E-commerce Assistant Tasks for Shopify and Amazon Sellers

Running an online store means hundreds of small tasks a week. Most don't need the founder. An e-commerce assistant can own the operational rhythm so you can focus on product, merchandising and growth. Here's a practical task list.

Set up access properly first

• Shopify: create a staff account with only the permissions needed (Shopify staff accounts).
• Amazon Seller Central: add the assistant as a user with specific permissions rather than sharing the owner login (Amazon user permissions).
• Other channels and apps: named users wherever possible, MFA on everything.

Daily tasks

Orders

• Review new orders for issues (address problems, fraud flags, out-of-stock items)
• Confirm fulfillment is moving with your 3PL or in-house team
• Handle exceptions: delays, lost packages, carrier claims

Customer messages

• Answer helpdesk tickets (Gorgias, Zendesk, Shopify Inbox)
• Answer Amazon buyer messages within marketplace response-time expectations
• Process returns and exchanges within your written policy

Account health

• Check Seller Central account-health dashboards and notifications
• Respond to listing issues and suppressions

Weekly tasks

Listings and catalog

• Create new listings and variants from your product data
• Update prices, images and descriptions as directed
• Audit listings for errors, suppressions and missing attributes
• Optimize titles, bullets and descriptions to your guidelines and marketplace rules

Inventory

• Update inventory trackers and reorder sheets
• Flag low-stock SKUs against lead times
• Coordinate purchase orders and inbound shipments as directed

Reviews

• Respond to reviews using approved templates
• Flag product-quality patterns to you

Follow marketplace policies on reviews: Amazon's Seller Code of Conduct prohibits manipulating reviews.

Reporting

• Weekly sales by channel and top SKUs
• Inventory position and stock-out risk
• Customer service volume and top issues

Monthly tasks

• Catalog audit across channels for consistency
• Return-reason analysis
• Promotions calendar setup for next month
• Payout reconciliation support for your bookkeeper (Shopify, Amazon, Stripe, PayPal)

Seasonal and launch tasks

• Promotion setup and QA (discount codes, sale prices, banners)
• Pre-peak inventory checks
• Extra customer-service coverage planning
• Post-peak returns surge handling

What to keep

• Product strategy and sourcing decisions
• Pricing strategy and promotions budget
• Brand creative direction
• Advertising strategy and budgets (assistants can handle reporting and routine adjustments within rules)

Measuring success

• Order exception resolution time
• Customer response time and CSAT
• Listing errors and suppressions
• Stock-outs on key SKUs
• Founder hours per week on operations

A worked example: one week in a $3M Shopify and Amazon store

Here is how a dedicated assistant's week might look for an illustrative brand selling about 1,200 orders a month across Shopify and Amazon. The hours are planning estimates, not benchmarks. Use them to size the role, then replace them with your own numbers after a month.

That adds up to roughly 29–42 hours, which is why a growing store usually justifies one full-time person instead of three part-time freelancers.

Checklist: the access you need before day one

• Shopify: a separate staff account with only the permissions the role needs. Shopify lets you grant permissions one area at a time, such as orders, products and customers, and you can leave out payouts, store settings and staff management.
• Amazon Seller Central: a secondary user invited through User Permissions, never the account owner's login. Keep payment and bank-account changes with the owner only.
• Helpdesk: an agent seat with macros already loaded for your top 10 ticket types.
• Password manager: a shared vault for the few tools that have no named-user option.
• A written refund policy: for example, "Refunds up to $75 without approval; above that, ask in Slack."

Ticket macros to write in week one

Most stores find that a small set of reasons drives most tickets. Write a reviewed reply template for each one:

1. Where is my order (WISMO), with tracking-link merge fields
2. Address change before fulfillment
3. Damaged or wrong item, with a photo request and a replacement path
4. Return or exchange request, with a link to the policy
5. Discount code not working
6. Subscription skip, pause or cancel
7. Product question (sizing, ingredients, compatibility)
8. Wholesale or partnership inquiry, which gets routed to you

Weekly dashboard template

Keep the dashboard boring and consistent. The value is in spotting changes from week to week, not in pretty charts.

Common handoff mistakes in e-commerce

• Giving an owner-level login "just for now." Temporary access tends to become permanent. Create the right staff account on day one, even if it takes an extra 20 minutes.
• No refund threshold. Without a written dollar limit, an assistant either escalates everything (slow) or approves everything (expensive). Pick a number and revisit it after 30 days.
• Tagging nothing. If tickets aren't tagged by reason, you lose the cheapest product research you have. A weekly "top five reasons" summary often reveals a packaging, sizing or listing problem worth fixing.
• Changing Amazon listings without a brief. Amazon has strict style and category rules, and some edits trigger re-review. Keep an approved copy deck, and change one element at a time so you can see what moved conversion.
• Letting reorders live in someone's head. A shared reorder sheet with lead times, minimum order quantities and supplier contacts keeps stock-outs from becoming a surprise.

Peak-season preparation

Six to eight weeks before your busiest season, ask the assistant to update every macro with holiday shipping cut-off dates, confirm return-window rules, and stock-check top sellers against supplier lead times. That's when early planning prevents the most avoidable tickets.

After the season, have the assistant summarize the top ticket reasons and stock-outs so next year's plan starts from data, not memory.

The bottom line

An e-commerce assistant can own the daily grind — orders, messages, listings, inventory and reports — with the right permissions and clear policies.

See E-commerce Assistants, E-commerce and Bookkeeping for payout reconciliation.

Sources

• Shopify Help Center, Staff accounts.
• Amazon Seller Central, User permissions and Seller Code of Conduct.
• Shopify Help Center, Staff permissions.
• FTC, Business Guidance: Selling on the internet and the Mail Order Rule.