Are the big brands doing e-commerce or eCommerce? – conclusions from the Online Marketing Manager recruitment process
I recently had the opportunity to recruit an Online Marketing Manager for a global brand, very much recognisable in the traditional world of retail. It was a very interesting exercise, giving me the opportunity to thoroughly “scan” the digital market, which I often check and gather the latest information on the availability of candidates representing the expected expertise in the field of e-commerce.
Customer
An international company, the owner of a recognisable brand in the retail industry, conducting traditional sales through a chain of stores and online sales. The online store generates a millions in turnover, constituting 10% of the company’s total revenue.
Position
The Online Marketing Manager is responsible for the management of a team of several specialists responsible for SEO / SEM, affiliates, social media, content marketing, as well as cooperation with external agencies and the internal department of traditional marketing.
The purpose of the position
Delivering the expected sales results in the e-commerce channel, increasing the share of online sales in the company’s total turnover, ensuring the optimal conversion of traffic to the company’s profit, bringing quality and volume of shopping traffic to the brand’s website, coordinating online marketing campaigns.
Observations and conclusions made during the recruitment process
During market penetration, we identified a small number of candidates with experience in developing sales in an online channel bringing a multi-million turnover. Candidates experienced in e-commerce exist on the market, however, the results generated in the online channel in the largest number of cases oscillate within the limit of PLN <1M. The percentage of the share of online sales in the total revenue of companies usually amounts to several to a dozen or so percent, at maximum. However, what is completely surprising is the fact, that many recognisable retail brands can boast about fledgling e-commerce, and thus a lack of understanding of the growing e-commerce market trend in Poland at a fast pace, to ever-increasing growth. Perhaps I am judging too harshly by using the word “crawling”, but I am under the impression that some brands are simply asleep, and their e-commerce is moderately developed despite the possibilities they have.
While carrying out our research, we often came across people for whom running e-commerce in the company was one of many duties, apart from responsibility for social media, CRM, SEO / SEM or media planning, and this, of course, makes sense, but after a deeper analysis it turned out that e-commerce indeed exists, generates profits, there are ideas on how to develop it, but in principle it still falls into second place.
During our research, we naturally reached candidates from retail, but not exclusively. We were also interested in the telecommunications industry, which is a difficult topic in the field of e-commerce. In this case, what impressed was the number of users to whom the Candidates addressed company’s communication: 1-10M users.
The experience of candidates related to managing people, unfortunately, was not satisfying enough. In many cases, the candidates could boast of managing a one-man team consisting in the assistant and additionally cooperating with subcontractors. Organizations prefer micro teams and rely on the expertise of one person and the entities cooperating with him.
It was also interesting to examine the market in terms of the candidates’ financial expectations. In the case of the retail industry, the basic salary is about PLN 17,000 gross per month, in the case of the telco industry – about PLN 21,000 gross per month.
To sum up – the e-commerce market it is narrow and tight, which is definitely a bargaining chip for candidates and a pain for Employers. I wonder how the e-commerce market will change in the years to come? According to the “E-Commerce in Poland 2017” survey carried out by Gemius for e-Commerce Poland, we are finally talking about a market worth PLN 40 billion, which undoubtedly needs and will need experts. According to the Interaktywnie.com report, the estimated value of the Polish online trade market in 2020 could reach up to PLN 70 billion. We can only hope, that together with the growth of the market, the number of experts will grow as well. There can be no other way…
At the end, a curiosity found on the Absolunet, which attempted to analyse the spelling of e-commerce. It turns out, that there are many possibilities. And here is who and how calls the online selling:
e-commerce: Bloomberg, Time Magazine, The Economist, New York Times, Monika Ciesielska 🙂
ecommerce: Forbes, eMarketer, Facebook, Google
eCommerce: Absolunet, Magento, Forrester, Deloitte, Insite
Ecommerce: Shopify, Financial Times, Entrepreneur.com
E-commerce: Mailchimp, Sitecore
