Course duration: 10 weeks (80 hours of lessons)
Part-time: Fridays 14.00-18.00 & Saturdays 9.00-13.00
Language: English
Start Date: Oct 2023
Certification: exam fee included
Location: online (via Zoom) recordings available
In this executive course you will acquire the skills that will allow you to manage a fashion e-commerce channel, from creating a business plan for e-commerce to managing an e-commerce team, from designing a digital marketing strategy to managing digital marketing campaigns and Search Engine Optimization projects.
This is a comprehensive online course for fashion professionals who need to manage an e-commerce channel. The course is suitable also for graduates who aim at starting a career into a fashion e-commerce o digital marketing.
You will get a comprehensive overview of all the activities of the Fashion E-commerce Value Chain, the cost that you will need to sustain to run a successful fashion ecommerce and you will learn how to make you online channel profitable and sustainable.
This course is an online self study program with reading, videos quizzes and the support available from real professionals from the fashion and luxury industry.
This course has a pragmatic online training methodology that starts from goals and KPIs that are relevant to the ecommerce function and shows, explore and teaches you how to use the tools of the job.
Course Description
Ih this course you will learn the essential fashion e-commerce management skills, you will acquire the necessary notions to create an effective digital strategy, a business plan with a profitable bottom line and manage the operations, logistics, payments and how to create a digital marketing plan for e-commerce.
High level lesson plan and topics covered in this course:
- E-commerce Strategy: strategic decisions, key success factors, e-commerce value chain.
- E-commerce Merchandising and Store Management: the fashion e-commerce buying process, the
- E-commerce Analytics: performance monitoring and measuring: key performance indicators, metrics, ecommerce & web analytics.
- E-commerce organization: make or buy decisions, team management, e-commerce roles & responsibilities.
- E-commerce operations: logistics, payments, customer service.
- Essential notions of digital marketing, performance marketing, user experience.
With the pandemia fashion e-commerce has accelerated its growth rate and at the end of 2020 it’s ahead of 5 to 10 years vs pre-pandemia forecast. However at the end of 2022 there is a new balance between shopping desire in bricks and mortar stores and e-commerce.
In this course we explore how to set up an effective e-commerce in a fashion brand or in a retailer who plans to sell online. You will be studying the following topics:
- Commercial offer
- Ecommerce platform
- Ecommerce logistcs
- Traffic generation
- Ecommerce Customer Service
- Web Analytics
- Ecommerce team organization
1) E-commerce Strategy: strategic decisions, key success factors, e-commerce value chain.
What the key decisions that e-commerce managers need to make? How to they affect the overall digital channel performance?
The decisions that e-commerce managers make, together with their team, will shape the business and determine the results of the channel in terms of growth and profitability:
From the structure of the fashion offer – the assortment – to the promotional campaigns, from the digital marketing plan for customer acquisition to the logistics and delivery services to provide the customers with for free or not.
2) E-commerce Merchandising and Store management
The first thing we need to create a successful fashion ecommerce is define a commercial offer that is relevant to our target customer and it’s competitive on the market in terms of price and assortment.
The commercial offer for ecommerce is similar to an offline fashion business, but with some differences, and it is made of a
- selection of products
- selling price
- promotional activities
- conditions of sales such as shipping options and return policy.
We will see how the selection of products and the services offered are key factors in positioning the online channel and also are competitive factors that can determine the success of the ecommerce.
2) E-commerce platform
The second requirement is to set up an ecommerce website, which can be made by using one of the many content management and ecommerce platforms available on the market. Some of them are easy to use and can be set up in a short time while other e-commerce solutions require more customisation and may require the help of a software development agency, generally called system integrator. We will go into details of these steps also later on in the course. See our article on ecommerce platforms
3) E-commerce Logistics
Next you need a logistics solution, i.e. a warehouse where to stock the products, and personnel to handle the orders, Pick & Pack. The logistics also includes the shipping solutions and the agreements with the carriers that will deliver the orders.
4) Traffic generation
Then you need traffic to the website, i.e. people visiting your website interested in buying your products.Finally you will need to analyse the usage data and make decisions based on the metrics and KPIs that we are going to describe in detail later on in the course.
5) Ecommerce Customer service
E-commerce allows customers to complete an order in a self sufficient manner, however the online customer often need to interact with qualified personnel who is able to answer their specific questions about products before buying or conditions of return and other information after purchase
6) Web analytics
In order to track performance vs targets, week on week, year on year and so on, you need a web analytics system. One of the most frequently used is Google Analytics, a free tool that allows companies to track all the necessary data and measure performance of ecommerce, website and digital marketing.
7) Ecommerce Team organization
Last but not least, in order to manage and coordinate effectively all the above activities and processes, fashion companies need an internal team with at least an e-commerce manager, but depending on the size of the online business there maybe a manager position for each of the area or even more people in managerial positions responsible for single areas or e-commerce processes.
This course is for: graduates and managers
- Graduates from all over the world who aim at working in fashion companies in the digital divisions: e-commerce office, digital marketing department, omnichannel and ebusiness.
- Managers in the fashion industry who need to gain knowledge of e-commerce strategy and best practices, digital marketing fundamentals and web analyitics.
