Agency Partnership Associate

About The Role

Reporting to the Sales Manager, the Ecommerce Partnerships Manager owns ecommerce agency partner channel end to end. This is a focused channel role built around agencies - Shopify and WooCommerce specialists, consultants, and ecommerce/retail service providers - whose clients represent high-quality merchant acquisition opportunities. The role has three core responsibilities: recruiting and managing agency partners, enabling those partners to refer consistently and well, and building and operating the systems that allow the channel to scale without manual effort. The successful candidate will both design and run the tooling and automation for the partnerships channel, rather than relying on other teams to build it. The role carries direct responsibility for partner-generated merchant acquisition and revenue growth, and will be measured on the performance of the partnerships channel.

Responsibilities

• Partner Growth & Acquisition
• Identify, recruit, onboard, and train new ecommerce and retail agency partners.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with existing agency and ecosystem partners.
• Create and execute strategies that increase merchant referrals through partner channels.
• Develop partnership programmes, incentives, and engagement initiatives that drive merchant acquisition.
• Build and maintain a healthy pipeline of new partnership opportunities.
• Work with partners to identify suitable merchants within their client portfolios.
• Partner Success & Enablement
• Ensure agency partners remain informed about the clients products, features, pricing, launches, promotions, and initiatives.
• Deliver partner onboarding sessions, training workshops, webinars, and enablement programmes.
• Create and maintain partner-facing resources, documentation, and sales collateral.
• Act as the primary point of contact for partner-related questions and opportunities.
• Regularly engage partners to drive awareness, referrals, and growth.
• Partnerships Operations & Automation
• Design, implement, and optimize systems that allow the partnerships channel to scale efficiently.
• Partner onboarding
• Merchant referrals
• Merchant onboarding
• Partner communications
• Lead routing
• Incentive tracking
• Reporting
• Invoicing and payments with the team
• Identify and eliminate manual processes wherever possible.
• Maintain CRM accuracy and ensure all partnership activity is properly tracked.
• Build reporting dashboards that provide visibility into partnership performance and channel health.
• Events & Ecosystem Development
• Identify events, sponsorship opportunities, communities, and industry initiatives that position the company as a leader in ecommerce payments.
• Organise and coordinate partner events, webinars, workshops, and networking opportunities.
• Represent the client at industry events and conferences.
• Ecommerce agencies
• Shopify and WooCommerce specialists
• Ecommerce consultants
• Technology providers
• Venture studios
• Industry associations
• Ecommerce service providers
• Develop strategic partnerships that help the client achieve its merchant acquisition targets.
• Commercial Performance
• Drive merchant acquisition through partnership channels.
• Manage and optimise the partnerships sales funnel.
• Track referral conversion rates and partner performance.
• Identify opportunities to improve channel efficiency and merchant activation, optimisation & retention rates.
• Work closely with the sales team to ensure referred merchants progress successfully through onboarding, activation and optimisation.

Qualifications

• 4 - 6 years of experience in partnerships, channel sales, business development, account management, ecosystem growth, or a related field.
• Experience within ecommerce, SaaS, fintech, payments, agencies, or technology is advantageous.
• Proven ability to manage external stakeholders and commercial relationships.
• Experience implementing systems, processes, or operational improvements is beneficial.

Skills

• HubSpot or similar CRM platforms
• Workflow automation tools such as Zapier, Make, HubSpot Workflows, or similar
• Ecommerce platforms including Shopify and WooCommerce
• Reporting and analytics tools
• Google Workspace and productivity tools

Bonus

• Existing relationships within the South African ecommerce ecosystem.
• Experience working with agencies or channel partners.
• Understanding of online payments and fintech.
• Experience organising events, communities, or partner programmes.

Pay Range And Compensation Package

Competitive salary based on experience and qualifications.