Director of Channel Operations (eCommerce / Wholesale)

Job Description

Job Description

Description:

Position: Director of Channel Operations (eCommerce / Wholesale)

Location: Hybrid or Remote

Join 4ocean and advance your career while making a significant impact on the environment.

About Us:

4ocean is on a mission to end the ocean plastic crisis and we are looking for passionate, talented people to help us achieve this goal. We are more than just a brand/company/employer. We are a global movement committed to making a tangible difference in the health of our planet by removing plastic waste from the ocean and coastlines. We also advocate for sustainable change.

If you are driven by purpose, motivated to contribute to a cause that truly matters, and eager to make a lasting impact on the environment, we want you on our team.

The Role:

The Director of Channel Operations is the operational backbone of our eCommerce and wholesale business, translating the product organization's strategy into reliable, scalable execution. Reporting to the Managing Director of Product, this role owns the systems, processes, and cross-functional workflows that allow both channels to run efficiently - from order management and account onboarding to inventory allocation, catalog data integrity, and channel reporting.

The ideal candidate is a detail-oriented operator who thrives on building repeatable processes, solving cross-functional bottlenecks, and ensuring that the day-to-day mechanics of eCommerce and wholesale operate seamlessly. This role works closely with product, sales, supply chain, finance, and IT to ensure channel operations scale in lockstep with the company's growth.

The Responsibilities:

eCommerce Operations

• Own day-to-day operational management of the direct-to-consumer platform (e.g., Shopify), including site operations, order fulfillment, and returns
• processing.
• Partner with customer service and fulfillment teams to ensure a consistent, high-quality post-purchase experience.
• Manage inventory allocation and availability across digital and wholesale channels to minimize stockouts and overselling.
• Support promotional and product launch execution by coordinating operational readiness across systems, inventory, and fulfillment.
• Own recurring order operations for the subscription program, including failed payment handling, dunning workflows, and subscription-specific fulfillment logic.

3PL & Fulfillment Operations

• Own 3PL vendor management, including SLA performance, rate card administration, and carrier selection across domestic and international
• fulfillment.
• Monitor 3PL performance against contracted service levels, driving corrective action on shipping cost, transit time, and fulfillment accuracy.
• Manage cross-border fulfillment and DDP clearance partnerships to support international order flow.

Channel Operations Strategy & Execution

• Own the operational infrastructure supporting eCommerce and wholesale, ensuring processes scale with revenue growth and channel expansion.
• Translate the Managing Director of Product's channel strategy into operational plans, workflows, and success metrics.
• Identify and eliminate operational bottlenecks that limit revenue capture, order accuracy, or channel scalability.
• Own and report on channel operations KPIs, including order accuracy, fill rate, on-time delivery, and account onboarding time.

Catalog & Product Data Management

• Own new SKU setup and ongoing maintenance across Shopify and the ERP, including product hierarchy, attributes, and variant structure.
• Maintain COGS and margin profile data across systems, ensuring landed cost, freight, and duty inputs stay current as vendor terms and shipping lanes change.
• Govern catalog data integrity so wholesale EDI transmissions and downstream product feeds transmit clean, accurate records without manual rework.
• Partner with finance to reconcile margin profile data against actual landed cost, flagging discrepancies before they affect wholesale pricing or
• contribution reporting.

Wholesale Operations

• Manage end-to-end wholesale order operations, including order entry, EDI compliance, allocation, and invoicing.
• Own the account onboarding process for new wholesale and retail partners, including EDI setup, compliance requirements, and account-specific
• workflows.
• Partner with sales and key account teams to resolve order, delivery, and chargeback issues, minimizing deductions and compliance penalties.
• Monitor retail partner compliance scorecards and drive corrective action plans that reduce deductions and protect partner relationships.
• Escalate margin-impacting compliance findings to Product and Finance rather than owning margin outcomes directly - this role maintains the margin profile data; it does not own the margin result.

Inventory Disposition & Reverse Logistics

• Own the inventory disposition process for excess, damaged, or end-of-life inventory, including routing through certified destruction or waste-to-energy
• vendors.
• Manage wholesale-side reverse logistics and RMA processes, including return authorization, chargeback substantiation, and disposition of returned goods.
• Partner with customer service on DTC returns processing to ensure consistent handling across channels.

Systems & Process

• Serve as the operational owner of core channel systems, including Shopify, ERP, EDI, and order management platforms.
• Design, document, and continuously improve standard operating procedures for order-to-cash workflows across both channels
• Partner with IT and engineering to scope and implement system improvements, integrations, and automation opportunities.
• Ensure data integrity across systems to support accurate reporting, forecasting, and decision-making.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Reporting

• Partner with the Managing Director of Product to provide operational input into channel planning, forecasting, and P&L reviews.
• Collaborate with supply chain and finance to align inventory availability with demand and financial targets.
• Deliver regular operational reporting and dashboards to product, sales, and executive stakeholders.
• Act as the primary escalation point for cross-functional operational issues spanning eCommerce and wholesale.

Team Leadership

• Build and lead a channel operations team, establishing clear roles, workflows, and accountability.
• Coach and develop team members, fostering a culture of process discipline and continuous improvements.
• Set clear performance expectations and conduct regular reviews to support career growth.

Our Core Values

It’s also important that all 4ocean crew members naturally live and embrace

our core values:

• Ocean first
• Get Shit Done!
• Accelerate time
• We’re in this together
• Nudge don’t judge
• Stay stoked
• Think bigger!

The Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience in domestic and cross-border eCommerce operations, channel operations, sales operations, wholesale operations, or including experience managing both DTC and wholesale/retail channels.
• Proven track record managing 3PL vendors, freight and carrier relationships, order management, EDI, and account onboarding processes for wholesale or retail partners.
• Working knowledge of eCommerce platforms (e.g., Shopify) and ERP systems. General familiarity with HubSpot is helpful for context, though this role will spend little to no day-to-day time in it.
• Experience owning product catalog data and margin/COGS-related fields within an ERP or PIM system - this role maintains cost and margin data; it does not set pricing or sales strategy.
• Strong process orientation with a track record of designing and scaling operational workflows using a project management tool (ideally Asana).
• Analytical mindset with experience using data to identify and resolve operational issues.
• Experienced with hiring, leading, developing, and managing a team.
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration and communication skills.

Preferred

• Experience in consumer products, apparel, equipment, jewelry, or a related category.
• Familiarity with retail compliance requirements and chargeback/deduction management.
• Experience with subscription or recurring-order operations.
• Experience partnering directly with senior product or commercial leadership.

What Success Looks Like

In your first 3-6 months, you will:

• Complete an audit of current channel operations workflows and identify priority areas for process improvement.
• Implement standardized order-to-cash processes across eCommerce and wholesale, including catalog and margin profile data governance.
• Reduce order errors, delivery delays, and compliance-related chargebacks.
• Establish reliable operational reporting that gives the product and executive team real-time visibility into operational performance - fulfillment accuracy, on-time-in-full, and inventory accuracy - rather than channel sales performance.
• Build a channel operations team structure that scales with the business.

Why 4ocean?

Love what you do:

• Build the operational backbone of the ocean-cleanup infrastructure that brands around the world will plug into.

Love why you do it:

• Your systems directly enable millions of pounds of plastic to be pulled from the ocean every year.
• Knowing that your operational excellence powers environmental impact at scale.

Love who you do it with:

• Work cross-functionally with cleanup crews, creative teams, account directors, and C-suite leaders.

And then there’s….

• Competitive comp (base + performance bonus)
• Comprehensive health benefits and a 401k plan
• Flexibility - remote work and flexible PTO
• Holidays! So many holidays (well above the industry average)

4ocean is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.