50 best eCommerce interview questions to ask

We’re often asked for a list of the eCommerce interview questions to use when interviewing for senior eCommerce roles, including:

eCommerce Manager

Head of eCommerce

eCommerce Director

VP eCommerce

To start, let’s understand how a good eCommerce team can make a difference to a business. 

With expertise spanning web development, design, marketing, analytics, logistics, and customer service, a dedicated team ensures every aspect of the eCommerce operation is handled effectively. This enables businesses to optimise the customer experience, innovate, scale, and maintain efficiency. Additionally, a skilled team can adapt to changes swiftly, ensuring brand reputation remains strong through consistent messaging and customer satisfaction, ultimately driving long-term success.

Create an eCommerce skills matrix

A skills matrix outlines the specific competencies and qualifications required for the role, allowing you to clearly define the skills, experience, and attributes they are seeking in candidates. By establishing these criteria upfront, the interview process becomes more focused and objective, enabling you as a business to accurately assess each candidate’s suitability for the position by asking the right eCommerce interview questions.

Additionally, a skills matrix helps identify any skill gaps within the existing team, allowing for targeted recruitment to fill those gaps and ensure a well-rounded eCommerce team. 

Ultimately, this proactive approach increases the likelihood of hiring candidates who possess the necessary skills and attributes to contribute to the success of the eCommerce operation, driving growth and profitability for the business.

What eCommerce interview questions should I ask?

Here is our guide to the best eCommerce interview questions. This isn’t a comprehensive list, and you should add specific competency questions, but this list should offer some guidance and inspiration when asking eCommerce interview questions.

General eCommerce interview questions

1. Why are you currently considering a new role?
2. What are you looking for in your new position?
3. What makes you stand out from other candidates?
4. What would you say your proudest moment at work was? 
5. What initiative have you lead that had the biggest impact on the business?
6. Why should we hire you?
7. What would you like to achieve in this role within the first 6 months?
8. What support would you need from us in the first year of this role?
9. Do you think the current team structure is sufficient for growth?
10. What does a good induction programme look like to you?
11. What are the core pillars of eCommerce?
12. Describe the different eCommerce models that a business could adopt? What are the pros and cons of each?
13. What eCommerce brands impress you and why?

eCommerce strategy interview questions

1. Describe your experience in creating and developing digital content for various platforms.
2. Have you introduced any new digital channels in your previous roles? If so, please provide examples and explain the impact they had on the business.
3. If given the opportunity, what changes or improvements would you suggest for our website?
4. Walk us through the steps you typically follow to successfully launch a new product on an eCommerce platform.
5. What would be your initial focus or the first task you would undertake when starting in this role?
6. If you were to set three objectives for yourself in the first 12 months with us, what would they be?
7. Considering the market we operate in, how important do you think mobile will be for our business? Explain your reasoning.
8. How would you go about implementing a digital transformation project within our organisation?
9. Can you provide an example of a time when you leveraged social media to enhance business performance or achieve specific objectives?
10. In your opinion, what does a good return on investment (ROI) look like in the context of eCommerce, and why is it important?
11. What key eCommerce metrics would you track in this role and why?
12. How would you tackle increasing customer churn metrics for this business?
13. What strategies would you look to implement for this business to increase customer retention?
14. What eCommerce tools would you look to bring in and why?
15. What in a customer journey helps to cross sell to existing customers?
16. Can you see any improvements to our sales funnel? How would you look to improve these?
17. What are the most effective marketing campaigns you’ve worked alongside and why?

Team management and leadership assessment

1. What ways of working would you introduce within the team?
2. Would you describe yourself as a good leader?
3. What does good communication look like to you?
4. How do you look to motivate people? What do you consider? 
5. If your team was not producing the results you expected, what would you do first?
6. How do you go about influencing someone?
7. How to you communicate technical technical insights to business stakeholders?
8. What challenges have you encountered whilst managing a hybrid team?
9. Give an example where you felt passionately about something (eg a business case) but struggled to convince others?
10. In your opinion, what is the ideal size of our eCommerce team?

Balanced thinking interview questions

1. Have you ever launched an initiative which didn’t produce the results you were expecting?
2. What personal objectives have you achieved? Are their any you are yet to achieve?
3. Give an example of a time where you didn’t meet your sales forecast. What could you have done differently?
4. How do you work with a team to improve outcomes?
5. In your opinion, what is better. A thorough approach and answer or a fast one?

Critical thinking assessment

1. What is the most important metric as an eCommerce Director and how would you measure it?
2. Describe a complex decision you had to make. How did you gather relevant information, assess the options, and ultimately make a well-informed decision?
3. Can you share an example of a situation where you had to make a quick decision with limited information or under pressure. How did you determine the best course of action?
4. How do you balance data-driven decision making with intuition or gut feeling? Can you provide an example where you relied on both aspects to make a successful decision?
5. How do you approach such situations and ensure that the decisions you make align with the overall business strategy while also meeting the needs of various teams and departments?

eCommerce interview questions: summary

We’re a specialist recruitment agency within ecommerce and are here to help you with any questions you have relating to eCommerce interview questions. Since 2002, we’ve helped a broad range of companies, from scale-ups, start-ups and enterprise businesses to hire customer centric experts that build effective strategies for business transformation. 

We have compiled a short guide for further reading: 5 questions to assess a candidates cultural fit.