Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Online Sales Specialist

🎯 Role Definition

The Online Sales Specialist is a results-driven sales professional who builds and optimizes the digital sales funnel across e-commerce marketplaces, brand webstores, and digital advertising channels. This role combines proactive selling, product merchandising, campaign management, customer relationship management (CRM) and analytics to increase online revenue, improve conversion rates and maximize lifetime value (LTV). The specialist will work cross-functionally with marketing, operations, product and customer success teams to execute promotions, maintain product listings, manage inventory signals, and deliver exceptional online buying experiences.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Junior E-commerce Coordinator
Inside Sales Representative (digital focus)
Marketing Coordinator with e-commerce responsibilities

Advancement To:

Senior Online Sales Specialist / E-commerce Manager
Marketplace Manager / Head of Digital Sales
Director of E-commerce or Head of Growth

Lateral Moves:

Digital Marketing Manager
Account Manager for Marketplaces
Customer Success Manager (strategic accounts)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Own and execute the full online sales lifecycle for assigned product lines and channels, including product listing creation, pricing strategy implementation, promotional planning, campaign setup and post-campaign performance analysis to drive month-over-month online revenue growth.
Manage day-to-day operations of listings across e-commerce platforms (Shopify, Magento, Amazon Seller Central, Walmart Marketplace, eBay), ensuring accurate SKUs, optimized product titles, bullet points, descriptions, images and A+ content that improve SEO and conversion rates.
Develop and implement channel-specific acquisition strategies using paid search (Google Ads), paid social (Facebook/Instagram), Amazon Sponsored Products, and marketplace advertising to achieve CAC and ROAS targets.
Analyze channel and product performance using Google Analytics, platform reporting and BI tools to create weekly and monthly sales reports, identify trends and recommend data-driven optimizations to leadership.
Proactively monitor inventory levels, sales velocity and replenishment signals, working closely with supply chain and operations to prevent stockouts and oversells that negatively affect conversion and marketplace standing.
Execute price, promotion and bundling strategies (including coupons, lightning deals and coupon stacking on marketplaces) to win Buy Box, increase average order value (AOV) and improve short-term promotional lift without eroding margin long-term.
Drive customer acquisition and retention initiatives using CRM and email marketing platforms (e.g., Klaviyo, Mailchimp, HubSpot) by creating cart abandonment flows, welcome series, upsell sequences and VIP re-engagement campaigns.
Build and optimize landing pages, PDPs (product detail pages) and checkout flow improvements in coordination with UX/design and development teams to reduce friction and lift conversion rates across desktop and mobile.
Lead A/B and multivariate tests for product pages, ad creative and checkout elements; define hypotheses, implement tests, and analyze results to scale winning treatments across the catalog.
Manage and resolve customer escalations related to digital sales, refunds, returns and seller feedback on marketplaces, maintaining high seller ratings and customer satisfaction metrics.
Maintain and improve marketplace account health by addressing policy violations, inauthentic claims, and compliance issues promptly; coordinate with legal and compliance where necessary.
Coordinate with product merchandising and category management to prioritize high-margin SKUs and seasonally relevant assortments for featured placements on homepages, category pages and marketplace storefronts.
Prepare forecast models and sales projections for online channels; use historical data and promotional calendars to produce accurate monthly and quarterly revenue targets for planning and inventory allocation.
Onboard and train internal stakeholders and external partners (agencies, resellers, marketplace reps) on campaign setup, reporting standards, and best practices to ensure consistent execution and measurement.
Monitor and optimize paid search and social campaigns using keyword research, negative keyword management, bid strategies and creative refresh cycles to maximize efficiency and scale profitable customer acquisition.
Create and maintain product feed health for merchant platforms and comparison shopping engines (Google Merchant Center, Bing Merchant) ensuring taxonomy accuracy, image specs and GTIN/UPC compliance for higher visibility.
Implement and maintain dynamic remarketing and retargeting strategies that leverage behavioral signals and CRM segmentation to recover abandoned sessions and increase return customer purchases.
Track and report on key online sales KPIs including conversion rate, AOV, ROAS, CAC, LTV, churn rate and customer acquisition metrics and present insights and action plans to stakeholders.
Collaborate with customer success and fulfillment teams to optimize delivery promises, fulfillment speed and returns handling to improve post-purchase experience and repeat purchase rates.
Research competitive pricing, assortment and promotion tactics across market competitors and marketplaces, translate findings into actionable adjustments and communicate competitive threats and opportunities to leadership.
Drive cross-sell and upsell programs on-site and post-purchase using data-backed product recommendations and promotional mechanics to increase basket size and lifetime customer value.
Lead optimization of SEO for category and product pages, including structured data, meta descriptions, canonical tags and content strategy to improve organic search rankings and reduce dependency on paid acquisition.

Secondary Functions

Create ad-hoc sales performance dashboards and exploratory analyses to support business questions and stakeholder requests.
Support the organization's digital commerce strategy by recommending platform tools, integrations and roadmap priorities that accelerate online revenue growth.
Collaborate with marketing and product teams to translate customer insights and sales signals into merchandising and promotional engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies when working with digital product, tech and analytics teams to prioritize experiments and technical fixes that impact sales.
Assist with vendor and agency selection, contract management and performance monitoring for external partners supporting paid media, creative or marketplace operations.
Maintain and update standard operating procedures (SOPs) for listing creation, campaign setup, reporting cadence and customer escalation workflows.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Advanced knowledge of e-commerce platforms (Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce) and marketplace seller consoles (Amazon Seller Central, Vendor Central, Walmart Marketplace, eBay).
Strong experience with web analytics and measurement tools including Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager, and platform native analytics to interpret traffic, funnel and conversion data.
Proficiency in paid acquisition channels and tools: Google Ads (Search & Shopping), Microsoft Advertising, Meta Ads Manager, and Amazon Advertising with proven performance optimization techniques.
Product listing optimization skills: keyword research for organic marketplace SEO, A+ content creation, image optimization, and structured data (schema.org) implementation for SERP enhancement.
CRM and email automation experience (HubSpot, Klaviyo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud) to build lifecycle campaigns, segmentation and automation flows that drive repeat purchases.
Data manipulation and reporting skills: advanced Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/INDEX), familiarity with SQL for query-based analysis and experience with BI tools (Looker, Tableau, Power BI).
Experience with feed management and product data pipelines (Google Merchant Center, product feed tools) to ensure high-quality, compliant product data across channels.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) and A/B testing experience using tools like Optimizely, VWO or Google Optimize to run hypothesis-driven experiments.
Knowledge of merchandising analytics, pricing tools, repricers and promo mechanics to manage competitive pricing and promotional cadence.
Familiarity with basic front-end concepts (HTML/CSS) and CMS platforms to implement quick on-page updates, canonical fixes and markup for improved SEO and conversions.

Soft Skills

Strong commercial acumen with an outcome-oriented mindset and the ability to balance growth vs. profitability.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills for negotiating with partners, communicating campaign strategies, and preparing executive-level reports.
Analytical problem-solver who translates data into clear, prioritized actions and communicates trade-offs effectively.
Project management and prioritization skills; comfortable juggling multiple channels, promotions and cross-functional stakeholders in a fast-paced environment.
Customer-focused empathy and service orientation to manage escalations and design experiences that improve satisfaction and retention.
Collaborative team player with experience working across product, marketing, operations and finance to deliver integrated commerce outcomes.
Adaptability and learning agility to keep pace with rapidly changing marketplace policies, ad platform features and e-commerce trends.
Detail-oriented with a high degree of accuracy in data reporting, feed management and campaign configurations.
Negotiation skills for managing third-party partnerships, channel fees and promotional placements.
Strategic thinker who can develop roadmaps for channel growth while executing hands-on to deliver immediate results.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience in Business, Marketing, E-commerce, Finance, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Data Analytics, or E-commerce.
Certifications in Google Ads, Google Analytics, Amazon Advertising or HubSpot preferred.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Marketing
E-commerce / Retail Management
Business Administration
Data Analytics / Statistics
Supply Chain / Operations (helpful for inventory coordination)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–5 years in e-commerce, digital sales, or marketplace management with demonstrable online revenue ownership.

Preferred: 3–7+ years handling multi-channel online sales, marketplace account management, and digital advertising with a track record of improving conversion, ROAS and AOV.

Industry experience: Retail, Direct-to-Consumer (DTC), Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Electronics, or comparable categories preferred.
Experience managing cross-border marketplaces, global listings, or multi-currency operations is a plus.
Demonstrated experience working with cross-functional teams (marketing, product, operations, finance) and external vendors/agencies for scalable growth.