Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for E-Tailer

🎯 Role Definition

The E-Tailer is the cross-functional operator responsible for driving online retail revenue, profitability, and customer satisfaction across owned webstores and third-party marketplaces. This role blends digital merchandising, marketplace management (Amazon, Walmart, eBay), performance marketing, product data governance, inventory & fulfillment coordination, and analytics to optimize conversion, average order value (AOV), and lifetime value (LTV). The ideal candidate turns data into prioritized experiments, maintains high-quality catalog content, liaises with supply chain and customer service, and scales repeatable processes for growth.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

E-commerce Coordinator / Assistant E-tailer
Digital Merchandiser or Content Specialist
Marketplace Specialist (Amazon/Walmart/eBay)
Retail Merchandising or Category Analyst

Advancement To:

E-commerce Manager / Senior E-tailer Manager
Head of E-commerce / Director of Online Retail
Director of Omnichannel Commerce or VP of E-commerce
General Manager – Direct-to-Consumer (DTC)

Lateral Moves:

Product Manager (digital products)
Digital Marketing Manager (performance & acquisition)
Supply Chain / Fulfillment Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Own day-to-day management of the online storefront and assigned marketplace accounts (Amazon, Walmart, eBay), including catalog uploads, SKU setup, A+ content, sponsored ads and storefront optimization to maximize search visibility and conversion.
Develop and execute category-level merchandising strategies that increase conversion rate, average order value (AOV), and repeat purchase frequency using product bundling, cross-sells, and promotions.
Create, optimize and maintain product content (titles, descriptions, bullet points, images, specs, EAN/UPC, meta tags) to meet SEO best practices for web search and marketplace algorithms and to reduce returns and customer inquiries.
Manage pricing strategy and dynamic repricing rules across channels to balance competitiveness, margin preservation, and promotional calendar alignment with demand planning and finance.
Implement and analyze A/B tests across product pages, checkout flows, promotional banners, and email content to drive measurable uplifts in conversion and revenue; translate insights into repeatable playbooks.
Monitor key e-commerce KPIs (GMV, conversion rate, sessions, cart abandonment, CAC, LTV, margin) and produce weekly and monthly performance reports with actionable recommendations for marketing, merchandising, and operations stakeholders.
Coordinate inventory forecasting and replenishment with supply chain, procurement and 3PL partners to maintain target in-stock rates and minimize aging inventory and stockouts.
Lead fulfillment and logistics strategy for direct-to-consumer orders and marketplace FBA/3P fulfillment models; manage issues related to delayed shipments, carrier claims, and returns processing.
Execute and optimize paid acquisition campaigns (PPC, Sponsored Products, Google Ads, social ads) in collaboration with performance marketing to maximize ROI, lower ACoS, and scale profitable channels.
Manage customer experience and post-purchase operations by working with customer support to reduce escalations, improve CSAT, and implement feedback into product and policy improvements.
Maintain compliance with marketplace policies, tax and regulatory requirements, and marketplace account health (metrics such as ODR, late shipment, and policy strikes), proactively resolving escalations and appeals.
Build and maintain product taxonomy and site navigation to improve discoverability and on-site search performance; implement faceted navigation, filters and cross-categorization where appropriate.
Drive catalog hygiene and data governance: ensure SKUs have accurate attributes, GTINs, lifecycle status, cost data, and margin calculations; partner with BI to automate data pipelines.
Own launch processes for new SKUs and seasonal assortments including go-to-market plans, promotional calendars, content builds, and initial paid media support.
Partner with creative and content teams to produce high-converting visual assets (hero images, lifestyle photography, video demos, 360° views) and ensure technical specifications for web and marketplace channels are met.
Collaborate with finance and analytics to build pricing models, margin simulations, and scenario analyses for promotional and assortment decisions.
Manage relationships with external partners — marketplace account managers, brand partners, and 3PLs — negotiating service level agreements and ensuring the partner performance meets company SLAs.
Implement fraud-prevention and checkout security best practices to reduce chargebacks and fraudulent orders while maintaining frictionless customer experience.
Lead cross-functional project workstreams for platform migrations, feature rollouts, and international expansions, ensuring on-time delivery and minimal disruption to sales operations.
Maintain competitive intelligence: monitor competitor assortments, pricing, promotions, and marketplace tactics and adapt strategies to protect and grow market share.
Drive continuous process improvement, document standard operating procedures (SOPs), and train team members to scale operations with consistency and quality.
Forecast demand and plan promotional cadence aligned with seasonality, product lifecycle, and marketing campaigns to maximize inventory turns and margin preservation.
Implement lifecycle marketing and retention programs (email, SMS, loyalty) with the CRM team to drive repeat purchases, reduce churn, and increase customer lifetime value.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Assist with merchant onboarding and vendor setup processes when scaling assortments or categories.
Create postmortems and root-cause analyses for major incidents (outages, marketplace suspensions, fulfillment failures) and recommend preventive actions.
Support seasonal and campaign planning by producing forecasted lift estimates and capacity plans for fulfillment partners.
Mentor junior e-commerce and marketplace staff; coordinate training on tools, workflows, and compliance best practices.
Represent the e-tailer function in executive reviews, product council meetings, and cross-functional steering committees.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Proven experience with e-commerce platforms and storefronts (Shopify, Shopify Plus, Magento, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud).
Marketplace platform expertise (Amazon Seller Central & Vendor Central, Walmart Marketplace, eBay, Etsy) including listing, advertising, and account health management.
Strong analytics & reporting skills: Google Analytics (GA4), Adobe Analytics, Mixpanel or equivalent; ability to set up dashboards and interpret funnel metrics.
SQL proficiency for ad-hoc queries and data validation; comfortable extracting and transforming data to inform decisions.
Experience with paid acquisition tools and ads management (Amazon Sponsored Products, Google Ads, Facebook/Meta Ads Manager, DSPs).
Familiarity with A/B testing platforms and CRO tools (Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize) and the ability to design experiments and measure statistical significance.
Competence with CMS and content pipelines for product data: CSV/XML feeds, PIM systems (Salsify, Akeneo), ERP integration and API usage.
Excel/Google Sheets mastery (advanced formulas, pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, macros) for pricing, forecasting, and margin modeling.
Basic front-end literacy (HTML/CSS) to troubleshoot content layout issues and collaborate effectively with UX developers.
Inventory management and demand planning experience, knowledge of 3PL and fulfillment models (FBA, FBM, 3PL integrations).
Familiarity with CRM and lifecycle marketing tools (Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Braze) to coordinate retention campaigns.
Understanding of SEO best practices for e-commerce, structured data, and on-page optimization to improve organic discovery.
Knowledge of compliance, tax nexus basics, and marketplace policy enforcement processes.

Soft Skills

Strong analytical and problem-solving mindset with a bias toward measurable outcomes.
Excellent written and verbal communication; able to present complex analyses simply to cross-functional audiences.
Project management and prioritization: able to manage concurrent initiatives with clear timelines and deliverables.
Customer-centric orientation and empathy for the end-to-end buyer journey.
Collaborative team-player who can influence without direct authority and build consensus across teams.
Attention to detail and commitment to data hygiene and operational excellence.
Adaptability in a fast-paced, high-change environment; comfortable with ambiguity and iteration.
Leadership and mentoring ability to grow junior talent and scale repeatable processes.
Negotiation skills for vendor, partner and carrier contract interactions.
Time management and organizational skills to balance tactical operations and strategic initiatives.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Supply Chain, Data Analytics, Computer Science, or related field.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s degree with specialization in E-commerce, Digital Marketing, or Supply Chain Management; MBA or Master’s in a related field is a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

E-commerce / Digital Commerce
Marketing / Digital Marketing
Supply Chain Management / Logistics
Data Analytics / Business Analytics
Computer Science or Information Systems

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years in e-commerce, marketplace management, digital merchandising, or online retail operations.

Preferred:

5+ years with demonstrable ownership of online channel P&L, marketplace accounts, or major e-commerce initiatives.
Experience working with cross-functional teams (marketing, supply chain, customer service, finance).
Prior experience in fast-growth retail, DTC, or multi-channel retail environments is highly desirable.