In web analytics especially for eCommerce, we tend to discuss within the context of the web analytics tools that we use. Other than measuring the click-stream data, a lot of the web analytics tools are capable in integrating external data into the web analytics application.
I am not sure if there are a lot of companies out there that relies on the web analytics applications to integrate external data and report it out of the web analytics application other than the Business Intelligence tools.
The idea of integrating and assessing offline metrics to web analytics data is nothing new, but I feel like I don't hear much about offline metrics that impacts online business and strategies.
In this post, I would like to talk about some of the key operational metrics that web analyst or eCommerce managers should look at when assessing the success of your eCommerce business.
In web analytics, we focus a lot on marketing, traffic source attributions, conversion rates, etc. It is vital to also think about your customers' experience beyond the website or after they completed the transaction. In eCommerce, there are a lot of things happening even after customers completed purchasing. Orders have to be processed, transactions will need to be settled, products need to be wrapped, shipped, confirm delivery, subtract inventory, process returns, etc.
All of these required actions or processes correlate to customer satisfaction. Sure, you can improve your traffic by 200%, and increase conversion rate by 300%, but if your customers aren't receiving the products within promised timeframe, then they will not become a repeat buyer or even advocate your service. Here are some of the metrics you will need to take into consideration.
Shipped to Order
For a given time range of data, it is the percentage of shipped orders per total orders. If one of the weeks in previous months show less than 100%, then maybe something is wrong with the fulfillments or the orders aren't getting processed.
Duration between Orders to Delivery
If your slowest shipment option in your eCommerce service is 5 to 7days, you definitely don't want to see seven plus days for this metric. Your customers do expect to have their product delivered on time.
Number of return orders and percentage of returns
So you have increased your conversion rate and successfully optimized the campaigns to drive higher revenue, but you didn't realized that more products are getting returned due to whatever reason. When you're working with a great eCommerce solution, you should be getting back the number of returns. Make sure to gauge this key data.
Percentage of in-stock per order
Maybe your site is selling hot out items quickly, but the orders surpassed the amount of units available in inventory. You want to know what percentage of orders are actually available for delivery. If its below 100%, you might want to double check which products are short on inventory, and for what reason is it short. (sky rocketing number of orders for particular item?)
Remember, that one of the key desired outcome of websites is to "increase customer satisfaction and increase loyalty". Make sure to close the loop in your supply chain/logistics/fulfillments by taking action upon these key metrics.
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