What e-commerce teams do
Category managers pick the assortment, negotiate with brands or suppliers, set prices and plan sale events such as festive and end-of-season sales. Catalogue executives create listings with titles, images, specifications and keywords, and keep stock and prices in sync across channels. Marketplace account managers run each marketplace account: ads, deals, ratings and seller health metrics. Performance marketers buy traffic through search and social ads and track return on ad spend. Fulfilment teams pick, pack and hand over orders to courier partners, and manage returns and warehouse stock. Customer experience teams answer queries, resolve complaints and process refunds, while a small analytics team watches conversion, returns and repeat orders.
E-commerce teams at 50, 500 and 5,000 employees
A 50-person D2C brand usually has founders who own product and growth, a marketplace manager, two or three catalogue and listing executives, a performance marketer, a small warehouse team of pickers and packers, and customer support executives on chat and WhatsApp. At about 500 people, the company has category heads, a marketplace team for each major platform, a growth team for its own website and app, a warehouse with shift supervisors, a customer experience team with team leaders, and product and tech teams for the storefront.
At 5,000 people, typically a large platform or omnichannel retailer, there are business heads for major categories, seller onboarding and seller success teams, pricing and promotions teams, trust and safety teams that check fake listings and fraud, fulfilment hubs and last-mile delivery teams in many cities, and a customer experience organization running several support sites. Tech, product and data teams are large and run on their own ladders.
How category, marketing, fulfilment and CX connect
An order touches every team within hours. Category plans a sale; marketing buys traffic for it; catalogue makes sure the listings are live and correct; fulfilment staffs extra shifts to ship on time; and customer experience prepares for the surge in queries. When one team slips, the others feel it: a wrong size chart becomes returns for fulfilment and complaints for CX. Finance reconciles marketplace settlements, commissions and payment gateway payouts. HR supports sale-season hiring for warehouses and support, night shifts, and incentives for peak weeks such as the festive sale period.
Pricing, refund approvals and reporting lines
Executives report to category, marketplace or CX managers, who report to their department heads: the head of category or business, the head of growth, the head of fulfilment and the head of customer experience, who in turn report to the CEO or COO. Price changes within an approved band are set by category managers, and discounts beyond the band need the category head and finance, because they eat margin. Refunds follow limits: agents approve standard cases, team leaders handle exceptions up to a value such as ₹5,000, and managers anything above that. Warehouse overtime during sale weeks is approved by the fulfilment head.
Typical e-commerce team structure
E-commerce designation hierarchy
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Book a free demoSee pricingFrequently asked questions
What are the main teams in an e-commerce company?
The main teams are category and merchandising, catalogue and content, marketplace management, growth and performance marketing, fulfilment and warehousing, last-mile logistics, customer experience, finance and reconciliation, and product and technology. Larger platforms add seller onboarding, seller success, pricing and trust and safety teams.
What does a catalogue executive do?
A catalogue executive creates and maintains product listings. They write titles and descriptions, upload images, fill specifications and search keywords, map products to the right category, fix listing errors flagged by marketplaces, and keep prices and stock in sync across the website and marketplaces. Good listings lift search visibility and reduce returns.
What is the difference between a category manager and a marketplace manager?
A category manager decides what to sell: assortment, supplier terms, pricing, margins and sale plans for a product category. A marketplace manager runs the company's accounts on platforms such as Amazon or Flipkart: listings, ads, deals, account health and settlements. In a D2C brand selling on several marketplaces, the two roles work closely every day.
How do e-commerce companies staff for festive sales?
They plan weeks ahead: warehouses add temporary or fixed-term staff and extra shifts, customer support adds agents and extends hours, and leave is frozen for the sale weeks. Overtime is approved against daily order volumes, and incentives reward attendance through the peak. After the sale, rosters return to normal and temporary staff are released as their contracts end.