There is more and more focus on the fact that ecommerce business can take entrepreneurs to financial success (the $1 million mark). A huge part of the difference between ecommerce success and failure, or at least between optimal performance and anything less than that, is how well you monitor your website and how wisely you react to what you see.
You wouldn’t even set up a lemonade stand and then just leave it to “run itself” unmonitored, and it makes much less sense to leave your “cash cow” ecommerce website unmonitored. An unmonitored site will almost invariably be an unimproved one and an insecure one.
1. Transaction Monitoring
The most sensitive part of any online website is the making of monetary transactions, wherein credit card numbers and other financial and personal information is exchanged. On high-volume sites, electronic, automated monitoring via high-tech software is the only viable option. When the software brings an issue to your attention, that’s the time a human being steps in.
Refer to this site to learn more about transaction monitoring and about how to track your 6 most important app-performance stats so you can make your website a better place to shop.
2. Monitor Your Shopping Carts
With shopping cart abandonment rates at around two-thirds of all carts, you can easily see why monitoring and responding to this particular stat could help you boost your ecommerce sales.
Invest in shopping cart abandonment software to send out emails (already collected earlier in the checkout process) within 12 to 24 hours of a full cart being left to idle. Email reminders can be accompanied by special offers like “same-day” shipping at no extra charge.
Reclaim 10% of abandoned carts and you will probably boost sales revenues by 20%.
3. Monitor Your Existing Customers
No, this is not stalking, and you don’t want it to be “spamming” either unless you want to drive existing customers away instead of encouraging them to shop at your site more often.
But what you do is take opportunity to make special offers and incentives to those who have made a purchase at your site in the confirmation email, “product has shipped” email, and customer feedback email.
Be targeted and “smart” about the content of these follow up emails and monitor how successful they are and the impact they have on your website traffic and your bottom line. Don’t send an offer to buy a cell phone to someone who just bought one from you two days ago, but do send offers on accessories, for example.
4. Monitor Your Website Load Times
The customer experience needs to be monitored and improved at your site if you are going to avoid losing droves of potential buyers. Remember that 50% to 60% of visitors will abandon your site if it takes three or more seconds for the home page to load.
And also be sure to have a mobile friendly version of your website or to make the whole site fit for quick loading and good display on mobile devices. Some 30% of “almost customers” will abandon their would-be purchases if the pages load slow or awkward on their mobile device.
