I've fielded a couple of phone calls over the last few weeks from store owners looking for help running their Magento store. What they were effectively looking for was someone who had been on one of our Magento training courses who was looking for a job! I have had to politely point out that we are not recruitment consultants and we don't pass on past delegates details to anyone. That said it has lead me into conversations with them about the skills that they should be looking for when recruiting for such a role and here is the thing... in every case they were looking for a developer to run the store!
I have one question back to them... Why a developer? There seems to be a misconception amongst smaller store owners that you need a programmer to run a Magento store, or at least you need the skills that a programmer possess to make it a success. I believe this is dangerous thinking and you only have to look how larger ecommerce stores are run to realise the real skills you need to run a great online store.
Lets first dispel the myth that you need a programmer/developer.
- Typically a programmer wants to solve problems and make things work better, this is a major reason why they choose the developer route. The solutions they come up with should only need to be done once (I'm simplifying) and then they move on to the next problem.
- Any programmer worth his salt does not want to be spending his day setting up products, promotion rules and content. He wants to be trying to solve the next big issue, or make something more efficient. These are skills that are very useful - but not for the day to day running of your store.
Now lets look at the skills you need to run a successful Magento store. Remember in larger organisations these skills will be distributed amongst a team - with smaller stores you will require multi skilled members of staff.
- The most important skill required I believe is the ability to understand online marketing. For your store to be a success you need to understand how people find websites and how they browse and view the products on that website. This is not rocket science but is often overlooked (if I build it they will come may work for Baseball pitches but there is much more work than that required on the modern internet). Make sure that a key skill you have above any else is this. Someone who is familiar with social media, email marketing, search engine marketing and pay per click is going to serve you much better that someone who knows how to add a new function to your store.
- Some 'Photoshop' skills (or photo editing skills). Very useful for keeping images and promotions fresh. This doesn't need to be a full blown designer but someone who understands how images work on the internet, what size they should be cropping them to and some text formatting over images to create interesting and fresh banners.
- Writing skills. It is important that you can describe, promote and sell the products on your store in words. A good description can be vital in the persuasion process when your visitors arrive on the site. This is particularly true of items that are of a higher value or need explaining off the function.
- Merchandising skills. You can draw a lot of comparisons with an ecommerce store and a physical 'bricks and mortar' store. In both cases it is important to know where to place you products so your customer can find them. What about promotions and the proximity of related products to encourage shoppers to put more in the basket.
- Someone who will follow a process. When an order is placed on your store you need someone who will consistently follow through the order from payment through to completion - marking it appropriately on the way. In stores with many orders it is very easy to get confused about what orders have been fulfilled and not if you do not have a system to make sure they are getting marked at a timely point.
- A good communicator. Many complaints against ecommerce stores and customer dissatisfaction comes from the lack of communication. Although Magento has built in emails that tell customers when an order has been created, invoiced and dispatched along the way problems do arise. If you can communicate with your customer in a timely manner (either via email or telephone) then you will find the level of complaints significantly lower.
These are just some of the skills needed to run a store and although there are developers who will have these skills you are wasting a good (and often expensive) resource if you expect them to run all or part of your online store.
Running an online store is a skill within its own right, and a skill that should be acknowledged. Magento is a powerful ecommerce platform, anyone who develops there knowledge in using and mastering it will have a highly valuable skill set.
If you are interested in learning more about how to run a Magento store you can check out our scheduled Magento course dates or download a free sample of one of our Magento training modules.
