Industries
Why e-commerce employees leave and how to understand why
Warehouse associates, support agents and fast-scaling teams leave for different reasons. How to ask what shaped their decision and act on it between peaks.
8 min readRead article
E-commerce and D2C
HR for Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) Brands: Founders, Growth Teams and Outsourced Operations
A D2C brand is usually a small core team steering a product, a website, a marketing budget and a web of vendors. Here is how to build the people side before the founders become the bottleneck.
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Share your requirementsHow the work is organised
A direct-to-consumer brand sells its own products to customers through its own website, apps and social channels, and often through marketplaces as a second leg. The in-house team is small and varied: founders, a brand and content group, performance marketers, a catalogue and website person, customer support, and a supply and operations lead. Manufacturing, warehousing, delivery and sometimes support sit with partners. Hiring happens in bursts after a funding round or a good quarter, titles are loose, and the founders still approve many small decisions. Pay is often a mix of salary and promised upside. The business has to keep selling through launches, festive sales and campaign spikes with the same few people. See also HR for e-commerce and D2C.
Who does the work
- Founders and co-founders
- Brand and content managers
- Performance marketing executives
- Website, catalogue and merchandising staff
- Customer experience executives
- Supply, procurement and vendor coordinators
- Operations and fulfilment coordinators
- Finance and admin executives
Where HR strains in direct-to-consumer brands
Founders decide everything
Pricing, hiring, creative and vendor choices all route through two or three people, so the team waits and good people stop proposing things.
Roles are invented as you go
One person is half marketer, half operations and half support, and nobody can say what a good month looks like for them.
Hiring follows panic, not a plan
A launch or a sale event triggers a rush of hires, then a quiet stretch with too many people on the same work.
Growth hires are paid for numbers they do not control
Spend, sales and return-on-ad figures swing with the market, which makes targets and incentives hard to defend.
Equity talk replaces clear pay
Promised upside is explained verbally, pay bands do not exist, and the first few joiners earn very differently for similar work.
Partners carry the customer promise
Packing, delivery and sometimes support are done by vendors, and the brand team spends its days chasing them rather than managing its own work.
What a working HR set-up looks like
- 01
Draw a simple structure with owners
Who owns each function, who decides what, and where the founders step back. Start with the organisation design work and keep it to one page.
- 02
Write role outlines for the first twenty roles
Purpose, five outcomes and who the role works with, so growth, brand and operations stop overlapping. The role design and job descriptions service covers it.
- 03
Plan hiring against launches and sales
A calendar of when the team needs to grow and which roles are permanent, so hiring is steady. The HR strategy and workforce planning work builds it.
- 04
Set pay bands and explain any upside
A salary range per level and a written note of any bonus or equity, so two people doing similar work are not paid by whoever negotiated best. See compensation benchmarking.
- 05
Agree how reviews work for variable results
A short quarterly conversation with a few outcomes the person controls, kept apart from raw spend or sales numbers. The performance management process sets it out.
What to put in place first
- List the decisions that currently need a founder and mark which could be handed over.
- Write one page describing what each person in the team is accountable for.
- Compare what the last five hires were told about pay with what they receive.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the employment, record-keeping and licensing obligations that apply to your business.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
Where GullyHR helps
- Organisation design
A clear structure and decision rights, so the team can act without waiting for a founder.
- Role design and job descriptions
Role outlines that separate brand, growth and operations work, and make hiring briefs easy to write.
- Compensation benchmarking
Pay bands and a written note on bonus or equity, so offers are consistent.
- Performance management process
A simple review rhythm for roles whose numbers move with the market.
Every engagement starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes. Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in e-commerce and d2c, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Management
Everyone reports to the founder: when and how to redesign the structure
A flat structure works until the founder becomes the only route to a decision. How to tell when you have passed that point, and how to redesign without a reorganisation.
8 min readRead article
HR Management
"We need two more people": the headcount plan nobody wrote
Hiring decisions made one request at a time, in the month the pain is worst. What a workforce plan contains and why a twelve-month view changes what you hire.
7 min readRead article
HR Management
Salary bands for SMEs: building grades when you have never had any
Most salary structures grew one negotiation at a time. How to build grades and bands from what you already pay, without repricing everybody at once.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Usually when the team passes the point where the founders know every person's work and pay, which often arrives sooner than expected. The first signs are inconsistent offers, unclear roles and founders stuck approving small things.
Many brands start with part-time or outsourced support for structure, hiring and pay, then bring in a full-time person when the team and workload justify it. The right moment depends on headcount and how many open issues you have.
Pick outcomes they influence, such as campaign execution, testing discipline and reporting quality, along with business numbers they share with others. Pure spend or sales targets punish people for market swings.
In writing, in plain words, with the conditions and timing. Verbal promises made during hiring are the most common source of later disagreement. Take advice from a qualified professional on the legal form.
Plan the extra work early, decide which tasks can wait, agree who covers support and operations, and give time off afterwards. Doing it by goodwill alone works once and then fails.
We would look at three things from your own team: the decisions waiting on founders, the overlap between growth, brand and operations roles, and how offers and pay have been set. A sensible first piece of work is a one-page structure with role outlines for your core team. Scope and deliverables are agreed in writing before we begin.
More on HR for e-commerce and d2c
All 8 business types in e-commerce and d2c · Find another business type
Marketplace sellersSubscription box businessesSocial commerce and influencer-led sellersQuick commerce and dark store operatorsE-commerce fulfilment centres and warehousesCustomer support teams for online storesOrganisation Design in e-commerce and d2cHR Strategy and Workforce Planning in e-commerce and d2cCompensation, Payroll and Benefits in e-commerce and d2c
See all HR topics for e-commerce and d2c, or another industry.