Two decades ago, only a few entrepreneurs and business owners were enthusiastic about building their own eCommerce businesses. However, the likes of Amazon, eBay, Shopify, and Alibaba drastically changed the online landscape over the past years, encouraging many individuals to create their online store and start selling their products and services to consumers worldwide.
Launching and overseeing an eCommerce business requires entrepreneurs to take on various roles, given the many tasks and responsibilities involved. Sellers must be ready to assume the responsibilities of a salesperson, marketing manager, customer service representative, or researcher and engage in numerous routine micro-tasks.
If you want to scale your e-commerce store to a higher level, you will need to learn eCommerce delegation, as it is improbable for an eCommerce business to grow with only a single person doing the task all alone. This article gives you insight into task delegation for eCommerce enterprises.
What is eCommerce Delegation?
Before exploring the significance of eCommerce delegation, let us clarify the concept itself. eCommerce delegation, also known as delegation eCommerce, involves entrusting the responsibilities of a business or brand to experts or an external service provider.
To guarantee the efficient and effective completion of specific tasks, an eCommerce business adopts eCommerce delegation by outsourcing some or most of its functions to skilled service providers. Such a task delegation could encompass areas such as marketing, advertising, fulfillment, and shipping.
The Importance of eCommerce Business Task Delegation
Task delegation is vital in enhancing an eCommerce business’s growth, efficiency, and overall success. The following key points underscore the importance of incorporating task delegation into your business strategy to provide a clearer insight into the advantages of assigning tasks for your e-commerce business.
Specialization and Expertise
As a business owner, effectively delegating responsibilities of your eCommerce business is crucial. Managing diverse aspects of the business, such as marketing, logistics, and customer service, requires specific skills and knowledge. By entrusting these tasks to experts or external specialists who possess the necessary expertise to handle the unique challenges of each business aspect, you can enhance the overall success of your online enterprise.
Scalability
Delegating eCommerce tasks, particularly to third-party service providers, fuels business expansion. eCommerce delegation leads to efficient resource utilization, including workforce, technology, and infrastructure. Thus, it results in sustainable growth and scalability.
Time Management
eCommerce delegation can significantly help your online business improve time management. By delegating mundane and repetitive tasks to specific individuals, you can allocate your time strategically, allowing you to focus your time and effort on critical aspects of the business, including strategic planning, business development, and decision-making.
Efficiency and Productivity
Assigning responsibilities guarantees the efficient and timely completion of tasks. Your team can channel their energies into core tasks, boosting productivity and elevating your eCommerce business’s competitiveness. This agility enables swift responses to market changes and customer demands.
Market Change Adaptability
Delegating tasks to experts can help your business quickly adapt to the ever-changing eCommerce landscape and respond to marketplace demands, trends, and preferences of online shoppers. Third-party service providers can stay updated with industry trends and quickly implement necessary adjustments to your business to make it highly competitive.
Fostering Innovation
Delegating everyday responsibilities enables you and your key team members to concentrate on innovative and creative endeavors. By delegating eCommerce tasks, you gain additional time to assess elements that have the potential to innovate your business model and strategy. It may involve introducing new products, refining business strategies, utilizing seller tools, or enhancing the overall user experience.
The advantages of eCommerce delegation can be summarized as creating a strategic management approach and promoting efficiency, adaptability, and growth for eCommerce enterprises. By delegating responsibilities to external service providers, you can boost your business productivity and position it for success in the competitive eCommerce market.
Tasks to Delegate and Retain in Your eCommerce Business
For those venturing into eCommerce or the broader business landscape, determining which tasks to entrust to third-party service providers and which to retain in-house can be challenging. The lack of experience in managing an eCommerce business may lead you to outsource tasks better suited for internal handling.
To give you insights into effective eCommerce delegation, outlined below are some tasks that can be entrusted to an external service provider and those that are best retained within your business’s internal framework.
Tasks You Can Delegate to Service Providers
1. Marketing Asset Creation and Management
One of eCommerce’s most commonly delegated tasks is creating and managing marketing assets. You can hire a freelancer or specialized agencies to develop and manage marketing assets for your eCommerce business, such as social media marketing, graphics, email campaigns, and promotional materials.
Delegating tasks to social media management groups lets you focus on other essential aspects of your marketing campaign while ensuring your business maintains high-quality marketing content.
2. Order Preparation and Fulfillment
eCommerce businesses can delegate order preparation and fulfillment to a third-party service provider, a practical choice for online resellers looking to expand beyond their storage capabilities.
Amazon sellers utilizing third-party logistics providers (3PL) are an excellent example of this approach. Amazon sellers use 3PL service to streamline their retail process, including but not limited to warehouse space, shipping coordination, order fulfillment, and retail distribution.
3. Accounting
Whether you are selling on Amazon or operating your own online selling platform, you can further improve your business operation by delegating your business’s financial tasks. In particular, you can delegate tax preparation, filing, and bookkeeping to professional accounting firms or freelance accountants to ensure accuracy and compliance.
Tasks Your e-Commerce Business Should Not Delegate
1.Sales
Avoid outsourcing core sales responsibilities whenever possible. Keeping critical sales responsibilities within your company will help maintain a deep understanding of your product, the marketplace, sales strategies, relationship building, and customer acquisition.
2. Workforce Training
For teams that embody your business values and goals, avoid delegating training tasks to third parties. Having complete control of the training process allows you to shape a cohesive and efficient workforce.
3. Customer Service
While there is debate about customer service delegation, it is strongly recommended that emerging eCommerce businesses should not quickly entrust customer service to external service providers. At the onset of your business, you should retain control over customer service operations and strive to uphold a direct line of communication with customers.
Personalized support and prompt response are critical for customer satisfaction and loyalty. If it cannot be helped that customer service will have to be outsourced, ensure that someone within your organization will closely manage customer service teams to better align your brand’s values and priorities.
Tips for Implementing eCommerce Delegation
1. Clear Communication
When entrusting tasks to external providers, clearly articulating your expectations, requirements, and any specific guidelines is imperative. Maintain an open communication channel to promptly address any concerns or queries. This proactive approach fosters a collaborative and effective working relationship.
2. Goal Setting
Outlining explicit expectations and measurable goals serves as a roadmap for task completion and reminds team members and service providers of the performance metrics in place. This approach in your eCommerce delegation will ensure that service providers are aligned with your overall business objectives and have a shared understanding of the criteria by which their contributions will be evaluated.
3. Reassessing Strategies
Given the dynamic nature of customer demands and market trends, it is essential to consistently review your business strategies and the efficacy of delegated tasks. It guarantees that the performance of external service providers aligns with the evolving market conditions and customer expectations.
Striking Balance
Achieving successful eCommerce delegation requires a strategic balance between outsourcing tasks to external service providers and retaining control over core responsibilities. To delegate effectively, you should take note of the vital elements mentioned above, including communication, precise goal setting, and ongoing reassessment of strategies.
Being able to adjust delegated tasks based on performance reviews and changing business priorities is crucial. This adaptability ensures that your eCommerce business stays flexible and responsive to the dynamic eCommerce landscape.
