Overview
Keeping an eye on a store’s metrics is essential for scaling the success and growth of an eCommerce business.
For the online business, it often becomes challenging to measure the efforts they’re putting into the growth of the business compared to brick-and-mortar businesses.
For example, if you are in a clothing business and have an outlet where you’re selling your clothes.
So if you’re running a sale and put out an advertisement in the newspaper regarding the same, you will quickly know how many people came to your store after seeing the ad and calculate its effectiveness based on people visiting you.
But for the advertisements you’re running online, it is different from how you measure the success rate of the digital ads.
To measure the success of the eCommerce business or marketing efforts made online by the businesses for their growth KPIs are used.
There are different KPIs in the form of eCommerce success metrics that can help measure your eCommerce business’s success in other areas.
In this article, we will discuss why you should use eCommerce KPIs to measure the success of your business.
What is an eCommerce KPI?
An eCommerce Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that shows whether an eCommerce company can meet its key business objectives. eCommerce businesses evaluate their progress using KPIs and determine their success rate. Simply put, a KPI is a business objective that businesses are working towards achieving. You should select your eCommerce KPIs as per your business objectives.
Why Key Performance Indicators are Important?
KPIs are important because they allow you to compare your performance to benchmarks. In the absence of KPIs, it is challenging to evaluate the progress of your online business over time. By measuring your KPIs, you can determine whether you are meeting your goals. Implementing KPIs in your company allows you to develop goals, formulate a strategy to reach those goals, and evaluate your performance. It will help you better understand where problems are in your business and devise strategies for driving more online sales. Additionally, these eCommerce success metrics can provide your employees with information and help them formulate critical solutions to problems.
Getting the Best eCommerce KPIs for a Business
Your e-commerce business can benefit from monitoring many KPIs, but not all are crucial. Therefore, you must select the one you require for your business’s success. Below are the things you should consider while choosing a KPI for your business.
- Choose the KPIs directly related to your business goals, supporting your business strategy and driving your overall performance.
- You should select measurable KPIs and give your business a unique insight into its progress and results.
- Determine your company’s stage of growth, as certain metrics will be more critical during each stage of the company’s development
- Make sure to choose KPIs that relate to your eCommerce business, not those associated with other industries or companies but those most relevant to you.
- Keep track of meaningful and actionable KPIs that provide you with meaningful insight instead of tons of irrelevant and unnecessary ones that you won’t be able to use.
- Get lagging and leading KPIs to track the success and failure of your marketing campaigns.
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Most Important KPIs
After talking enough about KPIs and how you have to choose the ones for your business, we will talk about some of the most important KPIs for eCommerce that you should take advantage of for the success of your business.
Average Order Value (AOV)
The average order value (AOV) is an important KPI that tracks a customer’s spending on one order. AOV is a key performance indicator that online businesses measure to understand their customers’ purchasing habits and how much revenue a business generates from each customer.
Average Order Value(AOV) = Total Revenue/Number Of Orders
Gross Profit
Gross Profit is one of the key metrics to measure sales performance, and to calculate this KPI, it is necessary to deduct the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) from the company’s revenue. Gross Profit gives you a deeper understanding of how you use your resources and how effectively you can make and sell your products.
Gross Profit = Total Amount of Sales – Total Cost of Goods Sold
Conversion Rate (CR)
The conversion rate is the percentage of people who purchase your products. Optimizing your website if you have a low conversion rate is important.
Conversion Rate(CR)= (Total Number of Visitors on the Website / Total Number of Conversions) x 100
Number of Transactions
A company’s online sales are based on the number of transactions recorded on its website. Businesses use this KPI and the average order size or number of visitors to dig deeper into the data. This KPI will help you determine how many transactions are occurring; also, it is crucial for calculating the Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate (CAR).
Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate (CAR)
Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate (CAR) determines how many users add products to their shopping carts but don’t check out. You can reduce your shopping cart abandonment rate by reducing friction during checkout.
Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate (CAR) = 1 – (Total Number of Completed Transactions / Total Number of Shopping Carts Opened) x 100
Shopping Cart Conversion Rate (CCR)
Shopping Cart Conversion Rate (CCR) is an eCommerce KPI that businesses use to calculate the conversion rate of their eCommerce site by looking at how many users convert or make a purchase. By tracking how many visitors complete the checkout process by purchasing the items, we can assess the success of our eCommerce store.
Shopping Cart Conversion Rate (CCR) = (Total Conversions / Total Number of Visitors) x 100
New Customer Orders Versus Returning Customer Orders
In this KPI, new customers are compared to repeat customers. Business owners often spend most of their time acquiring new customers. Still, customer retention can contribute to loyal customers with higher-order values and those who love talking about how good the product is.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Throughout a customer’s relationship with your brand, the Customer’s Lifetime Value informs you how much each customer is worth. Strengthening relationships and focusing on customer loyalty will help you increase this number over time.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) = (Customer’s Annual Profit Contribution x Average Number of Year as Customer) – the Initial Cost of Customer Acquisition
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The CAC shows you how much your company spends on acquiring new customers. You must examine your marketing spend per customer breakdown to determine the CAC.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)= Costs Spent on Acquiring Customers / Number of Customers Acquired
Revenue per Click (RPC)
Generally, RPC refers to the amount of revenue generated per click. You calculate the average revenue for each click on your pay-per-click marketing campaigns through RPC.
Revenue per Click (RPC) = Revenue / Total Number of Clicks
Revenue Per Visitor
Revenue Per Visitor is an important KPI that you can use to assess how much revenue a business generates from each visitor. The RVP gives you an idea of how much an individual spends on your site in a single session.
Revenue per visitor = Total Revenue/ Total Site Visitors
Average Session on the Website
A website visitor’s average session length represents their time spent on a website during a single visit. When you know how long your average Session lasts on your page, you know how effective and engaging your content is and how much traffic you are getting.
Average Session on the website = Total Session Duration / Total Number of Sessions
Pageviews Per Session
A pageview per Session indicates the average number of pages viewed by a user on your site during a single visit. Indeed, more pages generally mean more engagement. But if your users have to click too many times to find the products they are looking for, your site design might need to be re-considered.
Pageviews per Session = Total Number of Pageviews / Total Number of Visitors
Bounce Rate
You can find out how many visitors immediately leave your website after they arrive using the bounce rate. It is ideal if your website has a low bounce rate. If you have a high bounce rate, you should investigate why the people visiting your website leave instead of exploring.
Bounce Rate = Total Number of Visitors Who Left Page Without Interaction/ Total Number of Visitors to the Webpage
Conversion by Device Type
The Conversion by Device types KPI, as the name suggests, lets you know the total number of conversions specific to a device type which can be mobile, PC or tablet. The KPI is beneficial as it tells you which device type is most used by your visitors and which isn’t. Knowing this, you can optimize your website according to the device type you feel is getting fewer visitors.
Number and Quality of Product Reviews
Product reviews are an excellent way to measure the performance of a business. It works as a great source of providing social proof and valuable feedback to new visitors or your “could be” customers. For your e-commerce business, you should track reviews on product quantity and content.
Blog Traffic
The number of people visiting your blog is the traffic it receives. You can create a filtered view to know the blog traffic using your analytics tool. You can also compare the blog traffic can with the traffic on the entire website as well.
Average position
Average position is a useful KPI that gives you an idea of how your site performs regarding search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search. This KPI shows you where you stand on the search engine results page. Most online retailers aim to be number one for their targeted keywords.
Clicks
The KPI is the number of clicks that a link receives. This KPI can be measured almost anywhere: on your website, on social media, in emails, on display ads, and in PPC campaigns. This KPI is important to calculate many important KPIs like RPC, PPC, Average CTR, etc.
Chat Sessions Initiated
The number of chat sessions initiated on your eCommerce site tells you how many users used the tool to speak with a virtual assistant. Chat sessions are usually linked to more sales and happier customers. Since the required data is easily accessible, tracking this KPI is relatively easy.
Product Affinity
KPIs such as Product affinity allow you to identify products purchased together. The KPI gives businesses a weighted score that helps them identify products that customers are most likely to buy together, enabling them to create cross-promotional strategies based on that information.
Website Traffic
In eCommerce, website traffic is a key performance indicator that refers to the number of people who visit your site. Higher website traffic indicates that your website is attracting more users.
New Visitors Versus Returning Visitors
A new visitor visits your site for the first time, while a returning visitor has already visited your site earlier. While looking at this metric, you will know how many new and returning visitors your website will be able to know, tracking which you can understand whether your marketing efforts are fruitful.
Average Session Duration
The average session duration measures how much time people spend on your site during their single visit. From the moment a user lands on a website until they leave, the average session duration measures the length of their sessions. This KPI will help you to measure the time a user spends on a particular page during a session.
Traffic Source
Using the traffic source KPI, you can learn where your visitors come from or how they found your site. Using this information, you can identify which channels are helping you to drive more traffic.
Pay-Per-Click
PPC shows how much you’re spending when each time someone clicks on one of your ads, it. Using this KPI for eCommerce has the advantage of applying to both search engines and social media ads. It is also called Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and is one of the most common metrics used in eCommerce.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)= Total Advertising Cost / Total Number of Ads Clicked
ROI on Ads Spend
Return on advertising spend (ROAS) is a crucial metric for eCommerce businesses that advertise online. Using ROAS, you can assess the effectiveness of an advertising campaign and make adjustments as needed. You can use sales dashboard software to track this metric easily. Tracking the return on ad spend is crucial to ensure revenue is generated through your efforts.
ROAS= Amount Gained from Ads/ Amount Spent on Ads x 100
Measuring your eCommerce Success
So far, you must have understood what the KPIs are and, among the different KPIs, which are the KPIs you will need to measure the success of your online business. Considering all those business-related KPIs, you will have to know which KPIs are performing and which are not. On that basis, you will get an idea of which area is showing positive results and which areas need your attention. This way, you can work with your team members on improvement and perform better.
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Final Words
Managing a successful eCommerce business involves taking care of every aspect of your business and tracking all the crucial KPIs that make your business profitable. The eCommerce KPI mentioned above can help you achieve your business objectives by identifying which strategies are performing and requiring more attention.
If you’re looking for assistance in building or managing your eCommerce store. In that case, we at Huptech Web can help you at Huptech Web; we have a team of eCommerce experts that are highly skilled with all kinds of the web development platform and with their assistance, you’ll be able to scale high revenue through your online proceeds!
