In our second #PandaPounds salaries by specialism feature, we turn our focus to ecommerce salaries. How have industry professionals’ wages changed in the last 12 months, and what are their expectations for 2017?
We look at average ranges by role, comparing this year’s benchmarks to 2016’s. From the numbers below, it's obvious that this is the year of the Product Manager! High demand for product superstars has led to an increase in salary benchmarks for all seniority levels. When we look at ecommerce, online trading and online merchandising, not a lot has changed...
Over the last 12 months, 24% of ecommerce superheroes said that their salaries remained the same and 2% saw a decrease. An impressive 73% received a pay-rise - nice!
Why did 26% of respondents within this segment not see a positive change in their wages? For those whose salaries decreased, 75% took a career sidestep and 25% moved to a contract / freelance job. Those with no change at all told us that they:
The remaining 13% attributed it to a number of things, with "not increasing freelance rates" being the most popular response amongst freelancers. One comment that packs quite a punch was, "the boss was in no mood to ask. It's a bit sh*t to not even have goals". For managers reading this, it's worth noting that we'll be covering more comments like this one - and how it impacts employee retention and attraction - in a future #PandaPounds feature post (watch the #PandaPounds blog category!).
If we compare these results to last year's, we see a positive change. In 2016, just 67% of ecommerce professionals saw a boost in their pay packet, 3% saw a decrease and 29% saw no change at all.
Once again, let's delve deeper into the reasons why some respondents' wages decreased or stayed the same. Answers covered everything from "moving roles" and "going back to study" to "the company is barely profitable" and "budget cuts". A few people were lucky enough to get one large, or two separate, pay rises in the last 12 months; they told us that they didn't want to be greedy.
So, how do our findings from this year's survey measure up against the results that we published in our ecommerce salaries in 2016 feature? Last year, just 52% of ecommerce professionals expected their wages to increase. 1% were dreading a pay decrease, 16% were sure nothing would change and 18% didn't know what would happen.
How would our online retail superstars expect their pay to change if they were to move to a new role? Would they want a big pay rise... or would the same salary suffice? Let's take a look at the results...
In our 2017 ecommerce salary survey - for the first time ever - we asked our respondents about the types of benefits that they would like to receive. Here's what our respondents said they would prefer:
Good question! For information on how salaries have changed (and are expected to change) for other digital specialists, take a look at our latest #PandaPounds features for digital design salaries and digital marketing salaries.