What to watch in an online shop: the numbers that lead to a decision

A number is useful if you do something after reading it

Before you open the statistics, decide which question they are supposed to answer. "Why did orders fall this week?" is a question. "How many visits did we get?" is not. A useful number has three properties: you compare it with an earlier period, you know what is usual for you, and you know what you will change if it moves. If you cannot add "and so we will…" to a number, it is noise.

The funnel: at which step customers give up

The funnel counts how many visits reach a product, the cart, the checkout page and a purchase. Do not look at the end result; look at the biggest drop between two steps. If people view products but do not add to the cart, the cause is the price, the photos or the stock. If they add but do not finish, the cause is the checkout itself: the delivery charge, forced registration, too many fields.

Look at the funnel separately for phones and for computers. A checkout form that is comfortable on a large screen can be a trial on a phone — tiny fields, a keyboard that covers the button, picking a courier office from a long list. One week is rarely enough to conclude anything, so compare month with month.

Sources: which channel brings orders, not visits

Visits from advertising, search, the newsletter and social networks do not carry the same weight. One channel brings many people who browse and leave. Another brings few, but they buy. So compare channels by orders and turnover, not by number of visits. Bear in mind that a customer often comes several times: they see an advert on their phone and buy three days later on a computer, through search. The last source is not the only one that did the work.

Heatmaps: why the page is not working

A heatmap shows where visitors click on the page itself. It does not tell you how much you sell; it tells you why a page is not selling. Look for three things. Clicks on something that is not a link — a photo that does not enlarge, or text that looks like a button. An important button that almost nobody presses. And a part of the page that people never reach at all.

Open the heatmap once the funnel has pointed to the problem page, not before. With few visits, a handful of clicks means nothing. For example, in SellM8 Shop and SellM8 Sites funnels, sources and heatmaps are part of the built-in statistics, and the data stays in the shop's or the site's own database.

Abandoned carts: the people one step from buying

Someone who put goods in the cart and got as far as the address was one step from an order. See at which step they stopped and what was in the cart. If most stop at the choice of delivery, check its charge and its times. If they stop at payment, see whether you offer the method your customers prefer. A reminder email is useful, but it does not cure the cause — that lies in the step where people give up.

The numbers that are noise

Total visits, time on site, pages viewed, likes. They go up and down without telling you what to do. Many visits with no orders only mean you are bringing in people who do not buy. A long time on a page may be interest, or it may be a customer who cannot find the button. The same goes for an overall "conversion rate": it becomes useful once you split it by channel, device and category.

How often to look, and what to write down

Fifteen minutes once a week, on the same day, is enough. Look at the same few numbers and note them down together with what you changed: a new delivery charge, a new photo, a new campaign. Without that note, a month later you will not know why orders went up. Change one thing at a time — otherwise it is not clear which change did it.