There are a variety of metrics available to track for your e-commerce website. These four are those that we consider the most important, especially for a new enterprise.

#1 Sales Conversion Rate

The sales conversion rate is the percentage of people who visit your online store or page that go on to make a purchase.

Obviously, you want this number to be as high as possible. Still, realistically some e-commerce sites have conversions only in the single figures.

The way to work out the conversion rate is the number of conversions to purchases divided by the total number of visitors. For example, if your e-commerce site has received 400 visitors in a month and has 100 sales, then the conversion rate would be 100 divided by 400, which works out at 25%.

#2 Customer Acquisition Cost

You want your customers to spend as much as possible on your online store. By tracking the average order value, you can work out the value of the purchases; however, probably even more important than the value of sales is the costs of customer acquisition.  How much it costs to sell to those customers.  Growing your customer base and increasing sales is important, but it’s essential to remember that it is only half of the equation.

For example, if your cost per customer is $25, and they are only spending $25 with you. Then your e-commerce business is not earning any money.  Even worse, your customer acquisition cost could be more than they are spending.

Keeping a close eye on the costs of gaining customers ensures you know the value of each customer you gain.  To get the true value of the expenses remember to include the cost of site hosting and staff as well as marketing.

#3 Percentage of Abandon Carts

The abandoned cart is when visitors add things to their cart but then leave without buying anything.  Whilst abandoned carts is normal and may not something to worry about unduly, it could reflect a bad shopping experience, high delivery costs or long lead times, or a difficult check out procedure that are putting customers off.  Average cart abandonment percentages vary from industry to industry.  Your site percentages are certainly something that you should be monitoring and aiming to improve.

#4 Website Traffic

Whilst conversion rates are important, the first factor of any e-commerce business is the number of visitors to the site.

People need to know your store is there.  There are various ways to advertise your site and get the traffic that your store needs to convert visits into sales.

Social media presence, SEO and blogs are all ways to help promote your e-commerce website. Tracking the metrics carefully to assess the impact of advertising campaigns and other methods is crucial to market your site in the future.

Get Interested in Metrics

Even if you are running a small e-commerce venture, you should not underestimate the value of data metrics for collecting and analyzing the information that could be crucial to the business. When time is precious, the above four metrics should be your primary concern, and later you will be interested to see how the data points increase as visitors and sales increase. Ultimately, it is tracking these metrics that will lead to the decisions regarding your e-commerce site.