When we started Heur, one of the common issues we kept seeing in the market were great brands that had amazing product and vision, but which fell down when it came to digital delivery.
Growing ecommerce teams is hard to get right, some reach a tipping point where they were unable to allocate the resources to build and manage a full ecommerce team internally, capping their revenue and hamstringing their ability to grow.
That’s when we had the idea - why don’t we just do it all for them and let them focus on what they do best, i.e. their brand?
It was from this core concept that our Managed Ecommerce service was born - and it’s now by far the fastest growing aspect of our service mix at Heur.
What is Managed Ecommerce?
Managed Ecommerce is Heur’s foundational service, however it’s still relatively new to the market - so much so that many clients desperately looking for this solution don’t yet know how to ask for it.
But the concept of Managed Ecommerce is dead simple - we run a brand’s ecommerce for them.
That means the actual, day-to-day trading, updating, optimising and reporting of their online store front - all delivered by industry experts with ten-years-plus experience. Rather than hiring in a full ecommerce team, we do it all for them end-to-end, leaving them to focus on the rest of their business knowing that their online retail is taken care of.
Why use Managed Ecommerce?
It’s cheaper.
As the complexity of the ecommerce ecosystem has increased, so has the cost of implementing and managing a dedicated team to cover each interlocking aspect. Rather than looking to hire a Head of Ecommerce, a Manager, potentially an Executive, plus internal staff for paid media and social, Managed Ecommerce gives brands fractional access to dedicated experts in each vertical for on average 30 to 40% less expense.
It delivers value faster.
Managed Ecommerce drastically shortens the time between implementation and seeing value. Finding candidates takes generally one to two months, plus three months before they can exit their current role, PLUS another three months plus of getting them up speed - that’s an enormous lag before an internal resource can deliver their full potential. On top of that, average churn for ecommerce roles is a mere 15 month, at which point the cycle needs to begin all over again. With Managed Ecommerce, a team can be primed and in place to start delivering value within as little as a week, minimising disruption to trade and with best-practice trading frameworks already in place to execute on.
It provides an expert team across every element of the business.
Managed Ecommerce gives you access to proven experts across every aspect of your business, each with at least ten years of hands-on experience, both agency- and brand-side. Rather than having an experienced Head Of Ecommerce supported by junior execs who need hands-on management, Managed Ecommerce delivers director-level expertise and execution across every aspect of your digital business with no management overhead.
It’s fully integrated.
Managed Ecommerce integrates directly with a business, acting in essence as their senior ecommerce stakeholder and reporting at a founder or board level. What this means is that we coordinate all activity across the site, email, CRM and paid media. Sometimes we deliver every aspect, sometimes we work alongside partner agencies. But in every instance we have a full operational understanding of the ecommerce business, and the ability to deliver comprehensive reporting and executive summaries that shows how every action is affecting the bottom line, keeping the business agile and profit-focussed.
Whether you’re an SME looking to scale efficiently and effectively, an enterprise-level business looking for additional support or a VC looking to quickly put a team in place to support within your portfolio, Managed Ecommerce can help.
If you’d like to find out more about how this service can scale to support you, get in touch - we’d love to take you through it in more detail.
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