Clutter to Clarity: “You can’t improve what you can’t measure,” so the saying goes. That’s why we have key performance indicators (KPIs). They are essential for any retailer because they help measure progress, and therefore help achieve goals. But selecting the right KPIs is equally important for online retailers. So how do you select the right KPIs?
You should start by setting clear goals for your company and identifying the areas of business that will affect those goals. When you use your company’s goals as a guideline, it will be much easier to determine the right KPIs that drive your business. For example:
Clutter to Clarity: Undoubtedly, each retailer’s KPIs will differ, so to inspire you, we’ve listed the most common KPIs used in e-commerce below.
Popular KPIs for measuring your online store’s sales tend to be:
- Conversion rate
- Cost of goods sold
- Shopping cart abandonment rate
- Average order size
- Sales (hourly, daily, monthly, annual, etc.)
If you’re evaluating your business’ social media success, on the other hand, these KPIs are the most relevant (other than the ones we’ve listed in our ‘Measuring social media success’ post):
- Content appreciation (the number of ‘likes’ per post)
- Content amplification (the number of shares per post)
- Sentiment (the type of opinion or sentiment expressed towards your post – this is usually done through social media tools such as Radian6)
- Conversational exchange (the number of comments per post)
- Number of fans on social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
Marketing KPIs for your site:
- Unique visitors vs. returning visitors
- Blog Traffic
- Page views per visit
- Site traffic
- Newsletter subscribers
Customer service KPIs:
- Customer service email count
- Customer service phone call count
- Customer service chat count
- Average resolution time
- Concern classification
KPIs to measure digital catalog success:
- Pages per visit
- Number of users per issue
- Percentage of new users per issue
- Most popular spreads
- Top exit spreads
- Number of clicks on buttons
- Number of clipping shares
