3 Basic OpenCart Metrics to Guide Your Way to Growth
You may have wondered what do all the numbers in your store’s dashboard mean. What are your OpenCart 3.x analytics & metrics used for, what can you do with them?
How do I track everything?
Well, you don’t need to always keep an eye on everything.
In this post, we will show you the metrics and the kind of data that will actually help grow your business.
On the other hand, if you are one of the more advanced store owners and you want to get even more detailed analytics than the default ones in OpenCart 3.x, we will also address that at the end of the post.
“Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.”
Charles Babbage
Traffic & Viewed Products
Understanding your total website traffic is very important, no argument there. Since this is unavailable in OpenCart by default, you need to connect your Google Analytics account to track it.
But it’s important to know that there are some vital metrics that are hidden in that total traffic that are actually more useful for finding the biggest growth opportunities.
Where does most of your traffic land? Which products are your most viewed ones?
Knowing where your visitors come from and what they are most interested in is what a big part of getting to know your audience is all about. This is what helps you to get started with the targeting of your advertising.
Once you have reliable data about where your customers are coming from, you can also start taking more effective decisions for your marketing channels, payment and shipping strategies.
Conversion Rates & Profits
Are the visitors of your OpenCart store even converting into customers?
First of all, it’s important that the term “conversion rate” can be used for different scenarios, such as:
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Adding a product to the cart
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Reaching the checkout process
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Finishing the order
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Total sales
Basically, any type of action that the user takes based on what you ask them to do can be counted as a conversion.
However, the most important numbers you should be tracking closely are how many people reached the checkout and purchased an item.
By keeping an eye on your conversion rates at all times, you will be able to decide rationally whether your store is converting well or you need to do some optimization to get things going a bit more.
You might wanna also check:
[Infographic] 30 Proven Ideas that Increase E-Commerce Conversion Rates
Of course, conversion rates are never enough and profits can always be higher.
With a global average conversion rate of 3.26% (Q4 2017 - Statista), there is still a long way for the E-Commerce world to improve the shopping experience of online buyers.
Speaking of conversion rates, the total sales digits are the MVP of your OpenCart store.
The questions you need to ask yourself while looking at those numbers are:
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What affects my total sales over time?
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Which channels help my sales the most?
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What causes the ups and downs of my sales?
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What should I do more and what should I do less?
Once you are able to answer those questions by yourself, you will start noticing the opportunities to start building more sales and the days of the week that generate the most conversions.
Repeat Customers
What’s in the center of your store? Your customers, of course!
More specifically, your loyal customers, the ones who come back for more purchases. This is the next important metric you should be following closely.
It’s always easier and cheaper to convert existing customers instead of drawing in new ones.
However, it’s important to always be aware of the mix of new visitors versus existing customers. It shows you whether your OpenCart store is starting to expand your audience and pick up interest from different audiences.
You will always need to be attracting new customers, even if your existing ones are converting well enough, since your business needs to be growing.
You can tell between new and existing customers by the number of orders they have made:
We suggest you look at a wider time period, like an year back, to be able to get the bigger picture.
With this kind of data, you can begin new customer retention campaigns that help you draw in your existing buyers for more purchases.
This can include discounts after the first purchase, customer loyalty programs with increasing benefits for each next purchase, rewards, gifts, whatever you can think of.
Final Thoughts
The Reports in OpenCart can give you the overall numbers and help you draw some data. However, they can be a bit limited, especially if you want to be able to dig deeper into the analytics and get more detailed answers to your questions. The iAnalytics tool can help you get much more out of your OpenCart store and the behavior of your customers.
