Managing an online store can be a lucrative venture. Ecommerce businesses continue to thrive and are showing no signs of slowing down. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, online stores reached unprecedented heights as people shifted to online shopping. But even before that, people had already been shopping online. Ecommerce sales are expected to grow 10.4% in 2023 with the global market expected to hit $6.3 trillion in the same year.
But success in ecommerce does not come in a wink of an eye. To thrive in a competitive industry, you need to possess certain skills. Ecommerce is a dynamic industry and you cannot sit back and relax. You need to stay on top of your game to stay competitive. These ecommerce skills will help your business to excel. So read on and get to know the essential skills you need to succeed in ecommerce.
Essential Ecommerce Skills
- Emotional Intelligence
- Research
- Soft Skills
- Project Management
- Marketing
- Communication
- Computer & Technical Skills
- Customer Service
- Accounting/Money Management
- Critical Thinking
Let’s get on with it.
Essential ECommerce Skills
When it comes to ecommerce, it is not enough that you put your products on your website and wait for customers to buy. Ecommerce success goes beyond placing and updating your inventory on your online store. You need to possess certain skills that will help you grow your business and stay competitive.
1. Emotional Intelligence
As an ecommerce business owner, one of the most important skills you should have is emotional intelligence. This skill allows you to keep your emotions in check as well as that of the customer. It can help you clearly distinguish between ideas and better use beneficial information. Emotional intelligence can impact relationships between customers and employees.
Emotional intelligence helps you understand the target audience more clearly. It can help you better identify their likes, dislikes, preferences, and motivators. This skill is key to improving product development and digital marketing. In addition, it can improve communication between teams and internal operations. You will be able to identify valuable ideas and potential business opportunities.
Finally, emotional intelligence can help create a retail experience that is attuned to the feelings of its customers. With emotional intelligence, you can have the ability to target customers at the right time through the proper channels and approach them in a way that resonates on a deeper level. Emotional intelligence can help drive sales and take your marketing and websites to a new level.
2. Research
Exceptional research skills will also come in handy to succeed in ecommerce. It may be easy for you to dismiss the importance of research in managing an ecommerce business. With proper research, you will be able to identify opportunities in the ecommerce market. The insights that you will discover from your market research will define your future business strategies. More importantly, your research skills can help you with the following:
- Understand Your Target Audience. Research skills can be valuable in identifying your most appropriate, relevant, and valuable target audience. A clear understanding of your target audience will help you craft the right digital marketing strategy. Your research will provide additional information about your customer base.
- Research Your Competition. Your research skills will help you develop a better understanding of your niche market. It will help you identify the major players, the size of the market, and the strengths and weaknesses of your competitor. It will help you find your place in the competitive market.
3. Soft Skills
Soft skills refer to traits or attributes that can allow you to create meaningful connections and fruitful relationships with customers. Soft skills are needed to help individuals handle different situations. This is important because being an ecommerce owner will require you to deal with different customers. Soft skills can affect how you communicate and collaborate with others. They are strongly related to customer service and can make or break the customer experience.
Soft skills are applicable to a wide range of roles. They are frequently presumed to be innate and are not usually certified through formal training. Soft skills need to be adjusted across cultures or business contexts. Soft skills become even more important as you move up the career ladder and don’t fundamentally change. An example of a soft skill is communication. It ticks all the boxes for a soft skill.
There is a common saying which goes, “Hard skills get you hired, soft skills get you promoted.” The former guarantees that you can do a job but the latter guarantees that you will excel or apply your skills and knowledge effectively. That is why it is one of the most important attributes that employees should possess. In addition, you cannot automate soft skills. Deloitte predicts that two-thirds of occupations will be soft-skill intensive by 2030.
4. Project Management
Project management skills help you keep things under control. In addition, it helps you stay in touch with the latest trends in the market. With project management skills, you can effectively improve business efficiency and improve customer satisfaction. It is worth noting that managing an ecommerce project is different from traditional projects because online businesses function differently at a fundamental level.
Not having an effective process for managing projects can result in lost time, wasted money, inconsistencies, and poor performance. 11.4% of all resources are wasted due to inferior project management processes. In addition, organizations that fail to properly integrate project management into their strategies have seen an increase in outright project failure rate by a factor of ⅔. This is why effective project management is needed now more than ever.
Project management skills help improve your chances of achieving the desired results. It enables you to gain a fresh perspective on your project and determine how it will fit your business strategy. Effective project management skills can be crucial in improving productivity and quality of work. It can increase your chances of success and deliver projects consistently, efficiently, on time, and within budget.
5. Marketing
In a highly competitive industry like ecommerce, having solid marketing skills can help you promote and attract potential customers to your online store. In an industry dominated by the likes of Amazon and EBay, your online store needs to stand out to break through the crowd. You need to be knowledgeable about ecommerce marketing to increase ecommerce sales. More importantly, you need to be good in the following marketing areas:
- Email Marketing. Email is still the most preferred medium of communication by customers. Emails can generate an average return of $40 for every $1 spent on email marketing. Thus, you need to be skilled in crafting emails that encourage customers to open your email and respond to your call to action.
- Paid Advertising. Paid advertisements are the biggest drivers of web traffic. 65% of customers click on PPC ads. If you do not have any experience in PPC, you can take some courses to sharpen your skills. The most important part is understanding your budget and using it wisely.
- Search Engine Optimization. Another important ecommerce marketing skill is search engine optimization. You need this skill in order for your keywords to rank in search engines. If you have a blog that accompanies your website, it is even more important to be educated about SEO otherwise your efforts will be wasted if it does not rank.
- Social Media Marketing. People spend an average of 2.5 hours a day on social media networks and messaging. Hence, social media marketing is one of the most important skills any ecommerce owner should have. You could leverage social media to reach potential customers. However, social media marketing is not just about posting content on Facebook or LinkedIn. You need to have a strategy when posting social media content.
6. Communication
As an ecommerce store owner, you will not only be communicating with customers but also with your employees and business partners. For this reason, effective communication is a very important skill for ecommerce success. Communication skills have a huge impact on how your ecommerce business will thrive in the industry.
Communication is the core of customer service. Without it, you could be losing potential customers because of miscommunication. Effective communication skills means being able to speak confidently and professionally on the phone, video call, or chat. It includes writing effective emails to customers. You need to make sure that you and your staff know how to properly use grammar and spelling.
Good communication in ecommerce also means being able to use positive language. This could lead to positive emotions. In ecommerce, your ability to communicate will make a difference in your customers being able to remember your brand. It can drive customer engagement, reduce chances of cancellation, and boost customer satisfaction.
7. Computer & Technical Skills
An ecommerce business runs on technology so having computer & technical skills is a must. You do not have to be an expert in it but having a basic knowledge will go a long way in ensuring that your ecommerce business will run more efficiently. You will need to upload products, install plugins and themes, optimize website speed, and others. While you can outsource these tasks to an outsourcing firm, it pays to have some knowledge about it.
As an ecommerce owner, you will also need to have an understanding of how your store operates. You will need to understand some technical jargon used in ecommerce businesses. One important technical skill ecommerce business owners should know is data analytics. This is important as it will provide you with information about how your ecommerce website is performing compared to the competition.
Having computer skills will allow you to react more quickly and appropriately to situations as they unfold. You can buy some technical tools on the market to leverage them to improve ecommerce website performance.
8. Customer Service
Customer service is at the heart of any industry. Without it, you could be losing valuable customers to your competitors. Putting a premium on customer service can boost your sales immensely. In addition, it can also enhance customer loyalty and generate positive feedback for your business as well. 96% of customers say that customer service is an important factor that determines their loyalty to a brand.
It is the job of ecommerce business owners to make the customer experience as smooth as possible. Nowadays, customer service differentiates a business from the competition. 68% of customers will buy products and services from companies that provide excellent customer support. In addition, 84% of customers say that good customer service helps them finalize their buying decision.
Ecommerce business owners should make sure that they exceed their customer’s expectations. When it comes to ecommerce, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. You have to deliver customer service tailored to their needs. You must be ready to serve customers according to their preferences. If necessary, you should establish multi-channel support. 85% of customers prefer multiple channels for completing their shopping journey.
9. Accounting/Money Management
Although this is another task that you can delegate to an outsourcing firm, ultimately you are expected to closely monitor your business finances. Issues with cash flow have been cited as one of the main causes of 82% of failed SMBs. As a business owner, you want to make sure that appropriate investments are being made and that you have a healthy cash flow. In addition, you want to ensure that employees and salaries are being paid on time. Money management skills ensure that your business will thrive and survive in the long term.
Money management is crucial for an ecommerce business because it helps with inventory management and in the maintenance of business profitability. It allows business compliance with tax regulations so you can make an informed decision based on financial data. Many businesses make the mistake of spending too much of their budget to buy inventory. They rely too much on sales which may take a while to come. As a result, they fall behind on bills and are unable to catch up on payments.
Money management skills can help you lower expenses and gain operational efficiency. In ecommerce, the phrase “cash is king” becomes appropriate. Without it, it is unlikely that your business will grow. You may find yourself taking on debts regularly to keep your business afloat. Fortunately, there are online tools that can help you effectively keep track of your cash flow and other expenses.
10. Critical Thinking
Ecommerce involves a lot of activities that may require critical thinking. From inventory management, marketing, shipping, to communication, you need to be able to think critically to help you manage these activities while keeping an eye on business profitability. Without critical thinking skills, you may commit costly errors that could impact your online store in the long run. Critical thinking is important as it can save you time and money.
Critical thinking allows you to detect problem areas and identify the best solutions to these problems. During an emergency or difficult situation, critical thinking enables you to keep calm so you can come up with an informed solution. With critical thinking, you are able to take preemptive measures to problems and issues. By thinking critically, you will be able to step back, study the problem at hand and decide on the best course of action.
Critical thinking skills, when properly implemented, can help minimize mistakes and ensure a seamless operation of your ecommerce business. It can help you avoid conflicts and save you money and time. Critical thinking helps you tackle important decisions that could impact your business in the short and long term.
In a highly competitive industry like ecommerce, these skills are important in keeping you competitive. It can prove crucial in the survival of your business and eventually contribute to its growth.
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