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Employees wanted for the 
virtual sales counter

Shoes, insurance or spare parts for production machinery – you can buy almost anything over the internet. Online commerce has arrived in almost every sector, accelerated by the pandemic. When they click “Purchase,” users initiate a variety of processes that run in the background. E-commerce employees ensure they run smoothly through to delivery, supported by IT systems. Their expertise and creativity can make or break the success of an online shop. In light of the rapid growth of online retail, employers are looking for lots of specialists to keep shops running – from attracting customers to maintaining content to controlling success and ongoing development.  This is an interesting field with good future prospects for specialists from a business background, including for people changing career paths, as the analysis of 350 job advertisements for e-commerce employees shows. A wide range of tasks await job seekers in a modern working environment.

Online retail is by now well-established. Revenues within Germany did drop by 2.2 billion euros in 2022 according to HDE Handelsverband, however they are well above the 2019 level at 84.5 billion euros. During the pandemic, even companies that had thus far handled their business through traditional channels moved some of their purchasing and sales activities online. Employees need additional expertise, since many things work differently in online retail then they do in traditional business models. For the DEKRA labor market report, we analyzed the full texts of 350 job advertisements for e-commerce employees with a business background. The goal was to find out what duties they will handle at their new workplace, and what requirements job seekers need to fulfill.