Diversity & Inclusion: Is the eCommerce industry doing its part?

Is the eCommerce industry doing enough to ensure diversity & inclusion? When trying to attract and retain customers, there is a key aim for many brands. Basically, your customers will want to see themselves represented. 

Whether this be in your marketing campaigns or the products you sell, people want to see brands doing their part to improve diversity & inclusion. Of course, this all starts with the company and the team. If a company is not hiring a diverse workforce, the message might be lost when communicating with customers.

For our 2023 eCommerce salary survey & insights report, we wanted to focus on diversity & inclusion for the first time. This first part of our exclusive blog series reveals what industry professionals feel about their current companies.

Representation in eCommerce - who feels most represented? 

For part one of our focus on diversity & inclusion in eCommerce, we want to focus on one question. We asked our questionnaire respondents how they felt different groups were represented. Do people feel there are groups that are more marginalised than others?

The percentages shown indicate how many of the respondents felt that each group was well-represented in their company.

As we can see, there are some concerning figures. Our respondents feel that those with disabilities are underrepresented, with only 10%. There are many factors to take into account. Those living with invisible disabilities may not share this with the wider team, choosing only to let management know. Perhaps accommodations are not being made for certain people too. For example, those with visual or auditory impairments may need more accessible means to communicate and fulfill their duties. If these are not provided, a work environment just isn't suitable.

On the other side of the chart, we can see gender equality is improving. We have focused on gender and pay in our previous salary survey reports. As the years went on, we saw this gap close significantly. Of course, there is always work to be done. Our research shows that 44% of our female respondents are in director/C-Suite level roles. This has definitely improved, though it would be great to see this continue and see more women in leadership positions. 

Representation of religious beliefs, LGBTQ+, and nationalities will also need attention. Having a diverse workforce, whose beliefs or normal everyday life have received unwarranted negative attention in the past, will help strengthen a team. Showing there are no boundaries is a very powerful thing.

Furthermore, there are increasingly more people who will look for companies specifically with a strong focus on diversity & inclusion. Working on these policies will only help a company with talent attraction and retention. 

More diversity & inclusion insights to come!

Now we have seen what people feel about diversity and representation in their company, our next blog will focus on how companies can improve this. Stay tuned! While you wait, you can download a full copy of our report below!