65+ Crucial Key Performance Indicators for Ecommerce

What is the difference between ecommerce metrics and KPIs?

Ecommerce KPIs are the key numbers that show what really matters for your business goals.

There are lots of metrics out there, like clicks, new sales percentage, and subscription revenue. But not all of these are KPIs. Metrics track different parts of your ecommerce business. KPIs focus on the most important areas and help you decide what to do next.

Think of it like this: “Website traffic” and “number of sales” are both metrics.

When you look at these together, you get a KPI called “conversion rate.”

To find the conversion rate, divide sales by visitors and multiply by 100:

(50 sales ÷ 1,000 visitors) x 100 = 5% conversion rate.

Track various metrics, even if they’re not KPIs now. They might become important later on.

Why Are KPIs Important?

KPIs matter just as much as your business goals and strategies. Without them, you’re left guessing how well you’re doing. You might end up making choices based on hunches or preferences, not solid facts. KPIs give you real data about your ecommerce business and customers, so you can make smart decisions.

But KPIs alone aren’t enough. What really counts is using that data to take action. You can create better strategies to boost online sales and spot any issues in your business.

Sharing KPI data with your team helps everyone understand what’s going on. It brings the team together for problem-solving and planning.

65+ key performance indicator for ecommerce

Now that you understand the importance of KPIs, let’s go over the different types available for ecommerce.

What are KPIs for sales?

Sales KPIs are key numbers that show how well your business is doing in terms of making sales and earning revenue. They can track performance across different channels, time frames, teams, or even individual employees.

Pro tip: Check your Analytics dashboard in Shopify to track these KPIs and monitor your progress.

Examples of key sales KPIs:

• Total sales: Monitor your sales over any given period—hourly, daily, weekly, or yearly—to understand your revenue flow.
• Conversion rate: This measures the percentage of visitors who make a purchase. Calculate it by dividing the number of sales by the number of visitors and multiplying by 100. For example, if you have 30 sales from 1,200 visitors, the conversion rate is (30 / 1,200) x 100 = 2.5%.
• Average order value (AOV): AOV shows how much customers spend on average per order. It helps you gauge the revenue per transaction.
• Gross profit: The gross profit shows your profitability before other expenses. Find it by subtracting the cost of goods sold (COGS) from your total sales.
• Customer retention rate: Measure how many customers return over a specific period. High retention indicates strong customer loyalty.
• Number of transactions: This KPI tracks the total number of sales transactions. You can use it with other metrics like average order size to gain deeper insights.
• Shopping cart abandonment rate: Indicates how many users add items to their cart but don’t complete the purchase. A high rate might point to checkout issues.
• Cost of goods sold (COGS): COGS tells you what you spend to produce and sell your products, including materials and labor.
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC): CAC measures the cost of gaining a new customer. Divide your total marketing expenses by the number of new customers to calculate this KPI.
• Product affinity: See which products are often bought together. Use this KPI to plan effective cross-promotions.
• Product relationship: Track which products are viewed one after the other to understand browsing patterns and improve cross-selling.
• Inventory levels: Monitor your stock levels to see how quickly items are selling and how long they sit in inventory.
• Competitive pricing: Compare your pricing strategies with competitors to ensure you’re competitive in the market.
• Revenue per visitor (RPV): RPV helps identify how effectively you convert site traffic into revenue. You can measure it by calculating the average amount a customer spends on your store.
• Customer lifetime value (CLV): Estimate how much value a customer brings over their entire relationship with your brand. Use CLV to focus on long-term profitability.
• Churn rate: Measure how quickly customers stop buying from you or cancel subscriptions. A high churn rate suggests you need to improve customer satisfaction or retention efforts.
• Total available market vs. market share: Track your growth compared to the total market to understand your market position and growth potential.

What are KPIs for marketing?

KPIs for marketing measure how well you’re doing with your marketing and ads. If you run an online store, these KPIs can help you understand which products sell, who buys them, and why. You can also use them to create data-driven marketing campaigns that generate higher conversions for your business.

Pro tip: Visit your Shopify’s Analytics dashboard to track your marketing KPIs and ensure you’re progressing toward your goals.

Examples of marketing KPIs:

• Website traffic: This KPI shows the total number of visits to your online store. It helps gauge how many users are interested in your site.
• Time on site: Time on site indicates how long visitors spend on your website. More time usually means deeper engagement with your content.
• Bounce rate: This KPI tells you how many users leave after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate suggests issues that may need fixing on your site.
• Page views per visit: Page views per visit refer to the average number of pages a user explores per visit. More page views generally indicate greater interest in your content, though too many might mean it’s hard to find what they want.
• Mobile site traffic: This metric monitors how many visitors use mobile devices to access your store. It ensures your site is optimized for mobile use.
• Traffic source: Traffic source tells you where your visitors come from, such as search engines or social media. You can track it to learn which channels drive the most traffic.
• Day part monitoring: Day part monitoring shows peak times when visitors come to your site. It helps you plan when to post or run ads.
• Newsletter subscribers: This KPI tracks how many people sign up for your emails. More subscribers mean a larger audience for your campaigns.
• Subscriber growth rate: Subscriber growth rate shows how quickly your subscriber list is expanding. Pair this with the total number of subscribers for better insights.
• Email open rate: Email open rate measures the percentage of subscribers who open your emails. A low open rate might mean you need to improve subject lines or clean your list.
• Email click-through rate (CTR): This KPI tells you the percentage of email recipients who click on a link. More clicks mean better engagement and traffic to your site.
• Unsubscribes: Unsubscribes track how many people leave your email list. It helps gauge whether your emails are relevant and engaging.
• Chat sessions initiated: This metric shows how many visitors start a live chat on your ecommerce site. It indicates engagement and the need for support.
• Social fans and followers: This KPI counts your followers on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. It helps gauge brand awareness and customer loyalty.
• Return on ad spend (ROAS): ROAS measures the revenue earned for every dollar spent on ads. It helps track the efficiency of your advertising.
• Blended ROAS: Blended ROAS combines ad spend across all channels to show the overall effectiveness of your campaigns.
• Cost per click (CPC): Also known as pay per click, CPC tells you how much you spend for each click on your ads. Lower CPC means more cost-efficient ads.
• Social media engagement: This KPI tracks how actively your followers interact with your social media posts. More engagement means better brand interest.
• Clicks: Clicks measure the total number of times links are clicked. You can track this KPI across your website, social media, emails, and ads.
• Average click-through rate (CTR): This KPI tells you the percentage of users who click on a link compared to those who see it. A higher CTR indicates more effective links.
• Average position: Average position measures your site’s ranking in search results. Better positions mean higher visibility on search engines.
• Pay-per-click (PPC) traffic volume: This KPI tracks how much traffic your PPC campaigns generate. It shows how successful your ads are in bringing people to your site.
• Blog traffic: Blog traffic measures visits to your blog and helps compare its performance to your overall site traffic.
• Quality and number of product reviews: Product reviews provide feedback and social proof. Tracking the quantity and content of reviews helps improve your products and marketing.
• Banner or display ad CTRs: This metric tells you the click-through rate of your banner and display ads. It helps gauge the effectiveness of your ad copy and imagery.
• Affiliate performance rates: This KPI shows how well your affiliate marketing channels are performing, helping you identify the most successful ones.

You can track these marketing KPIs using Google Analytics or Shopify’s built-in tools to stay on top of your marketing efforts and keep hitting your targets.

What are KPIs for manufacturing?

KPIs for manufacturing provide insights into your supply chain and production. These metrics reveal where your processes are efficient and where they fall short. Tracking them can help you understand the steps required to control costs and improve productivity.

KPIs for manufacturing include:

• Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE): OEE measures how well your machines perform during production. Measuring it is key to understanding whether your equipment is working, efficiently or otherwise.
• Overall labor effectiveness (OLE): OLE evaluates the productivity of your workforce in operating machinery. Use it to learn how effectively your staff contributes to the production process.
• Cycle time: Cycle time measures the total duration to produce a product from start to finish. Monitoring it helps you understand the speed and efficiency of your production process.
• First time yield (FTY): Also called first pass yield, FTY tells you how many items are made correctly the first time without needing rework. Calculate it by dividing the number of successfully finished units by the total number of units started.
• Yield: Yield counts the total number of items you’ve produced. Checking the yield variance helps you see if your production numbers are consistent.
• Number of non-compliance events: Tracks how often you don’t meet regulations or standards. Fewer incidents mean you’re staying within safety and quality guidelines

What are KPIs for customer service?

Customer service KPIs show how well your support team is performing and if you’re meeting customer needs. You might wonder what to track for your call center, email team, or social media support. Here’s a breakdown of some key KPIs.

Key customer service KPIs:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS shows how likely customers are to recommend your brand. It’s a good measure of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Customer satisfaction (CSAT): This score measures how happy customers are with their service. Usually gathered through a survey asking, “How satisfied were you?” with responses on a numbered scale.
• Hit rate: Hit rate shows the sales success of a product. Calculate it by dividing total sales by the number of inquiries received by your customer service team about that product.
• Chat count: Chat count tracks the number of live chat interactions on your site. It’s most useful for measuring chat support activity.
• Email count: Email count tracks how many customer service emails your team receives. You can use it to gauge the volume of your email inquiries.
• Phone call count: Phone call count measures the frequency of customer service calls. It’s useful for understanding your company’s call volume.
• First response time: First response time is the average time it takes for your team to send the first reply to a customer’s query. Ecommerce businesses should aim for shorter times.
• Average resolution time: Average resolution time is the average time to resolve a customer issue from the moment it’s reported.
• Active issues: Active issues is the count of how many customer queries are currently open or being handled.
• Concern classification: This KPI categorizes customer problems to identify trends and address common issues more proactively.
• Backlogs: Backlogs show how many issues are piling up in your system. High backlogs might indicate resource issues.
• Service escalation rate: Service escalation rate measures how often customers request to speak to a supervisor or higher-level employee. Lower rates suggest better initial support.

What are KPIs for project management?

KPIs for project management provide a clear picture of how effectively your teams are completing tasks, which is crucial for running an ecommerce store.

Every project or initiative within your ecommerce business has unique objectives and requires tailored management approaches. Project management KPIs reveal how well each team is progressing toward their goals and how efficient their workflows and processes are in supporting these objectives.

• Hours worked: This KPI shows the total time a team put into a project. Compare planned hours to actual hours to better allocate resources for future projects.
• Budget: This tracks the money allocated for each project. If you frequently exceed your budget, you need to revisit your project planning.
• Return on investment (ROI): ROI measures the financial return on a project. It compares all project costs to the profits earned. Higher ROI means better profitability.
• Cost performance index (CPI): CPI indicates how efficiently resources are used by comparing earned value to actual costs. If CPI is less than 1, you’re spending more than you’re earning, which signals a need for better cost management.
• Cost variance: This compares actual spending to the budgeted amount. If spending is higher than expected, you’ll need to adjust your approach.

How to create a KPI

Creating KPIs starts with setting clear goals and identifying which parts of your business affect those goals. Each goal will need different KPIs, whether you’re aiming to increase revenue, improve marketing, or revamp customer service.

KPI templates

Here’s a breakdown of some goals, and the KPIs you might use to measure them.

💡 TIP: Use the Analytics dashboard in Shopify to track these KPIs.

Goal 1: Raise revenue by 15% this quarter.

• KPIs: Weekly revenue, average order value, repeat purchase rate

Goal 2: Improve conversion rate by 3% in six months.

• KPIs: Conversion rate, checkout completion, product page views

Goal 3: Boost site traffic by 25% over the next six months.

• KPIs: Monthly visitors, referral sources, ad click-through rates, social engagement, exit rates

Goal 4: Cut customer support emails by 40% in the next three months.

• KPIs: Types of support emails, FAQ page visits before emailing

Each KPI is valuable because it directly relates to the goal. For example, tracking the number of people who visit the FAQ page before sending a support email can highlight common issues. Use such insights to adjust your strategies and optimize processes for business growth.

Tracking the right key performance indicators

Understanding key performance indicators can often feel overwhelming. But the time and effort you put into tracking KPIs and learning their purpose will undoubtedly pay off. 

Learning about the relationships between the core components of your business will enable you to make informed, objective decisions. And these decisions can have an incredible impact on your business’s bottom-line.

Remember, knowledge is power. So work to understand your business’s data, and harness the performance measures that will propel you forward.

Ecommerce key performance indicators FAQ

What is the difference between leading and lagging indicators?

Leading indicators are metrics that help keep companies on track to achieve their strategic objectives. They offer early indications of performance, such as the number of customers who purchase complementary products, for ecommerce businesses.

In contrast, lagging indicators measure current production and performance. They are easy to measure but hard to change, so they are best for assessing the impact of your existing efforts.

What is the difference between financial KPIs and non-financial KPIs?

Financial KPIs are performance metrics based on balance sheet and income statement components. These KPIs measure how well a company is using its financial resources to generate sustainable operating income.

Non-financial KPIs are other metrics used to measure the qualitative aspects of a business. Typically, non-financial KPIs use measures that relate to employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, quality, operations, and the company’s pipeline.

What are the most important KPIs for ecommerce?

1. Shopping cart abandonment rate
2. Conversion rate
3. Cost of customer acquisition
4. Customer lifetime value
5. Average order value
6. Net profit margin