Get Sweatin, T-shirts for your workout in the gym December 5, 2018 bizadmin I confirm that this is a sponsored post that adheres to FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 16 CFR Part 255 of the USA. I am now outstation and hope that dad gets his heart bypass done soon. In the meantime, I also came across Get Sweatin, T-shirts for your workout in the gym to keep you healthy by exercising. Health is wealth, and with health, you will be able to work and earn an income. For this Christmas, you might be interested in checking out HERE and use my referral code PHILIN – this will ensure my referrals to Get Sweatin are tracked and credited to my account. After that, you might also like to see Get Sweatin so you can locate the most updated list of deals for this merchant. Having an ideal BMI, an acronym for Body Mass Index is so important to reduce risks of getting diseases and critical illnesses. So, it is also essential to invest in your health by working out in the gym, preferably early in the morning when you wake up. You can never take your health for granted like my dad and think that he will live to a ripe old age. For him, the only solution is to go for a bypass as he has clogged arteries. Get Sweatin is an e-commerce website with a robust payment gateway that accepts credit card details and other information that won’t be shared with a third party. So you can shop peacefully and securely knowing that your credit card details are safe and encrypted by an https website. Do check out their Main Website for Get Sweatin and see the various products for sale or get a present for your loved ones this coming Christmas. Remember, health is wealth, and you cannot take your health for granted. Be in the pink of health always by eating moderately and exercising while stimulating your brains via lots of reading and working. In my undergrad years, I have had experience participating in a long distance 3km swim using breaststroke or ‘frog style’ in my varsity many years ago. I was also a regular gym member and used to exercise at least three times per week for about 20 minutes to an hour, even. In my late twenties, I had an optimum BMI and was in the pink of health to work and shop, splurging on the things that I love to use while destressing from all the hassles of work and busyness. Just remember, if you are looking for a cool t-shirt or t-shirts for yourself or family member and friends who don’t work out, get this nice gift from HERE and use my referral code PHILIN. Give your loved ones something useful for their health and even daily wear or casual wear with meaningful wordings to remind yourself of the basics of living like “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” as a good reminder to work hard to put food on the table for yourself and your family. There are other workings and appropriate sentences that relate to all of us here.
10 Challenges Every Store Owner Will Face (And How to Solve Them) December 4, 2018 bizadmin 10 Challenges Every Store Owner Will Face (And How to Solve Them) 1. So, You Told Your Loved Ones When I first told my friends and family I was becoming an entrepreneur. I didn’t get the level of excitement I was hoping for. Instead, conversations unfolded like this: “Why are you throwing your life away?” “Don’t you appreciate that your job gives you benefits and a steady income?” I tried to explain what I was doing in a million ways. But there was no getting through to them. All I could do was hide out at the library every day, with my phone off, to avoid conflict as much as possible. If I could go back in time, I just wouldn’t tell them until I had something to show for it. The second you tell anyone you love about wanting to be an entrepreneur – parents, friends, family, spouse, coworkers – there’s a pretty good chance someone will try to change your mind. At the end of the day, you need to ask yourself who you’re living for. Your parents, your partner, yourself, or a greater purpose. And if you focus on yourself or a greater purpose, well, at least it was your decision. And for the record, my loved ones have become more supportive of my entrepreneurial projects as I started to succeed. You just need to prove yourself before you tell anyone. 2. Store Build Exhaustion You made the common mistake of importing hundreds of products to your dropshipping store. And who wouldn’t when it only takes a couple of clicks? But you stayed committed and wrote product descriptions for them all. Trust me, I know how common this mistake is. Take a look at my current Oberlo dashboard – as you can see, I’m sitting on 92 different products. You don’t need to add all 92 products on your store that first day. But by the time you finally get around to launching your store, you’re as burnt out as toast lit on fire. So you create a Facebook ad or maybe create an Instagram post, but you don’t really put any thoughtful effort into it. You just want to get your first sale over with. But the ka-ching sound that the Shopify app makes for each sale – yeah, it never comes. How do you solve this? If you import hundreds of products into your dropshipping store out of excitement, pick 25 or fewer products to write copy for. And launch that same day. You’ll drastically reduce the burnout. Plus, your time is sacred. You’ve got that full-time job going, family to care for, and a million other responsibilities. While it’s important to commit to your new business, you don’t need to overwhelm yourself with a high workload. You can slowly build your store. Get a few early sales and keep adding products to your store as you continue to grow. 3. Fear of Failure For most, fear of failure can stop you from succeeding, even when you’re so freaking close to achieving your dreams. Heck, I’ve failed so many times I could probably end up with a Guinness World Record. But the biggest failure is not pushing forward. Don’t listen to that nasty voice in your head. She’s wrong about you anyway. You need to look at failure like a game. Like you’re trying to solve a puzzle where you need to guess all the wrong combinations before you finally figure out the right combination. If you don’t get it right the first time, no problem. But you still need to dig deeper to crack the code. There are famous failures who’ve failed so much worse than you ever could. And the reason why they ended up becoming leaders, millionaires, billionaires and got a place in the history books is that they refused to let some obstacle prevent them from achieving greatness. Treat obstacles the same way an Olympic hurdler does. Jump over them. And if you trip over one, pretend like it didn’t happen and keep jumping over the next ones. This guy knows what I’m talkin’ about: You’re allowed to feel sad when you hit a roadblock. But then you need to turn that sadness into a raging fire to push you to greater heights. Ignite that spark in you, you know you’ve got what it takes. 4. Disappointment After Your First Ad The feeling that you’re on the right track usually disappears after you create your first ad and end up with zero sales. It’s always such a bummer. Trust me when I say this, most first ads fail. Don’t lose hope because you didn’t hit jackpot on your first try. My first Facebook ad got zero sales. However, with time I ended up creating a six-figure store with the help of Facebook ads. People tend to make Facebook ads look easy with their copy and paste templates. But truth is, it all boils down to experimentation. Testing out different products, experimenting with different copy, and mixing up pictures. So if your first ad fails, don’t dive into your second one right away. Take the time to evaluate what mistakes you made. And make a mindful effort to improve on that first ad. When my first Facebook ad failed, I literally spent the next couple days reading every article on Facebook ads that I could find. My second Facebook ad converted at about 4-5 cents a click. Remember: you’re still learning. 5. You Chose the Wrong Products You found a product you liked and decided to start promoting it. But the “No sales yet” on your Shopify dashboard isn’t doing you any favors. The success of your store boils down to winning products. All you need to do is find one. And that one product will carry the weight of your store’s sales. So how do you find them and how will you know? Search-based products are products people search for, like tools or equipment. Impulse buy products are products people don’t really need – but buy anyway when they pop up in their Facebook feeds. Don’t make the mistake of selling the right product the wrong way. If you’re selling search-based products, running a Facebook ad isn’t going to skyrocket sales. You need to keep experimenting to find the right products. Create several ads for different products. Which product outperforms the rest? Use that product and scale ads on that one. Don’t try to force a losing product into becoming a winning one. If it doesn’t convert well, test a different product instead. 6. You Freeze Up You spent months daydreaming about starting your online store. And you start to make some pretty good progress on it. All of a sudden, you’re second-guessing yourself. I can do this. No, I can’t. OMG. Freaking out. Executing is harder than daydreaming. Imagining all the money you can make, all the fame you can have, and all the power in the universe takes no work. Choosing products, designing your store, and marketing takes an endless amount of energy. I mean, doesn’t Elon Musk work 80-90 hours a week? You’re not gonna get into the big leagues by doing the 40-hour work week. Most people freeze up because there’s just so much stuff to learn and do. There just aren’t enough hours in the day or resources to do them. But in the beginning, you’ve just gotta suck it up and get it done. Break it down into smaller chunks. Set a timer. Create a schedule with different tasks you need to do. Work on the easy-to-execute projects first to gain momentum. Give yourself a hard deadline. Ask your partner for some help. Hire an intern. There’s always a solution waiting to be discovered. 7. You Don’t Actually Know Where to Start So much information. Too many dropshipping courses online. How do I know what’s credible? Who can I trust? Like you, when I first started I thought I needed to sign up for all courses. Read every article on every blog. And buy every book. But you don’t. The easiest way to succeed isn’t by absorbing information but by practicing. Say you dream of being a baseball player. Do you really think you’re gonna become an all-star from reading books? Or will you get closer to your dream by simply playing baseball. Same works with e-commerce. The best ideas come from making mistakes, trying things out, and sometimes talking to other people who are a bit better than you. So no, you don’t need to sign up and finish a course before you build your first store. Deep down you know you’re just procrastinating. Sit yourself down, design your store, and focus on getting your first sale. Experiment. Try new things. Put yourself out there. You don’t need to be an overnight success to become successful. 8. You Get Sucked Into a Negativity Vortex It’s easy to second guess yourself. You question whether you have the skills to succeed. And delay your business’ launch. You let someone else’s opinion of you get in your head. And you decide to do something completely different. You can hit a home run every time you go to bat, but there’ll always be that one guy in the stands yelling “You suck!” And sometimes the person yelling that to you… is you. One small easy-to-fix problem can get escalated to feelings of hopelessness pretty easily. There’s this really great book I recently read by Marilee G. Adams, Ph.D., called Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. In it, she shares questions to ask yourself to transition from a Judger mindset into a Learner one. Judger is basically that negative, defeatist mindset, and Learner is the positive, open-minded one. So when all your problems start piling up and everything feels hopeless you can ask yourself questions like: What assumptions am I making? What’s best to do now? What am I responsible for? What can I learn? What do I want? Feel free to check out the Choice Map PDF to find more questions that’ll help you get back on the right track when the negativity vortex starts swirling. 9. You Don’t Know How to Write Product Descriptions You might be the world’s greatest marketer. But sometimes the thing holding us back isn’t our mindset – its our lack of skills. For some people, writing product descriptions can be a bit overwhelming. Maybe you’re afraid that the words you add don’t sound good. Or you’re not sure how to structure your sentences. Try not to overcomplicate it. While having a great product description is important, your product photos are going to do the heavy lifting when it comes to sales. When I write product descriptions for my store, I tend to use this template most: Compliment the customer and connect it to the product Mention the product benefit and relate it to the feature Provide a simple recommendation Let’s apply this template to an actual product on Oberlo Verified suppliers. You deserve something as purrfect as this cat towel. This soft towel will soak up water with ease. And it’s antibacterial too – making it a perfect towel for kids or babies. Feel free to snatch up these towels in different colors so children know which one is theirs. Here’s a look at what it looks like on an online store: A little trick I do, as you can see in the example, is make use of puns. Whenever I write a product description, I’ll Google a keyword like “cat puns” so I can make silly jokes to make the copy more playful and easier to read. 10. You Run Out of Money Maybe you spent $1,000 on your first Facebook ad thinking you’d get the same results as a friend. Or maybe you didn’t have a lot of money to start with. Having money to pay for food and shelter is important, so if you’re shot down to zero, you need to rework your plan. You don’t need to give up, but you need to hit that pause button. Take the time to work on some side hustles where you trade time for money. Like a freelance gig or a part-time job. This is only temporary so you can recharge your finances. And then once your finances are back on track you need to look at your store differently. In the meantime, create content – blog posts, social media posts using hashtags, and videos on YouTube. It’s time to play the slow and steady race. No, you won’t be getting sales off the bat. But you’ll grow your audience so you can grow your sales long-term. It’s budget-friendly. And it’ll also help you build a more sustainable business. Feel free to scan through the Free Traffic ebook for other ideas on how to get traffic you can monetize without spending a time. Conclusion We all experience obstacles at some point. Fortunately, all those mental barriers and roadblocks usually come from our own doing, meaning the power to change it ultimately lies within yourself. Sometimes the easiest way to get those negative thoughts out of your head is by asking a different set of questions. Other times all you need is a little more practice to bring you closer to achieving your dreams. But if it counts for anything, you really can change the world. And I hope you do! Nicole Martins Ferreira Nicole Martins Ferreira is a content marketer at Oberlo and experienced ecommerce entrepreneur. She’s been building online stores since 2013 and sharing her secrets with Oberlo users since 2016. Follow Nicole on Twitter at @NicoleMarFer.
e-Commerce SEO for Beginners by Oberlo Dropshipping Application November 30, 2018 bizadmin SEO is a huge topic for beginners. But don’t worry. Oberlo will summarize up the key points here in this video for beginners like you and me. If you want to get started in SEO, then this video will help from Oberlo. This is to help e-commerce store owners get more sales using SEO. For the uninitiated, Oberlo helps automate Your Dropshipping Store with awesome features just like Shopzie. Oberlo has Free 14-Day Trial. No Credit Card is required with up to 10% Cashback. It Automates Dropship Stores with Auto Order and Tracking plus 1-Click Migration Tool. You might wonder, ‘What is Oberlo?’ Oberlo is an application, which allows you to easily import dropshipped products into a Shopify store and ship them directly to your customers – in only a few clicks. You can import and sell items that can be found on Oberlo Supply Marketplace or at Aliexpress.com.
Carola Zeta – All Your Luxury Choice November 21, 2018 bizadmin I confirm that this is a sponsored post that adheres to FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 16 CFR Part 255 of the USA. I was browsing the internet this morning and chanced upon Carola Zeta – All Your Luxury Choice in my Dashboard. As loyal readers of this blog, you can get 10% discount using my referral code PHILIN on the tracking link >> HERE – this will ensure that my referrals to Carola Zeta are tracked and credited to my account. The pictures above are from the flagship brand Dolce & Gabbana, one of the luxury brands in this robust e-commerce website. You can also check out Carola Zeta’s page on Carola Zeta’s promo codes so you readers can locate the most updated list of deals for this merchant. Christmas is just around the corner, and this blog’s theme has been changed accordingly to the season of giving and receiving. The e-commerce website above accepts payments via credit cards using a safe and secure payment gateway. Your details will not be shared by the third party as it adheres to the USA guidelines for the sponsored post. Do browse around the links above and who knows; you may find something you need for a loved one or friends during this Christmas. It saves you from having to pay for the parking ticket and dress up to go shopping at a mall. With just the click of the computer mouse or keyboard, you can order the branded items in the comfort of home. You might also like to check out Carola Zeta Website at the link given. This is a comprehensive e-commerce site that you can check out with so many branded and groovy items to buy for the coming Christmas and also for a loved one all year round. I love how the e-commerce website categorizes the branded items by names such as clothing, shoes, bags, designers, etc. The branded items are lists alphabetically, from A to Y currently. Under the clothing category, sub-categories include Tops, Knitwears & Sweaters, Jackets & Coats, Trousers & Jeans, Skirts, Dresses and Shorts. Top brands include Prada, Moncler, Chloé, Gucci, and Alexander McQueen. I love Prada and owns a black Prada bag that I got as a gift. And it is Not true the Devil carries a Prada, from the title of a movie! More likely, the Angel in me carries a Prada! 🙂 Don’t you find the blazers above lovely for working executive ladies? You will look young and smart besides giving an aura of being a professional look in the office should you wear it while working after graduation. Your boss will also have a good first impression of you should you use the Blazers during the interview with a higher chance of clinching the job over others who wear colorful clothes for such a momentous occasion. During interviews, it is best to go with darker colors to show authority and pair it with a matching bag and shoes. It is better to be safe with grey, black and white colors for a serious job hunting experience. In this e-commerce site, there are also clothing for parties, the beach, casuals and much more.
7 Online Marketing Strategies for Your Ecommerce Store September 6, 2018 bizadmin 1. Social Media Think managing your social media is as easy as posting content once a day? It’s not. When it comes to social media, your marketing strategy shouldn’t be to just do it. You need to come up with a plan… and one that works. Every social platform has a specific target audience. If you’re an online fashion retailer, you probably won’t get most of your sales from LinkedIn, which serves more of a B2B (business to business) audience. Instead, you’ll focus on visual platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Your best engagement will likely be on Instagram. Your best performing ads will likely come from Facebook. And you might drive a lot of traffic from Pinterest (which you can then retarget with Facebook ads). So, once you’ve figured out which platforms are worth pursuing for your specific business, it’s time to zero in on your marketing strategies. What type of content should you post? Which tactics should you execute to increase growth? How often should you post? 2. SEO What’s more powerful at driving traffic to a website than social media? SEO. It won’t bring you results on day one. But marketing strategies aren’t about short-term plays. It’s about planning for the future growth. Most online retailers focus on immediate gratification when it comes to building their online stores so they’ll run Facebook ads and call it a day. But if you really want to keep your acquisition costs low, SEO is your best bet. The thing about SEO is that it’s actually not about picking keywords for your specific niche but going a bit broader. For example, if you have a running store, you wouldn’t only focus on keywords related to running. You’d also focus on keywords related to fitness or weight loss. Why? Because SEO is about acquiring new traffic, not just sticking to your exact audience. By having content around weight loss, you can still introduce the concept of running as a potential way to lose weight. It allows you to target a broader audience who could still be interested in your products. 3. Content Marketing One of the most popular marketing strategies right now is content marketing. It helps keep acquisition costs low. But it’s also great at “warming up” leads. What does that mean? It means not everyone will be ready to buy from you the first time they visit your website. However, your content can act as a relationship builder. The more of your content someone sees, the more familiar the potential customer becomes with your brand. Eventually, that familiarity can result in cold, hard cash. Like SEO, it’s a bit of a long-term play. But it pays off. Content marketing serves multiple purposes beyond acquisition though. It can also educate your customers so that they can improve their performance within the niche. For example, if you run a hair extension store, you can create hair tutorial videos with your hair extensions. This will help your customers look more beautiful using your hair extensions but also keep them using your product. Eventually, when customers want to buy another style, they’ll be more likely to be from you. Why? Because content marketing improves customer retention too. Content can come in many forms like blog posts, ebooks, videos, infographics, webinars, podcasts, polls, quizzes, templates, and more. 4. Public Relations The realm of public relations (PR) covers everything from media coverage to branding to content marketing. PR is about maintaining a positive public image and increasing brand awareness. On the one hand, PR is about preventing and putting out fires that can harm a brand’s reputation. And on the other it’s about showcasing the good things your brand does such as corporate social responsibility. Marketing strategies like PR should always be included in your marketing plan. The reality is your brand’s reputation can be as magical as Disney’s or it can be as tarnished as Takata’s. 5. Collaborations Brand collaborations or partnerships can help skyrocket your business. Marketing strategies like collaboration or co-marketing allow you to elevate your business by tapping into another brand’s audience. Most view brands in similar niches as competitors but they can be allies. If two brands serve the same audience but carry different product lines, they can help each other grow by co-creating content, hosting a contest, or launching a joint product together. By leveraging another brand’s audience your marketing campaign can reach a bigger audience, making it an even greater success. In part 8 of my case study series, I shared how another online retailer in a similar niche gave me a free shout-out on Instagram. While the post didn’t result in any sales, it did result in new followers and website visits. My online store didn’t even have 20 followers at the time and this brand had over 200,000! So collaborations don’t always need to be an even trade. This is a simple way to partner with a brand with a bigger audience without having to offer something extravagant in return. 6. Email Marketing For many online retailers, email marketing drives the fastest immediate results in terms of webpage traffic and sales. You can build your email list by asking customers to opt into your marketing when they check out. Or you can add an opt-in form to your blog, homepage, and other popular pages of your website. The real magic in email marketing comes from the ability to continue to remarket to your audience on an asset you have 100% ownership of. Think of social media followers as rented. Whereas, your entire email list can be moved to another email provider anytime. So you’ll always own your complete list. What are the top marketing strategies for email? The easiest way to increase your email marketing impact is to build a bigger email list. Apps like Spin-A-Sale can be added to your online store, gamifying the process of email list building. The tool allows customers to spin a wheel to get a discount. Customers have to enter their email to spin. But it’s also proven to result in sales as well. I personally tried it on my store and we ended up building a massive email list. Create email funnels. An email funnel is a set of sequenced emails. A standard email newsletter might include your best-selling products. However, an email funnel might start by featuring a couple of blog posts about the niche to help customers increase brand familiarity. You might then send an email showing your best-selling products of the week to convert the sale. But you’d only send the conversion email after sending a non-sales email first. You could also build funnels for your abandoned cart emails. Segment your email list. As your email list keeps growing, personalization and segmentation become essential. You’ll have customers who’ve ordered different products on your store. However, by personalizing your emails, you can show them products they may be interested in based on their previous browsing history. This can help make them more likely to buy your products because it’s catered to that individual customer. Apps like Customer Segment Builder can help with this. 7. Video Marketing Picture posts just aren’t cutting it anymore, folks. Videos are one of the most important marketing strategies for 2018. Fortunately, it’s never been easier to create videos. All you need is your phone. And you could use a free video editing app from the App Store or Google Play to make easy modifications to your videos. How you create your videos also depends on which platform you’re on. For example, on Instagram, you might use Instagram apps like Boomerang to create a short video loop. On YouTube, you’ll likely be creating widescreen videos. by Nicole Martins Ferreira Nicole Martins Ferreira is a content marketer at Oberlo and experienced ecommerce entrepreneur. She’s been building online stores since 2013 and sharing her secrets with Oberlo users since 2016. Follow Nicole on Twitter at @NicoleMarFer.
TBF Finance.com – Online Payment System August 13, 2018 bizadmin There is another new online payment system that you might want to consider should you be working in Options, Forex, Bets, Lotteries and Freelancer services. The online payment system is now easy, fast, and robust. TBF Finance will select, create and implement the most beneficial payment processing conditions for both high-risk and also low-risk merchants. Just check out https://tbffinance.com/ by clicking on the link to find out more information. Furthermore, e-Commerce sites like Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart can integrate this online payment system into their platforms. Now the craze and in-thing is e-Commerce where many entrepreneurs are jumping on the bandwagon to get a piece of the cake by selling unique stuff online. Other than Paypal which charges a lot, you can use other payment gateways like TBFFinance.com and check out their competitive pricing. If you are a mom or dad who works at home, then e-commerce might be the solution to earn an income online, right in the comfort of home. But the caveat is that e-commerce is not for everyone. You have to dedicate 100% time and effort to make it a success even though your e-commerce site may be new and no one knows about it. This is where advertisements using Facebook, Instagram, and others come in handy.
Why 99% of People Fail on Shopify April 26, 2018 bizadmin Learn the Top 5 Reasons 99% of Shopify Beginners FAIL | And How 3 Secret Hacks can Help You NOT Repeat These Mistakes! by Kevin David. 1) The N Word. It is niche and not found anywhere else. The people who caught it early are those that make money and know when to get out when it is being saturated. For instance is dog collar that is niche like LED dog collar, etc. Don’t sell generic products. No one is going to buy toilet paper from Facebook Ads. When you type in Dog Collar A shows up dog collar army, etc. for instance. 2) Shopify is a real business. It takes time. It takes 100s and 100s of products to test and takes time to build interests. Simply adding a product from Oberlo does NOT = Success Proper Planning and Testing. 3) One and Done. Partner with the correct supplier. Do your diligence in funding an Instagram Influencer to market your products. Find your breakthrough product and never give up. You don’t see months and years of successful companies spent to be succcessful with Shopify. 4) The Golden Ratio: 20% Store Creation / Optimization 30% Product Selection / Iteration 51% Marketing (Email and Paid Traffic) Don’t be overwhelmed in creating the perfect store and getting no sales. Just spend 20% of your time in the creation and more on the marketing where more than half of your time should be spent on like using MailChimp, etc. You need to spend money to scale the ads quickly and scale the ones that are working while pausing the ones that are not working. Offer products at a cost or even lost to get people into your email list. Give free stuffs. 5) Prioritization. Social Media, 80/20 Principal. Instead of finding the perfect product, what you should be doing is very succinct steps. Finding products that you are happy on and many people are purchasing, and you have checked Google Trends and Snapchat, like golf, bird watching, etc. Get an email papa and a niche that is highly targetted like men’s polos, etc and run Facebook Ads to it. If there are no sales, then choose different products or change the target different audience on FB.
67 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Ecommerce April 16, 2018 bizadmin Performance should inform business decisions, and KPIs should drive actions. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are like milestones on the road to online retail success. Monitoring them will help ecommerce entrepreneurs identify progress toward sales, marketing, and customer service goals. KPIs should be chosen and monitored depending on your unique business goals. Certain KPIs support some goals while they’re irrelevant for others. With the idea that KPIs should differ based on the goal being measured, it’s possible to consider a set of common performance indicators for ecommerce. Table of Contents 1) What is a performance indicator? 2) What is a key performance indicator? 3) Why are key performance indicators important? 4) What is the difference between a SLA and a KPI? 5) Types of key performance indicators 6) 67 key performance indicator examples for ecommerce 7) How do I create a KPI? Here is the definition of key performance indicators, types of key performance indicators, and 67 examples of ecommerce key performance indicators. What is a performance indicator? A performance indicator is a quantifiable measurement or data point used to gauge performance relative to some goal. As an example, some online retailers may have a goal to increase site traffic 50% in the next year. Relative to this goal, a performance indicator might be the number of unique visitors the site receives daily or which traffic sources send visitors (paid advertising, search engine optimization, brand or display advertising, a YouTube video, etc.) What is a key performance indicator? For most goals there could be many performance indicators — often too many — so often people narrow it down to just two or three impactful data points known as key performance indicators. KPIs are those measurements that most accurately and succinctly show whether or not a business in progressing toward its goal. Why are key performance indicators important? KPIs are important just like strategy and goal setting are important. Without KPIs, it’s difficult to gauge progress over time. You’d be making decisions based on gut instinct, personal preference or belief, or other unfounded hypotheses. KPIs tell you more information about your business and your customers, so you can make informed and strategic decisions. But KPIs aren’t important on their own. The real value lies in the actionable insights you take away from analyzing the data. You’ll be able to more accurately devise strategies to drive more online sales, as well as understand where there may problems in your business. Plus, the data related to KPIs can be distributed to the larger team. This can be used to educate your employees and come together for critical problem-solving. What is the difference between a SLA and a KPI? SLA stands for service level agreement, while a KPI is a key performance indicator. A service level agreement in ecommerce establishes the scope for the working relationship between an online retailer and a vendor. For example, you might have a SLA with your manufacturer or digital marketing agency. A KPI, as we know, is a metric or data point related to some business operation. These are often quantifiable, but KPIs may also be qualitative. Types of key performance indicators There are many types of key performance indicators. They may be qualitative, quantitative, predictive of the future, or revealing of the past. KPIs also touch on various business operations. When it comes to ecommerce, KPIs generally fall into one of the following five categories: Sales Marketing Customer service Manufacturing Project management 67 key performance indicator examples for ecommerce Note: The performance indicators listed below are in no way an exhaustive list. There are an almost infinite number of KPIs to consider for your ecommerce business. What are key performance indicators for sales? What are key performance indicators for marketing? What are key performance indicators for customer service? What are key performance indicators for manufacturing? What are key performance indicators for project management? What are key performance indicators for sales? Sales key performance indicators are measures that tell you how your business is doing in terms of conversions and revenue. You can look at sales KPIs related to a specific channel, time period, team, employee, etc. to inform business decisions. Examples of key performance indicators for sales include: Sales: Ecommerce retailers can monitor total sales by the hour, day, week, month, quarter, or year. Average order size: Sometimes called average market basket, the average order size tells you how much a customer typically spends on a single order. Gross profit: Calculate this KPI by subtracting the total cost of goods sold from total sales. Average margin: Average margin, or average profit margin, is a percentage that represents your profit margin over a period of time. Number of transactions: This is the total number of transactions. Use this KPI in conjunction with average order size or total number of site visitors for deeper insights. Conversion rate: The conversion rate, also a percetage, is the rate at which users on your ecommerce site are converting (or buying). This is calculated by dividing the total number of visitors (to a site, page, category, or selection of pages) by the total number of conversions. Shopping cart abandonment rate: The shopping cart abandonment rate tells you how many users are adding products to their shopping cart but not checking out. The lower this number, the better. If your cart abandonment rate is high, there may be too much friction in the checkout process. New customer orders vs. returning customer orders: This metric shows a comparison between new and repeat customers. Many business owners focus only on customer acquisition, but customer retention can also drive loyalty, word of mouth marketing, and higher order values. Cost of goods sold (COGS): COGS tells you how much you’re spending to sell a product. This includes manufacturing, employee wages, and overhead costs. Total available market relative to a retailer’s share of market: Tracking this KPI will tell you how much your business is growing compared to others within your industry. Product affinity: This KPI tells you which products are purchased together. This can and should inform cross-promotion strategies. Product relationship: This is which products are viewed consecutively. Again, use this KPI to formulate effective cross-selling tactics. Inventory levels: This KPI could tell you how much stock is on hand, how long product is sitting, how quickly product is selling, etc. Competitive pricing: It’s important to gauge your success and growth against yourself and against your competitors. Monitor your competitors’ pricing strategies and compare them to your own. Customer lifetime value (CLV): The CLV tells you how much a customer is worth to your business over the course of their relationship with your brand. You want to increase this number over time through strengthening relationships and focusing on customer loyalty. Revenue per visitor (RPV): RPV gives you an average of how much a person spends during a single visit to your site. If this KPI is low, you can view website analytics to see how you can drive more online sales. Churn rate: For an online retailer, the churn rate tells you how quickly customers are leaving your brand or canceling/failing to renew a subscription with your brand. Customer acquisition cost (CAC): CAC tells you how much your company spends on acquiring a new customer. This is measured by looking at your marketing spend and how it breaks down per individual customer. What are key performance indicators for marketing? Key performance indicators for marketing tell you how well you’re doing in relation to your marketing and advertising goals. These also impact your sales KPIs. Marketers use KPIs to understand which products are selling, who’s buying them, how they’re buying them, and why they’re buying them. This can help you market more strategically in the future and inform product development. Examples of key performance indicators for marketing include: Site traffic: Site traffic refers to the total number of visits to your ecommerce site. More site traffic means more users are hitting your store. New visitors vs. returning visitors: New site visitors are first-time visitors to your site. Returning visitors, on the other hand, have been to your site before. While looking at this metric alone won’t reveal much, it can help ecommerce retailers gauge success of digital marketing campaigns. If you’re running a retargeted ad, for example, returning visitors should be higher. Time on site: This KPI tells you how much time visitors are spending on your website. Generally, more time spent means they’ve had deeper engagements with your brand. Usually, you’ll want to see more time spent on blog content and landing pages and less time spent through the checkout process. Bounce rate: The bounce rate tells you how many users exit your site after viewing only one page. If this number is high, you’ll want to investigate why visitors are leaving your site instead of exploring. Pageviews per visit: Pageviews per visit refers to the average number of pages a user will view on your site during each visit. Again, more pages usually means more engagement. However, if it’s taking users too many clicks to find the products they’re looking for, you want to revisit your site design. Average session duration: The average amount of time a person spends on your site during a single visit is called the average session duration. Traffic source: The traffic source KPI tells you where visitors are coming from or how they found your site. This will provide information about which channels are driving the most traffic, such as: organic search, paid ads, or social media. Mobile site traffic: Monitor the total number of users who use mobile devices to access your store and make sure your site is optimized for mobile. Day part monitoring: Looking at when site visitors come can tell you which are peak traffic times. Newsletter subscribers: The number of newsletter subscribers refers to how many users have opted into your email marketing list. If you have more subscribers, you can reach more consumers. However, you’ll also want to look at related data, such as the demographics of your newsletter subscribers, to make sure you’re reaching your target audience. Texting subscribers: Newer to digital marketing than email, ecommerce brands can reach consumers through SMS-based marketing. Texting subscribers refers to the number of customers on your text message contact list. To get started with your own text-based marketing, browse these SMS Shopify apps. Subscriber growth rate: This tells you how quickly your subscriber list is growing. Pairing this KPI with the total number of subscribers will give you good insight into this channel. Email open rate: This KPI tells you the percentage of subscribers that open your email. If you have a low email open rate, you could test new subject lines, or try cleaning your list for inactive or irrelevant subscribers. Email click-through rate (CTR): While the open rate tells you the percentage of subscribers who open the email, the click-through rate tells you the percentage of those who actually clicked on a link after opening. This is arguably more important than the open rate because without clicks, you won’t drive any traffic to your site. Unsubscribes: You can look at both the total number and the rate of unsubscriptions for your email list. Chat sessions initiated: If you have live chat functionality on your ecommerce store, the number of chat sessions initiated tells you how many users engaged with the tool to speak to a virtual aide. Social followers and fans: Whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, or Snapchat (or a combination of a few), the number of followers or fans you have is a useful KPI to gauge customer loyalty and brand awareness. Many of those social media networks also have tools that ecommerce businesses can use to learn more about their social followers. Social media engagement: Social media engagement tells you how actively your followers and fans are interacting with your brand on social media. Clicks: The total number of clicks a link gets. You could measure this KPI almost anywhere: on your website, social media, email, display ads, PPC, etc. Average CTR: The average click-through rate tells you the percentage of users on a page (or asset) who click on a link. Average position: The average position KPI tells you about your site’s search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search performance. This demonstrates where you are on search engine results pages. Most online retailers have the goal of being number one for their targeted keywords. Pay-per-click (PPC) traffic volume: If you’re running PPC campaigns, this tells you how much traffic you’re successfully driving to your site. Blog traffic: You can find this KPI by simply creating a filtered view in your analytics tool. It’s also helpful to compare blog traffic to overall site traffic. Number and quality of product reviews: Product reviews are great for a number of reasons: They provide social proof, they can help with SEO, and they give you valuable feedback for your business. The quantity and content of product reviews are important KPIs to track for your ecommerce business. Banner or display advertising CTRs: The CTRs for your banner and display ads will tell you the percentage of viewers who have clicked on the ad. This KPI will give you insight into your copy, imagery, and offer performance. Affiliate performance rates: If you engage in affiliate marketing, this KPI will help you understand which channels are most successful. What are key performance indicators for customer service? Customer service KPIs tell you how effective your customer service is and if you’re meeting expectations.You might be wondering: what should the KPIs be in our call center, for our email support team, for our social media support team, etc. Measuring and tracking these KPIs will help you ensure you’re providing a positive customer experience. Key performance indicators for customer service include: Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score: The CSAT KPI is typically measured by customer responses to a very common survey question: “How satisfied were you with your experience?” This is usually answered with a numbered scale. Net promoter score (NPS): Your NPS KPI provides insight into your customer relationships and loyalty by telling you how likely customers are to recommend your brand to someone in their network. Hit rate: Calculate your hit rate by taking the total number of sales of a single product and dividing it by the number of customers who have contacted your customer service team about said product. Customer service email count: This is the number of emails your customer support team receives. Customer service phone call count: Rather than email, this is how frequently your customer support team is reached via phone. Customer service chat count: If you have live chat on your ecommerce site, you may have a customer service chat count. First response time: First response time is the average amount of time it takes a customer to receive the first response to their query. Aim low! Average resolution time: This is the amount of time it takes for a customer support issue to be resolved, starting from the point at which the customer reached out about the problem. Active issues: The total number of active issues tells you how many queries are currently in progress. Backlogs: Backlogs are when issues are getting backed up in your system. This could be caused by a number of factors. Concern classification: Beyond the total number of customer support interactions, look at quantitative data around trends to see if you can be proactive and reduce customer support queries. You’ll classify the customer concerns which will help identify trends and your progress in solving issues. Service escalation rate: The service escalation rate KPI tells you how many times a customer has asked a customer service representative to redirect them to a supervisor or other senior employee. You want to keep this number low. What are key performance indicators for manufacturing? Key performance indicators for manufacturing are, predictably, related to your supply chain and production processes. These may tell you where efficiencies and inefficiencies are, as well as help you understand productivity and expenses. Key performance indicators for manufacturing in ecommerce include: Cycle time: The cycle time manufacturing KPI tells you how long it takes to manufacture a single product from start to finish. Monitoring this KPI will give you insight into production efficiency. Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE): The OEE KPI provides ecommerce businesses with insight into how well manufacturing equipment is performing. Overall labor effectiveness (OLE): Just as you’ll want insight into your equipment, the OLE KPI will tell you how productive the staff operating the machines are. Yield: Yield is a straightforward manufacturing KPI. It is the number of products you have manufactured. Consider analyzing the yield variance KPI in manufacturing, too, as that will tell you how much you deviate from your average. First time yield (FTY) and first time through (FTT): FTY, also referred to as first pass yield, is a quality-based KPI. It tells you how wasteful your production processes are. To calculate FTY, divide the number of successfully manufactured units by the total number of units that started the process. Number of non-compliance events or incidents: In manufacturing, there are several sets of regulations, licenses, and policies businesses must comply with. These are typically related to safety, working conditions, and quality. You’ll want to reduce this number to ensure you’re operating within the mandated guidelines. What are key performance indicators for project management? Key performance indicators for project management give you insight into how well your teams are performing and completing specific tasks. Each project or initiative within your ecommerce business has different goals, and must be managed with different processes and workflows. Project management KPIs tell you how well each team is working to achieve their respective goals and how well their processes are working to help them achieve those goals. Key performance indicators for project management include: Hours worked: The total hours worked tells you how much time a team put into a project. Project managers should also assess the variance in estimated vs. actual hours worked to better predict and resource future projects. Budget: The budget indicates how much money you have allocated for the specific project. Project managers and ecommerce business owners will want to make sure that the budget is realistic; if you’re repeatedly over budget, some adjustments to your project planning need to be made. Return on investment (ROI): The ROI KPI for project management tells you how much your efforts earned your business. The higher this number, the better. The ROI accounts for all of your expenses and earnings related to a project. Cost variance: Just as it’s helpful to compare real vs. predicted timing and hours, you should examine the total cost against the predicted cost. This will help you understand where you need to reel it in and where you may want to invest more. Cost performance index (CPI): The CPI for project management, like ROI, tells you how much your resource investment is worth. The CPI is calculated by dividing the earned value by the actual costs. If you come in under one, there’s room for improvement. How do I create a KPI? Selecting your KPIs begins with clearly stating your goals and understanding which areas of business impact those goals. Of course, KPIs for ecommerce can and should differ for each of your goals, whether they’re related to boosting sales, streamlining marketing, or improving customer service. Key performance indicator templates Here are a few key performance indicator templates, with examples of goals and the associated KPIs. GOAL 1: Boost sales 10% in the next quarter. KPI examples: Daily sales. Conversion rate. Site traffic. GOAL 2: Increase conversion rate 2% in the next year. KPI examples: Conversion rate. Shopping cart abandonment rate. Competitive pricing. GOAL 3: Grow site traffic 20% in the next year. KPI examples: Site traffic. Traffic sources. Promotional click-through rates. Social shares. Bounce rates. GOAL 4: Reduce customer service calls by half in the next 6 months. KPI examples: Service call classification. Pages visited immediately before call. There are many performance indicators and the value of those indicators is directly tied to the goal measured. Monitoring which page someone visited before initiating a customer service call makes sense as a KPI for GOAL 4 since it could help identify areas of confusion that, when corrected, would reduce customer service calls. But that same performance indicator would be useless for GOAL 3. Once you have set goals and selected KPIs, monitoring those indicators should become an everyday exercise. Most importantly: Performance should inform business decisions and you should use KPIs to drive actions. By Mark Hayes