Analytics for Ecommerce: Important Insights to Understand

March 31, 2017 Off By David
The e-commerce market is booming again these past few years. More new startups are focusing on online shoppers and offering a wider range of products and services. Even small and local businesses are starting to take their businesses to the cloud and trying to reach customers from across the country.

All of these advancements are making the online market more competitive. If you’re trying to maintain a competitive advantage and keep your online business growing, analytics may just be the answer. Here are some of the insights you can acquire from your e-commerce store and the customers directly.

Dropped Carts

It is not uncommon for an online store to have a relatively large number of dropped carts. A dropped cart is when a customer adds items to their shopping cart, only to abandon the site before completing the purchase. It’s the equivalent of picking up items at the supermarket and asking the cashier to void the purchase when paying.

For years, e-commerce sites have tried to deal with dropped carts using multiple methods. The best way to do it, however, is by understanding the customers’ shopping pattern. Using some analytics tools, you can easily find out about important insights such as the time of the day most dropped carts happen, the pages customers visit before abandoning the site, and other details.

These insights can lead to the most effective way for dealing with dropped carts. For example, if dropped carts are happening with registered users, you can set an automated email reminder with a personalized message. This is an effective method that can help reduce the rate of dropped carts by 60%.

Hotspot Analysis

Analytics tools are getting more advanced. It is now possible to track the portions of a page that gets viewed the most. You can even gather more intelligence from visitors, including where users click the most. For e-commerce sites, this means having the ability to figure out the best way to place certain items and promotional offers.

Bloggers and site owners have used hotspot analysis for placing social media sharing buttons and important content. Some e-commerce sites are also strategically altering their layouts so that they can push products by placing them in the right location on the page. The same insights can also be used for other calls to action, such as for boosting newsletter subscription.

Visitor Flow

Bigger e-commerce companies are starting to take analytics more seriously. Universities such as Villanova University are responding to higher demand for master of science in analytics online graduates. Analytics can be very valuable indeed; some business owners are even pursuing an online master of science in analytics themselves. A better understanding of analytics and data analysis can lead to a better understanding of visitor flow.

Visitor flow will tell you so much about your e-commerce site. A lot of optimizations can be based on the way visitors move from the page they landed on to the last page they visit. In today’s competitive market, these insights are indispensable and will lead to some major competitive advantages.