Employee Interview: Soshun Sakamoto (Joined in 2022, Operations Manager)

I live in Hokkaido and have always worked for a local company, but I am currently working remotely for Commerce Media.

I had been working in e-commerce and web-related fields since I was working for a local company, but there are still not many talented e-commerce professionals in Japan, so I felt that this was the perfect industry to hone my expertise and increase the value of my employees.

In this article, I would like to talk about the jobs I have had so far, my impressions since joining Commerce Media, and what I am aiming for in the future.

In-depth experience in analogue EC management

This was about 10 years ago, but I had been interested in the e-commerce industry, which was gaining momentum year by year since then. I happened to come across a job opening at an e-commerce company in Hokkaido in my favorite genre, sports, so I said I'd do anything and got the job offer on impulse. This was my first experience with e-commerce.

The company had almost all of its operations in-house, with everyone performing a variety of tasks together rather than setting up departments, so I was able to gain a wide range of experience, from website management such as product registration and updates to customer service support and logistics work.

It's a fond memory now, but since the company was in Hokkaido, the warehouse was cold and I had to pick the products while freezing, and then make two or three trips between the shipping base and the storage warehouse in a Hiace. After the shipment was completed, I handled customer service. Since the main malls were Rakuten, Yahoo!, Amazon, etc., I was also planning campaigns and implementing measures at the same time, so I was really busy.

After about three years, the company mentioned that they wanted to acquire a physical store and launch a new e-commerce site, and I wanted to take on the challenge in order to improve my skills, so I volunteered to be in charge and moved to a new department.

Even in new stores, sales were mainly at malls and advertising was also carried out, but I wanted to increase sales not only by relying on advertising but also by product-based sales, so I participated in exhibitions in Tokyo while searching for information myself and negotiated terms with manufacturers. By developing new product genres and boldly purchasing large quantities of products with sales potential, I gradually expanded the scale of my sales.

I was in charge of the business for about five years and was able to increase sales several times over from the beginning, which became a success story for me and gave me confidence.

However, when I looked back on myself, I felt that although I had experience in a wide variety of tasks, I had reached a plateau in my skills, and I had a strong desire to gain more specialized knowledge about web production and promotion, so I considered changing jobs.

I had joined the advertising production company with the hope of returning to e-commerce work in the future, so I thought now, when people are starting to become less resistant to remote work, was a good time to start looking seriously.

Impression of Commerce Media during the interview

I had seen Commerce Media on social media and in the media before I started looking for a new job, and I was very interested in the company because the company provides comprehensive support for both its own company and mall websites, from website creation to operation and promotion, which matched what I had been doing.

During the interview, I was impressed by how much respect Commerce Media has for people involved in operations. At some companies, the people who generate sales tend to have stronger opinions, but at Commerce Media, even the departments that generate sales are thorough in thinking from the perspective of operations, and I felt that they were creating an environment where operations staff could work comfortably, which made me feel even more attracted to the company.

Also, during the interview, the words came out smoothly without me having to think, and I felt that we hit it off. I felt that EC was the right fit for me and that my experience would be useful, so after I received the offer, I decided to join the company without hesitation.

Current job description

My current duties at Commerce Media include orders, customer service, and operational tasks such as updating the site by creating pages and registering products, as well as communicating with clients regarding operations.

At the first company I mentioned, all of the business systems were developed in-house using Access, and maintenance was done by a single specialized employee, so updates when something happened were quite a burden. Even back then, I thought it might be easier to use SAAS or ASP-type services, and at Commerce Media, we make good use of OMS and WMS, so I feel that we can operate really efficiently.

Of course, the assumption is that the users of the system are well-versed in e-commerce and can use its functions to their full potential, so I think it is rare to find a company that can use it to this extent.

In addition, most of the work at Commerce Media is done in teams, as there are clients and separate departments for different tasks. I find it particularly rewarding to solve problems and achieve results as a team, which then leads to the growth of the team members and the business growth of the client.

Future outlook

My goal in the future is to contribute to the company as a manager. In the past, I was concerned with achieving results individually, but now I realize that I can achieve greater results by working as part of a team. I would like to use the sense and wide range of knowledge I have acquired through my experiences to contribute to the growth and success of other members and the team.

Also, as a personal ambition, I would like to increase recruitment in Hokkaido and set up a base in Sapporo. There are few EC support companies in Hokkaido, and I think there are only a few companies that can operate from the same perspective as Commerce Media. There are many attractive genres such as ingredients, but there are few companies to consult with, so I feel that there is no way to make sales beyond our know-how, and there are no opportunities for people in charge to interact with each other outside the company. I would like to set up a base in Hokkaido and other regions so that I can be a helper for such companies and EC people.

Of course, we welcome applications from other regions, even if they are not from Hokkaido. Nowadays, when people from far away join the company, they first come to the Tokyo head office for about a week to get to know the members, and then they move to remote work, which I think has made it easier to work from far away.

However, once you get used to it, you can work remotely at your own pace, but you always need to be aware of the sense of speed. The EC industry is evolving quickly, and the work speed of the projects we take on is also fast, so it's a good fit for people who can act independently and with a sense of speed. I think this is the perfect environment for people like me who want to try their hand at EC but live in rural areas and can't find a good company nearby, or for people who want to increase their value as human resources through EC, so I would be happy if you would apply.