The latest data from NZ Post’s eCommerce Spotlight suggests that the recent increase in online shopping may mark a long-term shift in the way consumers purchase their goods.
Gone are the days of tentative online purchasing where shoppers have been reluctant to trust digital selling. Instead, we have seen shoppers grow more and more confident in online stores as they dive headfirst into the Internet to do their shopping.
Selling online: is it enough?
If you’ve already got an online store, you may be patting yourself on the back after hearing that shoppers are migrating to the web in increased numbers. But having an online store is only the first step to having a successful online business.
The second step is making sure it is optimised. That’s where this article comes in. Because if you want the best results you’ll need to make decisions, and to make decisions you’ll need data.
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
– Peter Drucker
Data is everything in the online world, and to get data you need to measure things.
In this case, the case of an eCommerce website, that data comes from a smart offering by Google Analytics called Enhanced eCommerce.
Enhanced Ecommerce
Want to get to know your customers or potential customers? Want to see how they behave on your website? Well, look no further than Enhanced Ecommerce.
By setting up enhanced eCommerce on your eCommerce website you’ll be able to gain insights into how your online store is performing. Enhanced Ecommerce will be able to provide the data that you can then use to better make informed decisions about how your website and online store are built, designed, and set up.
By making these optimisations you will give your business the best chance to maximise your online sales.
5 Measurements To Look At
Enhanced Ecommerce can provide a seemingly endless amount of data about your online shop. Below I have targeted 5 of the more common areas to focus on, and suggested some opportunities to improve your website that each piece of data can provide.
1. Product Performance
Which product is performing the best and (perhaps more importantly) which product is performing the worst in terms of revenue, total purchases, and other metrics.
Website Opportunity: Poorly performing products can be caused by a number of factors, not always website related. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t opportunities to be explored. Can the product made to be found more easily? Or can its details and images be improved upon to make it more enticing?
2. Shopping Behaviour
Discover insights into the customer shopping journey. Examples include how often users to your website view products and complete a purchase and where potential customers exit the purchase journey.
Website Opportunity: If your website is getting a large number of users adding products to their cart but a low number of completed transactions, your checkout process may need some improvements.
3. Product List Performance
See how often users click on the product listing areas of your website compared to how many times they are viewed.
Website Opportunity: If a listing of products is not getting the number of clicks expected despite being viewed regularly, perhaps its design can be improved upon, or its page order reevaluated.
4. Customer Information
Track data like where your customers are from and what devices they are using when purchasing from your online store.
Website Opportunity: If the data shows that your customers predominantly use desktop devices then perhaps your website needs a better mobile version.
5. Customer Behaviour
How your customers interact with your website. Details like how much time they are spending on the site and how much they browse before making a purchase.
Website Opportunity: A customer that takes a long time to purchase could just be doing their due diligence or they may be struggling to complete the deal due to a poorly-designed website. The latter can be improved by giving your customers clearer avenues to products and by streamlining the product purchase journey.
A Powerful Tool
Enhanced Ecommerce obviously doesn’t automatically make your website better but it does give you the opportunities to make data-backed improvements.
Therefore I can’t just recommend it to everyone. To use it effectively you’ve got to be using the data it provides in a productive way, otherwise, you’re just gathering data for the sake of gathering data.
If Enhanced Ecommerce sounds like something you’d like to explore, please feel free to get in touch with us today.
