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One of the coolest ecommerce jobs around!
We are working with Cleveland Research in their search for a Director, Ecommerce Councils based in Cleveland, Ohio — which, as you may have heard, ROCKS.
As an employee-owned firm, Cleveland Research provides its diverse array of clients with the most accurate and reliable research and market insights available in order to assist them with their important business decision-making needs. By training and developing employees and partners alike, CRC drives businesses and people forward—both personally and professionally.
At CRC, employees collaborate with client companies and people across the marketplace and work closely with members of senior management, engaging with every department on a daily basis. This unique team atmosphere, combined with high-energy, playfully competitive, and youthful co-workers, allows for a different type of dynamic to develop — and isn’t easily found anywhere else.
HARRY’S COMMENTS: Last week Amazon bought whole foods. By now, old news. As an ecommerce recruiter, I wasn’t surprised. (62% of Whole Foods customers use Amazon Prime, as do 55% of Costco’s customers.) But I hadn’t thought through the consequences of such an acquisition until I started sifting though dozens of news articles, op-ed pieces, blog posts (some excellent), and YouTube videos.
There’s a lot out there on this subject.
The experts’ consensus is that the effects of Amazon’s Whole Foods acquisition will be far-reaching and will dramatically extend the reach of a dizzying array of products and services like Amazon Prime and Prime Now, Private labels and exclusive marketing arrangements, Amazon Local, AmazonFresh and Amazon Prime Pantry, Amazon Dash, Amazon Go, and possibly Amazon Supply.
In general, the thinking goes like this:
Grocery is a $770 billion pocket of US consumer spending, making up 30% of Amazon’s total $2.5 trillion addressable market of consumer spend. Grocery is also a very greenfield, with only 2% online industry penetration. On average, US consumers visit the supermarket 1.6 times per week. Imagine Amazon capturing that traffic and being able to cross sell and upsell previously unrelated hard goods and soft goods to consumers.
Amazon’s core strategy has always been consumer behavior modification: Bringing consumers to the site and converting them to Prime. Next, with a clean UI, and endless aisle, a powerful suggestion engine and low friction, driving them to spend more across more categories. Low-priced inventory availability combined with MAP pricing and lower payment friction have proven to be extremely disruptive online, and Whole Foods’ 440 stores could enable Amazon to materially increase consumer expectations again as 1-2 hour delivery could replace 2-Day delivery expectations.
AMZN vs TGT / WMT / COST: Wall Street’s Double Standard
Historically, Wall Street has given Amazon a pass on making a profit – a yardstick universally applied to its retail competitors. Investors understand that a $10,000 investment in Amazon 20 years ago would be worth nearly $5 million today, and smart investors have learned to trust Jeff Bezos’ vision while cash was plowed back into the business.
This double standard gives Amazon an unlimited supply of cheap money and talent plus an ability to make grocery investments Walmart, Target, Costco, Kroger, Publix and others simply can’t afford to make. Meaning: If Amazon’s integration of Whole Foods gets messy, AMZN’s stakeholders may well hang in there.
Who wins and who loses with all this?
Obviously, Amazon’s direct competitors should be concerned, but they won’t be taking this lying down. There’s every possibility that Amazon’s marketplace strategy will be copied by other retailers to the ultimate benefit of consumers everywhere.
Yet such marketplaces serve to flatten out each seller’s differentiation, forcing them to compete on price while buying traffic. In particular, CPG firms are at severe risk of voice-based gate keepers like Alexa driving captive consumers to private label offerings …
For brands everywhere, some serious reinvention may be in order.
As Cleveland Research’s new Ecommerce Council Director, it’ll be your job to facilitate that reinvention — helping your clients become smarter about commerce, software, and content by providing research and consulting services on ecommerce and digital advertising. In this role, you’ll play a fundamental role in growing CRC’s Ecommerce Council along with its broader market research business.
You’ll serve as both an Ecommerce Industry Analyst, Advisor and Council Facilitator.
A “Council” is a group of peers from noncompeting categories committed to helping each other year-round. Like a mastermind group. Councils meet 2-3 times per year to absorb YOUR TEAM’S ideas on how to grow their brands on Amazon. Hope you like pressure!
Additionally, Council members attend meetings to build friendships in an environment of trust as they help each other salve real business challenges while gaining actionable insights as to how to grow their businesses on Amazon.
As CRC’s Ecommerce Council Director, you will be tasked with designing and running the agenda for these retreats, as well as performing thought leading analysis of the eCommerce industry. This job will give you an opportunity to help CPG grow their capabilities and build their organizations while giving them an opportunity to tap the knowledge of their peers when they need it.
Naturally, you will be expected to understand Amazon and eCommerce as well as anyone else in the industry, and you will be expected to develop and promote interesting ideas no one else has thought of. You must be able to speak and write crystal clearly, with a punchy delivery that makes you as entertaining as you are informative.
This is an EXTREMELY high profile job.
As usual, we spent a ton of time on the phone with this client teasing out exactly what you’ll need to KNOW and DO to hit the ground running in this role. I had TWO lengthy calls with one of the smartest hiring managers I’ve ever engaged. It was a magic show. Some of the things we can share with highly qualified candidates include …
- The “real” background requirements for this position, along with the top five things all resumes MUST have to be considered for the role.
- The top five problems that exist due to this position being open. These are the little fires you will be expected to put out during your first month on the job. Every job has these — whether your recruiter wants you to know about them or not!
- What your average day / week will look like in this role. There’s what you read in the standard job posting … then there’s reality. We’ve got the reality.
- The top KPI’s that will determine your success in this role. In a nutshell: How you keep score.
- The major projects you’ll need to complete by Day 100 to be considered a home-run in this position. We’ve got the lowdown on how you can plug-and-play and drive REAL value in this job.
We have a massive amount of proprietary intel to share with qualified candidates. Our industry research for this assignment exceeds 100 pages! Be sure to TEXT me, Harry Joiner, for this info at (404) 281-2025.
Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below.
View Harry Joiner’s profileRESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE:
- Develop written reports with actionable conclusions for council members (clients) based on channel research, company presentations and industry data
- Create custom research product to meet clients’ specific business needs using data and insights collected from primary and secondary research
- Create presentations for CRC-hosted calls, events, and industry speaking engagements
- Ownership of our weekly research product for Council members that identifies key themes across CRC’s coverage
- Build relationships and gather insights from council members through phone and in person meetings
- Sell the Council to new members and deepen partnerships with existing members
- Assist on custom Advisory Services projects including selling and executing deliverables
- Help lead customer service through driving high engagement at events and throughout the year
- Develop new research product ideas to attract new customers to the council
- Help to ensure the continued high quality of CRC eCommerce research
POSITION REQUIREMENTS:
- A graduate or an undergraduate degree
- Must have a minimum of 5 years of relevant eCommerce industry experience
- Excellent communication and writing skills
- Well-developed analytical skills and ability to work with and interpret data, as well as extract relevant insights
- Commercial awareness, tenacity, and keen attention to detail
UPDATE: THIS SEARCH IS CLOSED
