E-commerce Analytics: How to grow your business using data

Today’s fiercely competitive e-commerce environment makes it difficult for you as an online retailer to actually “close” deals with many potential shoppers. An increasing number of shoppers choose to simply browse the products on your website, read the reviews and compare prices without actually making a purchase. Many customers tend to add products to their virtual shopping carts but do not follow through with a final purchase. Why do visitors to your website behave this way? Why are you noticing so many instances of indecision and shopping cart abandonment? How can you better “close” them? The answer to these and many more essential questions can be found via e-commerce analytics.

Analytics makes it easy for you to analyse your customer and sales data, understand it and use it to improve your future sales rate. When used correctly, analytics will equip you with the superpower to not only attract more customers, but to attract the right kind of customers as well. The kind of customers that will stick around. The kind of customers that will not simply abandon their cart and move on to browse your competitor’s website. The kind of customers you can close.

Getting to know (really know) your customers

E-commerce analytics isn’t just about informing you where your customers are coming from or how much time they’ve spent looking at a particular product. E-commerce analytics allows you to track which of your customers are returning to your store and why, their physical location, their device type, how much time they’re spending on a certain product page, how far down they’ve scrolled, etc.

Shopify analytics, for example, are providing you with these and so much more pieces of the ever-changing puzzle that is consumer behavior. In the long run, the numbers will add up to help you construct the bigger picture that reveals a fascinating story behind your customers’ psychology. Leveraging that is the key to maintaining a successful rate of sales. Using analytics the smart way and truly understanding your customers is one of the better and most effective ways for your e-commerce business to not just gain an edge over your competitors but to also gain some of your competitors’ customer base.

Analytics help you stay ahead

Thanks to the rapidly changing customer habits in the age of digital disruption, most e-commerce retailers are struggling to adapt to meet and exceed customer expectations. Amazon’s always-on marketplace has raised the bar significantly – consumers can order anything they want, and they can get it tomorrow. Shopping on-the-go via smartphone, sharing product reviews, price-checking and placing orders quickly and easily is now the new normal. Being able to understand how your customers are making informed decisions will help you stay ahead in the overcrowded e-commerce space.

The data you gather via Shopify analytics not only helps you to understand your customers’ demands, expectations and pain points, it also makes it easier for you to:

Create engaging customer experiences

Running a successful online store isn’t just about offering better prices and quality products anymore. User experience is becoming one of the most essential e-commerce features keeping customers interested. Shopify analytics provides you with data on what features capture your customers’ attention and can tell you how to create truly inspirational, exciting and frictionless user experiences that will solidify your brand and keep your customers coming back for more.

Offer better product recommendations

It’s no secret that a crucial factor for Amazon’s rapid rise to the top of the e-commerce ladder has been its ability to offer personalized product recommendations on every page. This important aspect of the personalized shopping experience is also one of the most complicated to develop correctly. e-commerce analytics make it much easier to predict the needs of individual customers and to offer relevant product recommendations.

Efficiently cross-sell and up-sell to existing customers

The benefits of cross-selling and up-selling to customers cannot be overstated enough. Since retaining existing customers is much easier than attracting new ones, using analytics data to fine-tune your retargeting strategy can provide a real boost to your bottom line.

A study from Harvard Business School showed that an increase in customer retention of just 5% could increase profits by 25–95%. Many e-commerce businesses have already discovered that repeat customers bring in more revenue and are now focusing on a customer retention strategy from the start (rather than getting around to it later). Analytics can tell you which products facilitate repeat customers the most and thus are having a bigger impact on your average Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

Of course, the benefits of using analytics are not restricted to just attracting and retaining customers.  You can also use Shopify analytics data in order to:

Optimize your product line

Use analytics data to quickly analyse your product portfolio and find out who the bestsellers and the laggards are. Digging deeper into the numbers will tell you the reasons why some products are moving while others are being virtually ignored by your customers.  Perhaps it’s time to streamline your product line?

Improve inventory management

Analytics can tell you which products are selling best in which regions, as well as how many of them you have in stock at any time, so that you never run out. Analytics can also tip you off about the products that are selling well, but aren’t viewed by that many people. Information like this is what very often creates valuable marketing opportunities.

Maximize return on ad spend

Using e-commerce analytics can help you find out if you have a leaky bucket and what you can do to maximize your ad spend. Digital marketing is getting more expensive, so instead of wasting money on ads that don’t work, you can focus on the right ads that launch on the right channels at the right target audience.

The problem with most analytics tools (and how to easily solve it)

By now you’re probably asking yourself “Well, if every e-commerce business is able to install analytics software and immediately have access to such valuable insights, why isn’t every e-commerce business extremely profitable? It’s never that easy. Firstly, knowing which e-commerce metrics are important to grow your business is one thing, analyzing them correctly and acting upon them properly is quite another. Secondly, some metrics, like average days needed to fulfill an order or comparing sales between product categories, can be hard or nigh on impossible to find within the standard Shopify analytics tools.

Indeed, finding the answers you are looking for by seeing connections within all of this data can be extremely challenging. Just some of the specific connections you want to be able to clearly see within your data:

• What is the correlation between channels from where customers arrive on your website and the products they are buying
• Which customers have bought your main product but none of the recommended accessories that your customers can use.
• What is the average shipping cost related to the average order value. This can be especially important when you are offering free shipping.

Of course, depending on the problem you are trying to solve or the opportunity you are trying to create for your business, you are likely to be looking for even more specific connections using your analytics tools. You want to be able to connect multiple data points quickly in order to come up with actionable, powerful insights that will have a real positive impact on your business.

This is where Veezoo comes in. Veezoo is the one tool that can unlock the true power of the data you already have. Veezoo provides the quickest and easiest way for your to connect disparate data points and uncover insights that you never suspected were right at your fingertips. This is because Veezoo uses AI to make connecting data points as easy as using Google.

Forget about sifting through pages and pages of metrics in order to finally get to the data you are looking for. Just ask Veezoo for it. Veezoo is like your own private Google for Shopify analytics. Anytime you need a specific piece of information, simply Veezoo it. It’s much easier and significantly more intuitive than having to manually dig through your data or asking a data analytics profile within your company.

Veezoo’s mission is to be your 24/7 virtual data analyst. Imagine sitting in a meeting with your marketing people where you have to decide which products need some extra attention in your next campaign. Sure, you can start searching through your data to find opportunities, but why do that when you can ask Veezoo “Which are the least sold products in the last 90 days?” and immediately get your answer? On top of that, Veezoo makes it very easy to create custom dashboards for your data.

In today’s digital world people say ”knowledge is power”. At Veezoo we say that the easy access to that knowledge is what gives you true power. In the ever-competitive, 21st century e-commerce space, only those who are able to wield the true power of knowledge will truly succeed.