Why is e-commerce tracking important for your business?

According to the International Trade Administration, Australia is the 11th largest e-commerce market in the world with its revenue expected to reach US$32.3 billion by 2023. With such potential for growth, it is no wonder that businesses want to retain customers. As such they are striving more than ever to improve customer satisfaction by soliciting feedback and adjusting accordingly. In this article, we will analyse how companies can use e-commerce tracking to enhance their customers’ experience.

A report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development shows that contributing to e-commerce’s exceptional growth is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For Australia, just like the rest of the world, its online shopping industry has also grown at an exponential rate, with a 20.8% increase in the 12 months leading up to September 2021 as reported by Australia Post. Quoted by Mordor Intelligence, revenue from e-commerce is further projected to have an annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.27% during the period 2022-2027. The success of this growing trend is largely attributed to rising internet penetration, the accessibility of safe and secure payment systems, as well as an increase in the number of online shoppers due to the pandemic, proving that e-commerce is steadily gaining momentum here in Australia.

All things considered, businesses worldwide have begun implementing their own e-commerce initiatives to ride the online shopping wave. It is thus essential for companies to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction from their customers to keep up with the intense competition. Having customer satisfaction ensures long-term patronage and loyalty.

Despite the fact that consumer spending increased by 37% during the pandemic, four of the five challenges consumers encountered when buying from shops were online related. According to a Wharton University study, consumers who had shopping problems were also shown to be 35% less loyal to brands. So it is important to note that customers no longer base their loyalty solely on price or product. Instead, they stay loyal to brands that provide them with the best experience.

Therefore, it is essential for your business to know more about the habits and lifestyles of your customers through e-commerce tracking. Doing so will further promote brand loyalty and grow your e-commerce business arm and its profits.

What is e-commerce tracking?

E-commerce tracking refers to the process of gathering customer data. Most e-commerce platforms, such as Shopify, offer a certain level of e-commerce tracking. An alternative way to obtain consumer data would be integrating Google Analytics or adopting an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software into your business plans.

For instance, the data derived from Google Analytics or an ERP software would provide you with helpful information such as the sales figures of the various products carried by a business across months so you can identify peak periods. In addition, businesses can use the data to further increase their sales and conversion rates. According to Foundr, by understanding which marketing channels your best converting customers come from, you can then focus and increase your efforts on those performing channels.

Advantages of having e-commerce tracking in your business

E-commerce tracking allows you to gain a deeper understanding of the profile of your customers as well as knowing which products are sold. Doing so would allow you to better strategise your marketing plans in the future. Here are the top advantages:

1. Helps you understand your target audience better

E-commerce tracking helps businesses analyse the behaviour of their web store’s visitors. The pull and push factors, as well as call to action hooks provide businesses with vital information on their customers’ likes and dislikes. They also indicate the pain points in a customer’s journey (e.g. shared by Interaction Design Foundation, a lack of a proper UX design for an online shopping cart leading to an inability to add more items to the cart).

2. Provides a positive user experience

When there is proper e-commerce tracking, businesses are then able to understand customer behaviour flow data. This helps companies learn about the paths their customers will take from one page to the next. Behaviour flow answers questions such as:

Do users head for the checkout page immediately without any additional shopping?
Are there events that will trigger a response to check out other pages or events?
Are there paths on the website that are more popular than others?

E-commerce tracking will help businesses see which are the most or least popular pages. Additionally, it will help identify potential content issues. With such useful information, businesses will then be empowered to make better decisions to enhance user experience. This will in turn encourage customers to continue buying from these businesses.

3. Find out why customers are abandoning your site

As mentioned earlier, it is important to identify pain points in a customer’s journey. Statistics from Baymard Institute have shown that the average online cart abandonment rate is 69.80%, and this is a relatively high percentage. Although several reasons exist as to why customers abandon their online shopping carts, the main one would be the checkout process. And until behaviour is tracked with data, businesses would not know why customers are abandoning their websites. With data derived from e-commerce tracking, pain points can be rectified and consequently abandonment rates can be reduced.

4. Reduces overall costs

An e-commerce tracking ERP software does require a significant amount of investment, with prices differing as per the size of the e-commerce operation. However, it is value-for-money as business owners are able to gain valuable customer behaviour insights that help them finetune their e-commerce processes for better user experience.

Along with the ability to track shipments, an ERP software is a boon for businesses should any problem arise during the delivery process, as it enables businesses to solve them before the product reaches the customer. This will help businesses cut down on costs that arise from returns or refunds. A report from Oracle NetSuite has shown that many businesses that use such ERP software manage to reduce their costs by an estimated 30%.

Why partner with DHL Express?

DHL Express is a reliable and trusted logistics partner that can help deliver your goods along the supply chain. We have worked with many e-commerce businesses and have assisted them in providing logistics services to their customers. We are more than happy to share our expertise and services to enhance your brand’s reputation and your customers’ brand loyalty. Open an account with DHL Express and start enjoying the benefits of MyDHL+ today.