Business is more than selling, trading, and purchasing. Today, statistics and metrics have a significant impact to ensure you manage on the right track. Sales figures, performance, customer retention, and inventory tracking are examples of information that play significant role in your online business.
The problem is most people do not know and have time to explore one by one. In general, they rely heavily on the tool to provide necessary data, access, and metrics. That’s what you can expect from ZapSeller. The platform is for e-commerce also includes inventory management, POS, and multichannel.
The most important metric for an online store is everything related to the customer. As you know, you can get profit and more sales because of understanding the way customers think, decide, and act. Metric will show reliable and valuable information regarding customer involvement. Which customer metrics should an online business pay attention to? The next section will explain the answer.
List of Metrics that are Important for an Online Business
• Total sales
The classic way to understand your customer is from total sales. It is the simplest thing you can do even anyone does not have an issue to implement. The metric is straightforward because the number and content represent total sales. If your online business has more sales, it means customers like the product. It is an obvious answer and easy to understand. From total sales, you can explore based on products. You see which item receives more sales and generate big revenue.
• Conversion rate
The metric is the conversion rate. It represents the percentage of customers who buy after visiting the website. A higher rate means the buyer and visitor ratio smaller. On the contrary, a small rate means people only visit but the probability to purchase is low.
When dealing with an online business, you find interesting term such as page rank and view. After checking the amount of views on your store, the result is astounding. Views and visitors increase exponentially after you implement a new marketing strategy. That’s a good thing to start the next step.
You check total sales, but it is not much different from the previous month. This is a bad thing for business. More visitors and views do not guarantee a higher conversion rate. In this situation, your marketing must be evaluated properly. The target is more sales not views, page rank, or anything without sales. That’s why you must focus on conversion rate as one of the customer metrics.
• Customer retention rate
The next metric in an online business is the customer retention rate. Having sales is the main objective and you try everything to achieve as much as possible. This metric indicates more sales from the existing customer. If the rate is higher, you should be grateful because people put a value on your products and business. The evidence is they come back and buy gain to get what they want.
• Shopping cart abandonment
You visit the marketplace and explore some products. However, you leave immediately due to some reasons. This action is called shopping cart abandonment. Customers do not continue buying because they leave after a certain period. It is a serious situation when the rate is higher and no purchase at all. You must convert all views and interaction with the real transaction.
Business owners must aware of this issue. With matric, they can do the mapping to find why the customer does not buy. They start with website appearance and template. Today, the user interface becomes a key factor that affects customer decisions. You must ensure customers do not have to follow a complex procedure.
• Average order value
Another metric is the average order value. As you know, some customers buy more but the rest only spend less than what you expect. With total sales, you can get information about the entire purchase. However, that’s not enough when you must implement an idea to increase sales at a specific product.
This metric will measure the average value per order. For example, total sales are $10,000 from 100 orders. After checking one by one, you find certain customers buy more than $250 and the smallest order is $10. This metric will have an average value of $100. All orders are treated as equal without exception.
• Rating and reviews
The last thing you must know is rating and reviews. Both are the reason why some customers decide to purchase more and vice versa. If an online business is on the marketplace, you pay attention to the rating. Sellers and products with the highest rating tend to be on the top. It will boost sales significantly.
From the above list, you understand the importance of customer metrics. The key to business is customer and this is the way you must do to get know more. Your analysis and formulate a strategy to deliver the best features and supports. In the end, you need sales to grow. This is what metrics supposed to be.
Preparing Customer Metrics
The next section will explain how to prepare those metrics. Small business owners do not have time to do a survey, research, and obtain data. They are busy with business development, accounting, serving customers, and more direct activities. If the metric is just total sales, they can get easily from the internet system.
Conversion rate, rating, reviews, and customer retention rate are not something you get from sales. You need help and support from a reliable source. In this case, some e-commerce includes features that can do such a job. You just find the right one to utilize effectively.
Social Media Metrics
One thing you cannot forget is the power of social media. Before buying, customers will try to obtain as much information as possible. One of the resources is from this platform. As a business owner, you cannot ignore such things due to having a significant impact when an unexpected thing happens. For example, someone bought a product and made a review. He or she had massive followers including high traffic and engagement. If the review was excellent, people will visit the store. Imagine when a customer wrote a bad experience. It takes time to gain trust and awareness.
From this point, the next metric to consider is social media. You need to get data about traffic, reach, engagement, view, and anything about this platform. With enough information, you are capable to analyze objectively and properly.
