Senior Commercial Specialist
The Senior Commercial Specialist manages key partners and suppliers in high-risk e-commerce categories, negotiates deal terms, and is accountable for the revenue and margin of the area.
What a Senior Commercial Specialist does
The Senior Commercial Specialist is a senior commercial professional who is responsible for closing and developing deals with partners, suppliers, and payment or logistics counterparties in high-risk e-commerce: nutra, dietary supplements, cosmetics with aggressive claims, electronics with high return rates, adult products, gambling merchandise, and crypto accessories. In these niches, standard negotiation approaches do not work, because terms are bound by the requirements of banks, marketplaces, and regulators, not just by price.
The role exists because in high-risk e-commerce every deal is a trade-off between volume, margin, and the risk of account blocking or loss of banking services. A senior specialist connects commercial work with finance, risk, and legal: they do not simply sell a service, but determine what the company can offer a partner and where the line of acceptable risk lies. Typically they report to the head of the commercial department or the Head of Sales and may lead a small group of managers or work independently with the largest counterparties.
Within the company, the Senior Commercial Specialist works with marketing, risk management, finance, and legal teams, as well as the product team when a deal requires changes to an integration or payment process.
Responsibilities
- Sourcing and qualifying new partners and suppliers in high-risk e-commerce categories, taking into account their restrictions from banks and platforms
- Negotiating commercial terms: commission rates, limits, reserves, payout schedules, penalties for returns and chargebacks
- Preparing and agreeing contracts and appendices with the legal department, including termination conditions in case of changes in regulatory requirements
- Coordinating with the risk team to review counterparties, website subject matter, and product range before signing
- Monitoring deal performance after launch: volumes, returns, customer complaints, and SLA compliance
- Planning and forecasting revenue for the assigned partner portfolio and addressing deviations from plan
- Resolving partner disputes: payout freezes, contested transactions, and product quality claims
- Handing over operational details of deals to relevant departments: payments, logistics, support, and integrations
- Preparing internal reporting and recommendations for management on category and geography priorities
- Mentoring junior managers and contributing to standards for working with counterparties
Skills
- Negotiating with counterparties whose options are constrained by external requirements, and finding solutions within those limits
- Understanding e-commerce financial models: margin, returns, chargebacks, reserves, holdbacks, and order unit economics
- Basic understanding of payment infrastructure and acquiring rules for high-risk categories
- Working with contract documentation and explaining the commercial logic of terms to lawyers
- Analytical thinking: reading sales reports and identifying the causes of conversion drops or rising returns
- Managing several deals at once and prioritizing by revenue and risk
- Presenting terms and results to management and external partners
- Building long-term relationships with counterparties rather than one-off sales
- Making decisions with incomplete data and reasonably declining deals that will not pay off
Tools
- CRM system (Bitrix24, amoCRM, Salesforce) for pipeline and negotiation history
- Google Sheets and Excel for financial models and deal term calculations
- BI dashboards and exports from the order accounting system for analyzing returns and buyout rates
- Internal electronic document management and contract templates
- Messengers and email for prompt communication with partners and internal teams
- Task trackers (Jira, Trello, Asana) for coordinating deals across departments
How performance is measured
- Fulfillment of revenue and gross margin plan for the assigned portfolio
- Number of signed deals and share of deals passing risk review on the first attempt
- Average time from first contact to partner launch
- Return and chargeback rates for assigned partners relative to the threshold
- Share of partners retained after 6 and 12 months
- Compliance with internal deadlines for contract approval
By vertical
E-Commerce
In e-commerce, the role focuses on the product matrix, marketplaces, and logistics: deal terms depend heavily on product category, the share of returns, and payment system requirements. The specialist often negotiates not only commission but also reserves, payout schedules, and rules for working with customers.
Levels
Senior
At the senior level, the specialist independently manages large or complex counterparties, has the authority to sign terms within approved limits, and takes part in decisions on entering new categories. They are responsible for the portfolio's revenue and for the consequences of deals for the company, including the risk of blocking, and may mentor junior colleagues.
How to get there
People usually enter the profession from commercial roles in e-commerce, account management in affiliate programs, B2B sales, or the financial and payments sector. It is important to have experience negotiating with concrete figures and an understanding of how online store margins work. For high-risk niches, experience working within platform restrictions, such as advertising network or acquiring rules, is valuable.
To prepare, learn the basics of payment processing: what acquiring, merchant, chargeback, reserve, and payout holds are, and why banks refuse service to certain categories. It is useful to build a deal model on your own: terms, volume, returns, and company profit. It is also important to learn to read contracts and understand which clauses affect money.
Growth comes from managing a small portfolio to handling large deals and working with management on category strategy. At first the specialist closes their own deals, then begins to influence terms for the whole team and decisions on new areas.
Next steps: Head of Sales, Commercial Director, Head of Commercial Department, Business Development Manager, Head of Partnerships
FAQ
How is a Senior Commercial Specialist different from a regular sales manager?
A regular sales manager runs the pipeline and closes deals on approved terms. A senior specialist shapes the terms themselves, is responsible for their economics and risk, manages large counterparties, and decides which deals are worth making at all.
Do I need experience in gambling or fintech to get into high-risk e-commerce?
Direct experience is not required, but an understanding of bank and platform restrictions is essential. Many specialists come from regular e-commerce or B2B sales and learn the rules of high-risk categories within the company.
What determines income in this role?
Income usually consists of a fixed part and a bonus tied to the revenue and margin of the portfolio. The final amount is influenced by the size and stability of assigned partners, the complexity of the category, and the quality of the terms that were negotiated.
What are the most common risks in this work?
The main risks are account blocking, sharp increases in returns and chargebacks, changes in payment system requirements, and partner disputes. A good specialist agrees acceptable thresholds with the risk team in advance and specifies in the contract what happens if they are exceeded.
What is the difference between a commercial specialist and a Business Development Manager?
A BDM is more often responsible for finding and launching new directions and markets. A commercial specialist focuses more on the existing portfolio, deal terms, and their execution, although at the senior level these functions often overlap.
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