How am I Doing? A Guide to Measuring Ecommerce Health

Maybe the most important component to running a successful online business is knowing where you are at all times. Unlike the traditional onsite store, it’s necessary to figure out where your customers are coming from in the expanse known as the World Wide Web.

How are they finding you? How can you find them? Who orders what? When is your most popular ordering time?

Assessing stats may not be your idea of fun, but it could make the difference between a fledgling site and a robust operation that will lead you to expand, putting you on the ecommerce map.
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So where do you start? Here are some ideas.

First, organize a roster of important numbers and properties to track. These are essential measurements to follow on a regular basis:

• Visitor and Site Statistics
• Total Traffic
• Bounce Rate (the number of times people visited your site without exploring beyond the home page)
• Abandoned Cart Rate (did they fill up and then bail without buying?)
• Average time spent on the site
• New visitors percentage (as compared with return visitors)
• Average time between visiting and buying, and
• Revenue (your bottom line)

Tracking these helps keep your website updated and optimized to accommodate sales activity, and to improve the experience of customers looking for a new favorite vendor.

Need more in-depth detail on how and why to track variables? This page does a beautiful job of laying out useful information.

Google Analytics is a popular tool for measuring your site’s performance. There are others, but give this a read for starters.
 
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As you grow your business, there are more advanced functions you should measure, including email open rate (for your shiny new marketing campaigns);  payment gateway success rate (you can lose sales while rounding third base!); coupon redemption rate; shipping costs as a percentage of total revenues; and your product return rate.
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And since you’re wondering, these metric tracking strategies may be performed using the hosting platform that facilitates your business. Always look for a sophisticated host with good reviews and even better customer support policies. Their success counts on your success, so the best entities will be eager to help you assess your ecommerce site’s performance.