Unified commerce: which performance indicators to follow?

As the shopping experience goes digital, unified commerce is coming into a favorable period for e-commerce. Indeed, in Q3 2021, overall e-commerce sales grew by 15% compared to Q3 2020, according to the latest report from the French e-commerce and distance selling federation (Fevad) released on November 25. In total, internet sales in the quarter reached €30.6 billion, compared to €26.6 billion in 2020. This report reflects the changing behavior of consumers, who not only make more and more purchases on the Internet, but also switch easily from one channel to another: from a digital channel to a physical channel, as well as from a digital channel to another digital channel.

Unified commerce will be able to take full advantage of these new consumption patterns by basing its strategy on six pillars:

• A consistent customer experience across all channels;
• A seamless shopping journey;
• A unified shopping cart;
• Real-time visibility into all inventory;
• Personalized treatment;
• A complete promise on product availability and delivery.

How to choose your KPIs?

A new strategy means new performance indicators, or KPIs. Indeed, to be sure that the implementation of a unified commerce is working, you need to be able to check certain data continuously.

3 rules to choose your KPIs

Choosing KPIs is not always easy. They must be tools to measure the health of the company as well as tools to help decision making.

To facilitate the choice, 3 rules must be followed:

1. A KPI is associated with a specific objective. It is thus a question of relating a figure to an element of the company’s strategy.
2. A KPI must always be able to lead to a decision. Monitoring for monitoring’s sake is not useful! KPIs allow you to adjust an offer or improve a business model based on their results.
3. A KPI must be simple and understandable by everyone in the company.

KPIs for unified commerce

KPIs related to marketing

The first performance indicators concern the operation of the business and its visibility. To buy on a site, you have to find it!

Here are some examples:

• the traffic and in particular the number of unique visitors;
• the duration of the visit;
• the number of pages viewed and the bounce rate: if a customer has to click too many times to find a product, the risk of abandonment will be high. The bounce rate is a marketing indicator that corresponds
• to the percentage of visitors who access a page, then leave the site without clicking anywhere or accessing another page on the same site. If a customer does this before a conversion (purchase,
• registration, download…), it is perhaps because the page is not clear enough; the number of account creation requests (visitors identified by email)

KPIs related to conversion

The conversion rate indicates what percentage of visitors to a site have been converted into potential leads. This rate is frequently used to measure the effectiveness of a landing page, as it shows which page contains the best content and offers the most optimal user experience.

Some examples of conversion-related KPIs:

• the number of identified visitors, thanks to the connections ;
• the number of visitors with a specific catalog view (offer and price);
• The duration of the connection time;

KPIs related to sales

Beyond sales, some KPIs are essential to measure the performance of your business model. Here are some inspirations:

• the conversion rate from visit to purchase ;
• the number of quotes made;
• the rate of transformation of estimate towards a purchase;
• the average basket;
• the abandonment rate: 60% of shopping cart abandonments are linked to hidden delivery costs deemed too high. To reduce the risks, it is important to provide information on delivery conditions (time and costs), return and refund procedures well in advance. Payment solutions can also discourage a buyer who is refused his preferred payment method.
• the number of orders placed outside of store or office hours;
• the frequency of orders;
• the lifetime value of a customer. This indicator allows you to estimate the turnover that a customer can generate and to arbitrate between recruitment and loyalty; Customer retention rate.

KPIs related to after-sales service

After-sales service KPIs can help build customer loyalty. Here are some examples:

• the most used delivery method;
• the return and refund rate. A high return rate indicates problems with product quality or customer satisfaction. Even if they are unavoidable, returns are a problem. Not only are they costly, but they can also mean that the customer is disappointed and can damage the company’s brand image and credibility.

Solutions to facilitate the implementation and monitoring of your KPIs

To be able to deploy a unified commerce strategy operationally, the digital tools used play a central role. Indeed, the challenge lies in the methods of collecting and centralizing data: all sales channels must be scanned, because their vision must be exhaustive and the customer must be treated in a unitary manner. To meet this challenge, the Analytics & KPI functionalities of Generix Group’s Omnichannel Sales offer enable you to see the activity of all your brands in real time.

It is thus possible to generate commercial reports including sales tracking, the number and detailed profile of customers or the transformation rate… The offer also integrates decisional analysis functionalities, by identifying for example the best customers or by pointing out the most efficient commercial operations. To learn more, discover our dedicated page!