cranberry panda – 5 years on….

Last week I was sat in the pub with all the pandas enjoying a drink to welcome in a couple of new people to our team. Looking around the table, I felt such pride about where we have come since we started 5 years ago but mainly because of the amazing team at the table.

As the world of ecommerce constantly matures and changes, so has cranberry panda and I thought it would be a good time to share an update of where we are now and what is coming up.

There are 14 pandas now and two NEDs. As always, our focus remains the same; to help great people find great opportunities in ecommerce. As our sector evolves we have adapted to support the needs of people working in ecommerce and also our client’s ambitions to build amazing teams. 

Our ecommerce specialisms

To support this growth our teams are structured to reflect that of on online retailer. As certain disciplines have become more prevalent, we bring in specialists to help with these areas in the same way our clients do. So I thought it would be a good time to update and refresh memories about the areas we cover.

The two key teams focus on:

Ecommerce/multi-channel and onsite roles which includes:

• General ecommerce roles across all seniority from Director to Assistants
• Online trading and merchandisers
• Ecommerce Designers – increasingly with UX experience
• Content roles across editorial and product copy
• Web analysis and insight

Online marketing roles, including:

• General online/digital marketers from Directors to Assistants
• Search specialist – PPC, SEO, Display and Paid Social
• eCRM and email
• Social Media
• Affiliate marketing

What's moving forward in the ecommerce world?

There are some areas experiencing some rapid growth in ecommerce and of course leading to shortages of excellent people. UX/UI is certainly causing a buzz in many companies and will continue to be a focus for the next year or two. Analytics continues to thrive with more companies bringing this in house.

Econsultancy predicted at the start of the year that 2015 would see Online Retail Sales grow by 16.7% from £45bn to £52.5bn. That is a huge number very much backed by the vision of retailers to be digital first. International is an opportunity which is becoming easier to adopt and where would we be without mobile? January saw 37% of all online sales going through mobiles. 

What’s next?

Well why don’t you take a look at Ashley Friedlein, one of our Non Exec’s, talk about ‘Future Trends in Digital’ which was presented at our 2015 Salary Survey and Insights Party. If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading this yet then please do download it.

We are very excited about the remainder of 2015 and what the sector looks like going into next year and are looking forward to joining you on this journey.