read Day 4, Part 2/2 : (Ant Forest, Gamification of Environmental Awareness)

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