4 Key Metrics for Consumer Behavior Success in E-Commerce

The unprecedented rise of e-commerce experienced in 2020 has shown no signs of slowing down for the foreseeable future. Online retail sales are expected to reach $6.39 trillion, with e-commerce representing 21.8 percent of these sales. This trend is powered by consumers discovering new comfort levels, from purchasing groceries, miscellaneous gifts to household items, among others. All this while still practicing social distancing and safety protocols as the world starts to open up again.

Small and large businesses in every industry have adapted to this technological shift, creating a highly competitive e-commerce market. This begs the question: How can companies set themselves apart from competitors, and how can they measure their e-commerce performance?

Having an e-commerce site is one thing, but attracting and retaining new customers is a whole other task. Apart from raising the bar for customer service with speedy responses, fast turnaround for customer cases, refunds, etc., companies need to completely cater to and guide their customers through a personalized buyer journey, enhancing their shopping experience and increasing sales. Numbers don’t lie; let’s take a look at four key metrics to help measure your e-commerce success.

Cart Abandonment

Have you ever had a shopper browse through your catalogs, add items to their cart, and then completely disappear? This frustration is more common than you think; in 2020 alone, 88.05 percent of shopping orders were abandoned. This stat means that these orders weren't converted into a purchase and resulted in cart abandonment.

Although there are multiple reasons why users abandon their shopping orders, a disruptive or long payment process is quite common, causing hesitation to complete transactions. To reduce cart abandonment rate and convert sales, you must minimize the checkout process to make payments easy and quick for customers. Offer suitable payment methods according to your target audience — the more integrations, the better.

If you have new customers, use this space to share reviews from previous customers to validate and make your site more credible. Also, any guarantees such as credentials or certifications to deem a safe and secure process while handling sensitive information should be placed on the checkout page.

Higher cart abandonment rates require a deeper look into the process to find out why shoppers aren’t completing a purchase. Constantly monitor these numbers to make sure you're optimizing the payment process and building the credibility of your brand.

Bounce Rate

A high bounce rate is a good indicator that your content needs to be more engaging and appealing to your target audience. To do this, first, identify and segment your audience to employ an efficient content strategy on your site. The content should be clear and easy to follow — avoiding distractions such as different fonts, buttons, languages, etc., that might end up confusing your potential customer.

Remember, the last thing you want to do is drive traffic away from your site. Therefore, ensuring you have the right strategy in place to guide your audience through making a purchase and keeping their attention is key.

Conversion Rate

While navigating the complexity within e-commerce sites, conversion rate is a critical metric to help track and measure e-commerce success. The higher, the better. Successfully guiding a visitor through your buyer journey and converting them into a customer not only validates your strategy, but also helps you understand how you can convert other visitors to your site.

Conversion rate is measured by dividing the number of sales processed by the number of interactions with a customer, ads, or any marketing effort. Your content strategy must be aligned with your target audience to create engagement and lead your visitors to purchase.

Email Subscription

How would you know if a customer likes your content and wants to hear more about your product or service?

By segmenting and keeping track of your customer’s behavior online, you can easily predict if they’re more likely to subscribe to your product or services, simplifying your efforts to upsell or cross-sell. Enticing content is key to deliver value through your communication platforms with new and existing customers. The more subscriptions you have, the more likely you are to multiply your sales.

Your e-commerce site is an extension of your store. To leverage its benefits and remain competitive in the market, you must ensure you’re connecting with your customers. This guarantees that all of your marketing and business efforts are correctly allocated. As they say, if you can’t track it, you can’t improve it. The above metrics are examples of how to make sure you’re not missing out on any opportunities and start increasing your e-commerce sales.

Murali K. Nethi is the founder and CEO of Snap Blooms, an online florist marketplace that provides hand-delivered, high-quality flowers to customers by connecting them with local florists.