In the ever-evolving world of ecommerce, staying ahead of the curve has become increasingly important to businesses. However, as competition increases and consumer behaviour changes, staying ahead becomes harder and harder. As the retail landscape continues to diverge into the digital sphere, online businesses are experiencing an increasing amount of traffic.
Forbes reports that 79 per cent of consumers now engage in online shopping monthly. To benefit from the full potential of this expanding market, optimising your online business is imperative. Through ecommerce analytics, you can create a powerful and adaptable online presence that unlocks business success. and highlights the focus areas that can be useful for creating a dynamic ecommerce platform.
Product sales
Basic economics explains that regardless of the size and scale of your retail business, there must be more revenue coming into the business than outgoing expenses. In terms of retail, this means there needs to be more products sold than what the product costs to make and sell. The primary goal is to harness the power of ecommerce analytics and dive deep into your product performance data.
Evaluating the data surrounding your product sales can unearth invaluable insights that retail businesses of any size can benefit from. An essential task is to identify your hero products and base a plan around them on your online ecommerce platforms. Today’s modern Business Intelligence (BI) platforms offer insightful information from your retail business data that can help your company excel online.
Website performance
Tracking metrics that portray your website’s performance is critical when understanding visitor behaviour and improving the overall shopping experience. For instance, the cart abandonment rate is a metric directly influenced by the performance of your website. A high cart abandonment rate on your online shop may indicate complexities in the checkout process, issues in the consumer journey, or other customer service issues such as payment errors. If not rectified, you risk leaving dollars on the table.
Augmented BI capabilities have adapted to offer augmented insights. These tools enable the consumer to keep a watchful eye on your data, empowering you to proactively address any issues that may arise. This is a much more efficient way of working as, in the retail industry, trends frequently change and customers now shop online more often since the pandemic. It is important that a website performs quickly, effectively and efficiently to ensure your brand provides a stellar customer experience that improves acquisition and retention. Applications like Zoho Analytics, enables retailers to identify trends in the market and analyse the behaviour of their customers and competing businesses.
Marketing performance
Effective marketing plays a pivotal role in motivating visitors to choose your online store over a competitor. The retail industry is extremely competitive and online businesses rely heavily on key marketing metrics such as monthly Return on Investment (ROI) and conversion rates to thrive.
To stay competitive and adapt to evolving trends, modern BI platforms offer advanced forecasting capabilities. These empower retailers to predict future marketing trends confidently, leading to better-informed, data-driven decisions. For example, customers looking to purchase electronic goods on Black Friday.
Customer behaviour
Your customers are the most important part of your entire business. Tracking key customer metrics, such as acquisition costs and lifetime value, provides you with dynamic insights that allow you to personalise your offerings and facilitate smooth customer interactions.
In today’s data-focussed world, generative AI capabilities are taking the BI space by storm. These AI bots enable faster data analysis, even for users with very little technical knowledge.
Understanding the lifetime value of your customers is a powerful tool for enhancing customer relationships and tailoring your offerings to their needs and preferences. It is vital for a business to stay on top of understanding customers’ wants and needs as the industry evolves and trends change.
Success in the world of ecommerce and in particular, the retail industry, hinges on continuous adaptation and strategic decision-making. These tools enable you to anticipate trends, streamline operations, create personalised shopping experiences for your customers, and ultimately – maintain a competitive edge.
Vijay Sundaram is chief strategy officer at Zoho.