Secret KPIs that will add value to your eCommerce reporting
Ecommerce KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) determine how well an online business owner, team, or company at large is doing against their set goals and objectives.
Every business should have a clear set of KPIs that you track and follow. Often the metrics you include within your reports will set the scene for the KPIs. They can become interlinked.
How to choose your KPIs
There are tons of KPIs that you can track and follow and it can be challenging to monitor them all so use these guidelines as a general rule as to what you need to be aware of.
Business Goals - choose KPI that will directly impact your overarching goals.
Easily Measurable - make all KPIs SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timebound)
Growth stage of your business - choose KPIs that are relevant to your business size. A smaller business will have different goals to a bigger business.
Keep it relevant and short- do not try to track everything for the sake of it. Just track what you need and is important to you.
We recommend that you include these 3 KPIs in your reporting - as they can often get forgotten about but are some of the most important ones.
1. Competitors
Being competitive in your industry is really important. You need to look at the industry leaders and see how you compare. What do they do that makes them more successful? Monitoring pricing strategies is a good way of comparing how you measure up.
We recommend selecting a product from each of your main product categories and running a regular competitor analysis (monthly would be a good place to start with this). The average percentage difference can then be reviewed.
2. Basket Abandonment Rate
Basket abandonment is when customers add products to their basket but then fail to complete and pay for the items. 87.4% of all ecommerce baskets were abandoned during 2021.
While some basket abandonment will always happen, it can pinpoint issues with your checkout process if it's consistently happening and must be looked at in more detail.
You can measure this in a few different ways: either exit rate of your basket page, or tracking the number of ‘add-to-basket’ button clicks and dividing this by your total website traffic amount.
Remember to look at all paths through the checkout, including the quick-basket function where customers can effectively ‘skip’ the basket page.
3. Email Sign Up Conversion Rate
Traditional old-school email marketing remains an important channel for many eCommerce retailers and usually can account for up to 20% of total revenue. Therefore it is important to ensure your list of email addresses continues to grow over time.
An important KPI to measure is how many customers are creating an account (post purchase) and how many are subscribing to receive your marketing emails.
A well-tested strategy is to use campaign activity (like an extra 10% off your sale campaign) if a customer signs up
For more useful information on best practice for your eCommerce performance reporting - please download our whitepaper here which includes the best metrics to include, how to streamline your reports and case studies.
Download further resources
How to Report on eCommerce Performance
This guide will tell you what KPIs to include on your performance report and how to measure your eCommerce strategy.
A Complete Guide to eCommerce Replatforming
How to drive growth by making the right move at the right time. This guide is designed to help you get it right, and realise commercial gains from replatforming, fast.
