Let's consider the main roles in the marketplace team and metrics for each of them:
Sales Manager
This specialist searches for and attracts suppliers to the platform. Key metric: the number of new marketplace merchants for a certain period.
From the practice of Scallium clients, one manager can process from 40 to 60 suppliers per month, if there is no high entry threshold in form of a tariff plan and the marketplace works only on commission. If the marketplace works with suppliers on a subscription basis, then there are 20-30 companies per month per manager. And if this is a niche platform, and it selects merchants based on the service quality, then you should focus on 10-15 companies.
Content Manager
This specialist is responsible for moderating product content and creating product cards, and also for digitizing the assortment from merchants in general. The main KPIs are the number of moderated SKUs and the quality of filling in the information inside the card (including the error's absence). According to our projects, the content manager can process from 5,000 to 10,000 SKUs per month.
What is moderation? It's a process when the content manager opens a product card, sees if it meets the requirements, gives feedback to the supplier, if necessary. This is true if the entire necessary IT infrastructure works properly, and the supplier downloads the catalog to the marketplace and does not send it to the content manager in Excel docs.
Account Manager
They are responsible for the recruitment, adaptation, development, and control of suppliers. Key KPIs are turnover and profitability for the target market and category. The account is also responsible for the relevance of prices, the width, and depth of the range, commercial conditions, margin. This is an important position for marketplace development. We recommend taking 2-3 specialists at the start.
Quality Control Manager
The main functions are to check the suppliers' work quality, eliminate violations and scams in relation to the marketplace or the end buyer, create and verify Service Level Agreement (SLA) for suppliers, as well as constantly monitor the activities of all participants in the platform. Key KPIs can be the order processes speed, level of communication with a client, goods returning percentage. An important indicator is the percentage of successfully completed orders in general.
Additional team roles in the marketplace can be performed by external teams, or often they are borrowed from an existing retail business:
Call Center
This is the team that handles inquiries and complaints from both suppliers and buyers of the showcase. Key metrics are the number of incoming/outgoing calls, average queue on the phone line, ticket resolve satisfaction index.
Data Analyst
A marketplace has a huge data flow, so it is important to aggregate information in the BI system like Power BI and others. System's tasks are deploying a data warehouse, organizing the metrics collection from all systems (including external ones), organizing dynamic data updates, creating dashboards and reports necessary for business and others. All these functions are crucial for making the right management decisions in real-time.
The analyst determines the range expansion vector, verifies that the required categories are established, and works with external reporting and monitoring agencies (eg Nielsen). It also determines the possibility of expanding categories and closing the buyers' needs through the product range.
The main task of analysts is to say what to sell and when to sell on the marketplace to maximize turnover and profit.
Lawyer
It is important to create a legal framework for the marketplace, that includes contracts, agreements, and rules and will ensure the security of the platform and provides guarantees for its participants. A lawyer oversees the main business processes for working in the market, namely the interaction of the end client and the supplier. The goal is transferring responsibility from the platform to the merchant's side and providing a liability mechanism for the supplier's failure to fulfill obligations to the end client.
Accountant
This specialist organizes and conducts all financial transactions between suppliers and the marketplace. They also control the replenishment of personal accounts of suppliers and form a financial reporting system for the marketplace.
Product Marketing Specialist
The role of marketing in some cases is so big that it is worth making it a separate division on a par with the IT platform. But in this article, we propose to consider marketing as a part of the operations team. This specialist is engaged in driving traffic to suppliers' products, works in conjunction with an analyst to focus on high-converting products and categories. He or she also optimizes advertising campaigns and the customer journey map on the online storefront. Marketing specialist's task is to provide the optimal ratio of traffic volume and traffic cost in the goods' price.