Which KPI for the reporting of your e-commerce site?

Your website’s traffic
Reference traffic
Conversion rate
Basket abandonment rate
Product opinions
Average number of pages viewed and time spent on the site

The reporting of your e-commerce site is important, as is strategy and goal setting. Without reporting, it is difficult to assess progress over time. You would make decisions based on your instincts, personal preferences, beliefs or other unfounded assumptions. Reporting gives you more accurate information about your company and your customers, allowing you to make informed and strategic decisions.

Indeed, the real value lies in the usable information you get from the data analysis. You will be better able to develop a marketing strategy to generate more online sales and understand the potential weaknesses of your business.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) must be selected and monitored according to your specific business objectives. They must be carefully defined because they differ according to the objective to be measured. When it comes to e-commerce, a set of common performance indicators may be considered.

Among the e-commerce KPIs that your reporting must contain are:

Your website’s traffic

Website traffic is probably one of the most obvious key performance indicators that an e-commerce site owner will monitor. As a general rule, the more traffic your site receives, the more likely you are to turn these visitors into paying customers. However, it is important to ensure the quality of your site to avoid a high rebound rate, i.e. visitors who come and go quickly without buying.You should carefully monitor your e-commerce site traffic for significant peaks or valleys or other unusual events. If you use Google Analytics to monitor traffic, you can check your statistics to see if another website or social media network is sending you a lot of traffic.

Reference traffic

Referral traffic can help you determine which sources send the most visitors to your site. This information can be extremely useful in establishing areas where you need to focus more (for example, natural search or additional PPC announcements), or relationships to be maintained.
Reference traffic can also signal potential problems. If the number of your referrals to other websites is low or non-existent, it may mean that your current marketing or linking campaigns are not working well. In addition, the low SEO traffic from ads can indicate that you need to reconsider the keywords you are targeting, or even the amount you spend on your campaigns.

Conversion rate

The conversion rate is an extremely important key performance indicator for all online stores.
This rate corresponds to the percentage of conversion of visitors to the site into customers. A high conversion rate indicates that you are persuading a large number of visitors to buy your products or services, while a low conversion rate indicates that a limited number of customers are buying or that your traffic may not be targeted enough.

Basket abandonment rate

You have probably already heard of « basket abandonment ». This is another important KPI to watch out for in e-commerce stores. This KPI corresponds to the percentage of buyers who fill a shopping cart on your site, but never validate their purchases.Unlike the rebound or conversion rate, the basket abandonment rate depends on factors that occur later in the buying process and may have no link to the quality of your website or SEO. It is likely that buyers will abandon their baskets for one of the following reasons: cost of the product(s), shipping costs, conditions of sale (opening an account or using a specific payment method), complicated ordering process (large number of pages or steps), etc.

Product opinions

KPIs critical for e-commerce are product reviews. They have a significant influence on the product and the success of a business, with the majority of consumers admitting that online reviews have influenced their purchase of a product or service. That is why you should monitor the content of reviews, as well as their quantity.

If you offer your product on multiple platforms such as Amazon, WooCommerce and Shopify, you should allow time for product registration. Also read user reviews, and make sure that you or a member of your team responds to unsatisfied visitors.

Average number of pages viewed and time spent on the site

The average number of pages viewed (number of pages viewed per visit) and the time spent on the site are indicators of the quality of your content and its ability to attract and retain visitors. If these KPIs report low numbers, the problem may be in the choice of your targeting keywords, which means you are attracting unqualified traffic. Another potential problem may lie in the speed of your site. Online shoppers are often impatient and if your site is slow, it can discourage users.

It is important to remember that KPIs must be carefully monitored as part of regular reporting! We have highlighted the most common ones for an e-commerce site, but please note that this list is not exhaustive. Use analysis tools such as Google Analytics to see the available data and choose the data that depends on your industry, the nature of your business and the objectives set.