Career Research Essay: Preparing for Careers in Omnichannel Retailing and E-Commerce

Author

Mickyas Shawel

Published

August 15, 2026

1 Introduction

Omnichannel retailing has expanded the meaning of a retail career. A modern customer may discover a product through social media or search, compare it on a website, check availability online, purchase through an e-commerce platform, pick it up in a store, and later receive email or loyalty communications. Because these touchpoints are connected, retailers increasingly need employees who can understand both the customer experience and the digital systems that support it.

For this career research essay, I examined three current Southern California job postings that represent different parts of the omnichannel environment: Ecommerce Coordinator at Anastasia Beverly Hills, Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst at Mattel, and Trade Marketing Coordinator at Morphe. Together, these positions show how e-commerce operations, analytics, campaign execution, retail partnerships, and cross-functional communication increasingly overlap.

Central Career Insight

The postings suggest that omnichannel careers are not built around one isolated skill. Employers increasingly value professionals who can connect commerce platforms, marketing execution, analytics, customer experience, and cross-functional coordination.

2 Summary of Job Postings

2.1 Anastasia Beverly Hills — Ecommerce Coordinator

The Ecommerce Coordinator position at Anastasia Beverly Hills is an entry-level role based in Los Angeles. The position supports the company’s Pro Program as well as broader e-commerce and customer relationship management activities. Responsibilities include reviewing customer submissions, tagging customers in Shopify, supporting email and SMS communications, coordinating campaign briefs, tracking creative deliverables, and compiling performance information for CRM reporting.

The posting asks for approximately one to three years of experience in marketing, e-commerce, customer operations, or a related area. Important qualifications include organization, attention to detail, written and verbal communication, project coordination, and the ability to work with several teams simultaneously. Experience with Shopify, email/SMS marketing tools, and CRM reporting is listed as a plus. This role demonstrates that an e-commerce coordinator is not simply maintaining a website; the employee also supports customer communications, campaign workflows, and digital customer experience.

View the Anastasia Beverly Hills job posting

2.2 Mattel — Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst

Mattel’s Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst position in El Segundo provides the clearest example of an explicitly omnichannel career. The role supports the Growth Channels Omnichannel Retail Marketing team by analyzing marketing programs, market share, sales, competitive activity, promotions, brand performance, pricing, placement, and other business information. The analyst also assists with promotional planning, brand activation, reporting, and portfolio financial management.

Mattel lists a bachelor’s degree in marketing, business, or a related field and zero to two years of related experience, making the position especially relevant to an early-career graduate. Technical expectations include strong quantitative analysis, financial knowledge, and advanced Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint skills. Mattel also emphasizes critical thinking, leadership, problem solving, deadlines, and collaboration. Experience in category management, trade or brand marketing, consumer research, sales, or finance is considered beneficial.

View the Mattel job posting

2.3 Morphe — Trade Marketing Coordinator

Morphe’s Trade Marketing Coordinator position in Los Angeles connects brand marketing with retail partners and both digital and physical retail execution. The coordinator supports retail and trade marketing strategies, channel advertising campaigns, retailer launch materials, campaign recap decks, promotional calendars, retailer-specific assets, budgets, competitive research, and events. The position also works with teams responsible for sales, social and influencer marketing, e-commerce, creative, operations, demand planning, and finance.

Morphe seeks approximately one to two years of related experience, including experience with retail or trade marketing. The posting emphasizes Excel, PowerPoint, analytics, presentation development, project management, written and verbal communication, and cross-functional collaboration. It also explicitly describes programs spanning wholesale, online, and brick-and-mortar channels. This makes the role a strong example of omnichannel thinking even though the word “omnichannel” is not part of the job title.

View the Morphe job posting

3 Skills and Knowledge Required

3.1 Comparison of Employer Expectations

Comparison of the three selected omnichannel-related positions.
Position	Major Responsibilities	Important Tools / Skills	Experience
Anastasia Beverly Hills — Ecommerce Coordinator	Shopify customer tagging, CRM coordination, email/SMS support, campaign workflows, reporting	Shopify, CRM reporting, email/SMS tools, organization, communication	1–3 years
Mattel — Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst	Marketing analysis, sales/competitive analysis, promotions, pricing, brand activation, P&L support	Advanced Excel, PowerPoint, quantitative analysis, financial knowledge, critical thinking	0–2 years
Morphe — Trade Marketing Coordinator	Retail campaigns, retailer calendars, recap decks, budgets, retail assets, cross-channel execution	Excel, PowerPoint, analytics, project management, communication	1–2 years

As ?@tbl-jobs shows, several patterns appear across the postings. First, analytics and reporting are important even when the job is not formally called an analyst role. Mattel directly emphasizes quantitative business analysis, while Morphe expects employees to interpret campaign and sales performance, and Anastasia Beverly Hills includes CRM performance reporting.

Second, employers repeatedly value cross-functional coordination. These positions interact with combinations of marketing, sales, creative, e-commerce, operations, finance, social media, and customer-facing teams. This suggests that technical ability alone is insufficient. Employees must be able to communicate findings, manage deadlines, coordinate projects, and translate information between departments.

Third, the postings show the importance of platform knowledge. Shopify appears directly in the Anastasia Beverly Hills role, while Excel and PowerPoint are especially important at Mattel and Morphe. The larger lesson is that early-career omnichannel professionals need a combination of platform fluency, data literacy, customer understanding, and communication skills rather than specialization in only one area.¹

4 Connection to IBM 6300 and the MSDM Program

The work completed in IBM 6300 provides direct preparation for many of these responsibilities. Building a Shopify environment develops familiarity with online storefront structure, product organization, navigation, product pages, and customer experience. Product-feed activities reinforce the importance of accurate product titles, descriptions, categories, imagery, and structured product information. These skills are closely related to e-commerce coordination and digital merchandising responsibilities.

The course’s work with Google Analytics 4, Google Merchant Center, Google Shopping Ads, customer journeys, and retail analytics also builds the measurement perspective employers expect. For example, the Mattel position requires employees to analyze marketing performance and identify opportunities for growth. Morphe expects campaign recaps and performance interpretation. Understanding how customers move between discovery, product consideration, purchase, and post-purchase interactions makes those analyses more meaningful.

The CPP Farm Store omnichannel consulting project provides especially useful evidence because it combines strategy with implementation. The project required customer journey analysis, a Shopify prototype, product-feed planning, campaign strategy, creative development, and an analytics dashboard. Rather than treating these activities as separate assignments, the project demonstrates how the components of an omnichannel system affect one another.

Other courses in the MSDM program can strengthen this preparation further. Marketing analytics and data visualization support the quantitative requirements found in analyst positions. Search engine marketing and digital advertising courses support paid media, Google Shopping, and campaign optimization. Consumer behavior and marketing research help explain why customers respond differently across channels. Strategic marketing and consulting projects strengthen problem solving and the ability to communicate recommendations to decision makers.

Portfolio Connection

A strong career portfolio can present the CPP Farm Store project as evidence of an integrated skill set: Shopify + customer journey strategy + product data + campaign planning + analytics + business recommendations.

5 Personal Career Reflection

Of the three positions, the Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst path is the most interesting to me because it combines marketing strategy with quantitative analysis and business decision-making. It is not limited to reporting numbers; the analyst is expected to interpret marketing, sales, competitive, promotional, and financial information and then help develop recommendations. That combination reflects the direction I want to continue developing within digital marketing.

My current preparation includes hands-on exposure to Shopify, omnichannel journey analysis, product-feed strategy, digital campaign planning, GA4 concepts, dashboard development, and presenting recommendations through the CPP Farm Store consulting project. These projects give me concrete examples that can be discussed in interviews rather than only listing software names on a resume.

The biggest area I want to continue strengthening is the ability to move from a dashboard or dataset to a concise business recommendation. I also want to continue improving advanced Excel, retail financial analysis, and the way I communicate quantitative findings to nontechnical audiences. Those capabilities appear particularly important in the Mattel and Morphe postings.

My next steps are to update my portfolio so the CPP Farm Store project clearly demonstrates the connection between strategy, implementation, and measurement, and to tailor my resume toward omnichannel analytics, e-commerce analytics, and retail marketing analyst positions. I can also use the terminology found in these postings—such as omnichannel retail marketing, promotional analysis, Shopify, campaign performance, cross-functional collaboration, and business analysis—when it accurately describes my project experience. This will make my coursework easier for employers to connect to real job responsibilities.

6 Conclusion

The three postings demonstrate that omnichannel retail careers require more than knowledge of stores or e-commerce alone. Anastasia Beverly Hills emphasizes digital commerce operations and CRM coordination; Mattel combines retail marketing with analytics and financial decision-making; and Morphe connects campaigns with retailers across online and physical channels. Across all three, employers value analytical thinking, technology familiarity, communication, organization, and cross-functional collaboration.

IBM 6300 and the broader MSDM program provide a useful foundation because they combine digital platforms with customer strategy and measurement. The next stage of career preparation is to translate those academic projects into portfolio evidence that clearly shows employers what problems I can analyze, what tools I can use, and how I can contribute to an integrated omnichannel customer experience.

7 References

Anastasia Beverly Hills. (2026). Ecommerce Coordinator. LinkedIn Jobs.
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/ecommerce-coordinator-at-anastasia-beverly-hills-4423184815

Mattel. (2026). Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst. Mattel Careers.
https://jobs.mattel.com/en/job/el-segundo/associate-omni-retail-marketing-analyst/2015/97805086736

Morphe. (2026). Trade Marketing Coordinator. Paylocity Recruiting.
https://recruiting.paylocity.com/recruiting/jobs/Details/4354434/Forma-Brands-LLC/Trade-Marketing-Coordinator

8 Appendix

8.1 Job Posting Records

Because online job postings can expire, screenshots or PDF copies of each posting should be saved in the project folder before final submission.

8.2 Published Report

GitHub Pages: https://mjshawell.github.io/IBM-6540-IBM-6300/Mickyas-Shawel-OACP-Career-Research.html

8.3 GitHub Repository

Repository: https://github.com/mjshawell/IBM-6540-IBM-6300

Footnotes

Specific software requirements vary by employer, but the postings consistently combine technical tools with analytical and collaborative responsibilities.↩︎

--- title: "Career Research Essay: Preparing for Careers in Omnichannel Retailing and E-Commerce" author: "Mickyas Shawel" date: today format: html: toc: true toc-depth: 4 toc-expand: 2 toc-location: right toc-title: "Contents" number-sections: true code-fold: show code-tools: true code-overflow: wrap theme: cosmo highlight-style: github embed-resources: true editor: visual execute: warning: false message: false freeze: auto --- # Introduction Omnichannel retailing has expanded the meaning of a retail career. A modern customer may discover a product through social media or search, compare it on a website, check availability online, purchase through an e-commerce platform, pick it up in a store, and later receive email or loyalty communications. Because these touchpoints are connected, retailers increasingly need employees who can understand both the **customer experience** and the digital systems that support it. For this career research essay, I examined three current Southern California job postings that represent different parts of the omnichannel environment: **Ecommerce Coordinator at Anastasia Beverly Hills**, **Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst at Mattel**, and **Trade Marketing Coordinator at Morphe**. Together, these positions show how e-commerce operations, analytics, campaign execution, retail partnerships, and cross-functional communication increasingly overlap. ::: {.callout-note title="Central Career Insight"} The postings suggest that omnichannel careers are not built around one isolated skill. Employers increasingly value professionals who can connect **commerce platforms, marketing execution, analytics, customer experience, and cross-functional coordination**. ::: # Summary of Job Postings ## Anastasia Beverly Hills — Ecommerce Coordinator The **Ecommerce Coordinator** position at Anastasia Beverly Hills is an entry-level role based in Los Angeles. The position supports the company's Pro Program as well as broader e-commerce and customer relationship management activities. Responsibilities include reviewing customer submissions, tagging customers in Shopify, supporting email and SMS communications, coordinating campaign briefs, tracking creative deliverables, and compiling performance information for CRM reporting. The posting asks for approximately **one to three years of experience** in marketing, e-commerce, customer operations, or a related area. Important qualifications include organization, attention to detail, written and verbal communication, project coordination, and the ability to work with several teams simultaneously. Experience with **Shopify, email/SMS marketing tools, and CRM reporting** is listed as a plus. This role demonstrates that an e-commerce coordinator is not simply maintaining a website; the employee also supports customer communications, campaign workflows, and digital customer experience. [View the Anastasia Beverly Hills job posting](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/ecommerce-coordinator-at-anastasia-beverly-hills-4423184815) ## Mattel — Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst Mattel's **Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst** position in El Segundo provides the clearest example of an explicitly omnichannel career. The role supports the Growth Channels Omnichannel Retail Marketing team by analyzing marketing programs, market share, sales, competitive activity, promotions, brand performance, pricing, placement, and other business information. The analyst also assists with promotional planning, brand activation, reporting, and portfolio financial management. Mattel lists a bachelor's degree in marketing, business, or a related field and **zero to two years of related experience**, making the position especially relevant to an early-career graduate. Technical expectations include strong quantitative analysis, financial knowledge, and advanced **Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint** skills. Mattel also emphasizes critical thinking, leadership, problem solving, deadlines, and collaboration. Experience in category management, trade or brand marketing, consumer research, sales, or finance is considered beneficial. [View the Mattel job posting](https://jobs.mattel.com/en/job/el-segundo/associate-omni-retail-marketing-analyst/2015/97805086736) ## Morphe — Trade Marketing Coordinator Morphe's **Trade Marketing Coordinator** position in Los Angeles connects brand marketing with retail partners and both digital and physical retail execution. The coordinator supports retail and trade marketing strategies, channel advertising campaigns, retailer launch materials, campaign recap decks, promotional calendars, retailer-specific assets, budgets, competitive research, and events. The position also works with teams responsible for sales, social and influencer marketing, e-commerce, creative, operations, demand planning, and finance. Morphe seeks approximately **one to two years of related experience**, including experience with retail or trade marketing. The posting emphasizes **Excel, PowerPoint, analytics, presentation development, project management, written and verbal communication, and cross-functional collaboration**. It also explicitly describes programs spanning wholesale, online, and brick-and-mortar channels. This makes the role a strong example of omnichannel thinking even though the word "omnichannel" is not part of the job title. [View the Morphe job posting](https://recruiting.paylocity.com/recruiting/jobs/Details/4354434/Forma-Brands-LLC/Trade-Marketing-Coordinator) # Skills and Knowledge Required ## Comparison of Employer Expectations | Position | Major Responsibilities | Important Tools / Skills | Experience | |------------------|------------------|------------------|------------------| | Anastasia Beverly Hills — Ecommerce Coordinator | Shopify customer tagging, CRM coordination, email/SMS support, campaign workflows, reporting | Shopify, CRM reporting, email/SMS tools, organization, communication | 1–3 years | | Mattel — Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst | Marketing analysis, sales/competitive analysis, promotions, pricing, brand activation, P&L support | Advanced Excel, PowerPoint, quantitative analysis, financial knowledge, critical thinking | 0–2 years | | Morphe — Trade Marketing Coordinator | Retail campaigns, retailer calendars, recap decks, budgets, retail assets, cross-channel execution | Excel, PowerPoint, analytics, project management, communication | 1–2 years | : Comparison of the three selected omnichannel-related positions. As @tbl-jobs shows, several patterns appear across the postings. First, **analytics and reporting** are important even when the job is not formally called an analyst role. Mattel directly emphasizes quantitative business analysis, while Morphe expects employees to interpret campaign and sales performance, and Anastasia Beverly Hills includes CRM performance reporting. Second, employers repeatedly value **cross-functional coordination**. These positions interact with combinations of marketing, sales, creative, e-commerce, operations, finance, social media, and customer-facing teams. This suggests that technical ability alone is insufficient. Employees must be able to communicate findings, manage deadlines, coordinate projects, and translate information between departments. Third, the postings show the importance of platform knowledge. Shopify appears directly in the Anastasia Beverly Hills role, while Excel and PowerPoint are especially important at Mattel and Morphe. The larger lesson is that early-career omnichannel professionals need a combination of **platform fluency, data literacy, customer understanding, and communication skills** rather than specialization in only one area.[^1] [^1]: Specific software requirements vary by employer, but the postings consistently combine technical tools with analytical and collaborative responsibilities. # Connection to IBM 6300 and the MSDM Program The work completed in IBM 6300 provides direct preparation for many of these responsibilities. Building a Shopify environment develops familiarity with online storefront structure, product organization, navigation, product pages, and customer experience. Product-feed activities reinforce the importance of accurate product titles, descriptions, categories, imagery, and structured product information. These skills are closely related to e-commerce coordination and digital merchandising responsibilities. The course's work with **Google Analytics 4, Google Merchant Center, Google Shopping Ads, customer journeys, and retail analytics** also builds the measurement perspective employers expect. For example, the Mattel position requires employees to analyze marketing performance and identify opportunities for growth. Morphe expects campaign recaps and performance interpretation. Understanding how customers move between discovery, product consideration, purchase, and post-purchase interactions makes those analyses more meaningful. The **CPP Farm Store omnichannel consulting project** provides especially useful evidence because it combines strategy with implementation. The project required customer journey analysis, a Shopify prototype, product-feed planning, campaign strategy, creative development, and an analytics dashboard. Rather than treating these activities as separate assignments, the project demonstrates how the components of an omnichannel system affect one another. Other courses in the MSDM program can strengthen this preparation further. Marketing analytics and data visualization support the quantitative requirements found in analyst positions. Search engine marketing and digital advertising courses support paid media, Google Shopping, and campaign optimization. Consumer behavior and marketing research help explain why customers respond differently across channels. Strategic marketing and consulting projects strengthen problem solving and the ability to communicate recommendations to decision makers. ::: {.callout-tip title="Portfolio Connection"} A strong career portfolio can present the CPP Farm Store project as evidence of an integrated skill set: **Shopify + customer journey strategy + product data + campaign planning + analytics + business recommendations**. ::: # Personal Career Reflection Of the three positions, the **Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst** path is the most interesting to me because it combines marketing strategy with quantitative analysis and business decision-making. It is not limited to reporting numbers; the analyst is expected to interpret marketing, sales, competitive, promotional, and financial information and then help develop recommendations. That combination reflects the direction I want to continue developing within digital marketing. My current preparation includes hands-on exposure to Shopify, omnichannel journey analysis, product-feed strategy, digital campaign planning, GA4 concepts, dashboard development, and presenting recommendations through the CPP Farm Store consulting project. These projects give me concrete examples that can be discussed in interviews rather than only listing software names on a resume. The biggest area I want to continue strengthening is the ability to move from a dashboard or dataset to a concise business recommendation. I also want to continue improving advanced Excel, retail financial analysis, and the way I communicate quantitative findings to nontechnical audiences. Those capabilities appear particularly important in the Mattel and Morphe postings. My next steps are to update my portfolio so the CPP Farm Store project clearly demonstrates the connection between strategy, implementation, and measurement, and to tailor my resume toward **omnichannel analytics, e-commerce analytics, and retail marketing analyst** positions. I can also use the terminology found in these postings—such as *omnichannel retail marketing, promotional analysis, Shopify, campaign performance, cross-functional collaboration,* and *business analysis*—when it accurately describes my project experience. This will make my coursework easier for employers to connect to real job responsibilities. # Conclusion The three postings demonstrate that omnichannel retail careers require more than knowledge of stores or e-commerce alone. Anastasia Beverly Hills emphasizes digital commerce operations and CRM coordination; Mattel combines retail marketing with analytics and financial decision-making; and Morphe connects campaigns with retailers across online and physical channels. Across all three, employers value analytical thinking, technology familiarity, communication, organization, and cross-functional collaboration. IBM 6300 and the broader MSDM program provide a useful foundation because they combine digital platforms with customer strategy and measurement. The next stage of career preparation is to translate those academic projects into portfolio evidence that clearly shows employers what problems I can analyze, what tools I can use, and how I can contribute to an integrated omnichannel customer experience. # References Anastasia Beverly Hills. (2026). *Ecommerce Coordinator*. LinkedIn Jobs.\ <https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/ecommerce-coordinator-at-anastasia-beverly-hills-4423184815> Mattel. (2026). *Associate Omni Retail Marketing Analyst*. Mattel Careers.\ <https://jobs.mattel.com/en/job/el-segundo/associate-omni-retail-marketing-analyst/2015/97805086736> Morphe. (2026). *Trade Marketing Coordinator*. Paylocity Recruiting.\ <https://recruiting.paylocity.com/recruiting/jobs/Details/4354434/Forma-Brands-LLC/Trade-Marketing-Coordinator> # Appendix ## Job Posting Records Because online job postings can expire, screenshots or PDF copies of each posting should be saved in the project folder before final submission. ## Published Report **GitHub Pages:** <https://mjshawell.github.io/IBM-6540-IBM-6300/Mickyas-Shawel-OACP-Career-Research.html> ## GitHub Repository **Repository:** <https://github.com/mjshawell/IBM-6540-IBM-6300>