Drive Key eCommerce Metrics with
eCommerce and ERP Integration

eCommerce Metrics is the most often searched keyword by most eCommerce businesses. And no wonder, businesses must identify and track KPIs to measure success. However, most businesses believe these KPIs can only be improved by focusing on activities related to SEO and marketing. However, nothing can be far from the truth. eCommerce and ERP integration also has a huge positive impact on the most commonly tracked eCommerce metrics.
Yes, you have heard it right and no, I am not joking. eCommerce and ERP Integration can help you improve some of the most commonly tracked eCommerce metrics. And we have seen this work for a number of customers across industries.
In this article, we will look at the top 5 e-commerce metrics often considered to evaluate e-commerce success and present how eCommerce and ERP integration positively impacts these metrics.

1) Conversion Rate

The most basic and commonly tracked metric, Conversion Rate, is defined as a percentage of visitors who visit your eCommerce and make a purchase to the total number of visitors.

It is important to measure this because low conversion rate is a sign of something broken. The conversion rate is not only a measure of success but also helps in measuring the effect of incremental changes you make to your eCommerce store.
How eCommerce and ERP Integration can Drive Conversion Rate?
Imagine your visit an eCommerce store and find a product that you would like to purchase. You add the product to cart and proceeds to checkout only to find out that the product is out of stock. How would you feel?
Angry? Frustrated? Disappointed?
Probably all. Imagine if this happened more than once. You will not only leave them for competition (to never come back) but also recommend others to follow suit. The business will not only lose this customer but also others.
eCommerce and ERP integration can easily help you overcome this problem. By ensuring accurate inventory levels in the eCommerce store, integration ensures that you avoid overselling of your products. Thereby improving the conversion rate.

2) Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

The next important metric helps brands measures the overall sustainability of the eCommerce business, Customer Lifetime Value. Customer Lifetime Value is a measure of how much revenue can be generated from an average customer during the entire relationship with the company.

This metric lies at the heart of any business as it determines the profitability of a customer and gives insight into how much money should be spent in acquiring a customer.
How eCommerce and ERP Integration can Drive Customer Lifetime Value?
According to a report by Microsoft, 97% of the global consumers say customer service is an important factor for them to stay loyal to a brand. 97%, that is huge.
For brands selling across multiple channels providing good and consistent customer service across channels can be a huge problem. This is where e-commerce and ERP integration can help. The integration centralizes all customer information across multiple customer touch points enabling brands to prepare a 360-degree view of your customers.
Armed with this information, your sales representatives can make an informed sale, your customer service representatives can service your customer faster and better, and your marketing team can drive more personalized campaigns and promotions. Further, you can provide your customers self-service customer portals to track information like order status, invoice history, shipping status and more – all contributing to superior customer experience.
This superior customer experience will, in turn, drive customer loyalty and customer lifetime value.

3) Average Order Value (AOV)

Average Order Value is a measure of how much your customers are willing to spend each time they place an order. This is an important metric for e-commerce businesses to understand customer’s purchasing habits.

AOV also helps the company evaluate overall marketing and pricing strategy of your business.
How E-commerce and ERP Integration can Drive Average Order Value?
Most successful strategies for increasing AOV include cross-selling, up-selling, product bundling, product recommendations, volume discounts, marketing promotions like free shipping for minimum purchase, etc. And, it might seem that these strategies have nothing to do with e-commerce and ERP integration.
You are partially correct. Implementation of these strategies has got nothing to do with e-commerce and ERP integration. However, do you know how businesses identify what each one of these strategies should offer? For example, how do businesses identify which product should be recommended for a certain product?
The answer to that is by analyzing the historical data. The more data you have, the more accurate and effective are your predictions. eCommerce and ERP integration makes this happen by centralizing all customer, order and product information. Thus helping e-commerce businesses improve the AOV.

4) Repeat Customer Rate (RCR)

Did you know repeat customers are responsible for generating 40% of a store’s revenue (Adobe)? In addition, Adobe also found that a customer who has purchased with your store 2 times before is 9x more likely to convert than a first-time shopper.
No wonder, repeat customer rate is an important metric that e-commerce businesses must track.

I another study by RJMetrics it was found that loyal customers are also more profitable than your average customer – loyal top 10% spend 3x more per order than the lower 90%, and your top 1% of customers spend 5x more than the lower 99%.
How eCommerce and ERP Integration can Improve Repeat Customer Rate?
This is directly related to the metric we have looked earlier, Customer Lifetime Value. Everything we have mentioned there is true in this context as well. However, we would like to reemphasize that e-commerce and ERP integration can help with personalization, which has a significant impact on repeat purchases.
Consider this, according to Gigya report, 86% of shoppers would like to shop with a brand if they offer personalized recommendations and loyalty programs. Loyalty is a very powerful medium to keep your customers associated with your brand and to entice them to make a repeat purchase. Designing personalized campaigns and loyalty programs is key to driving customer loyalty; which is made easy by eCommerce and ERP integration.

5) Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate (SCAR)

Shopping cart abandonment needs no introduction and is often the most dreaded metric tracked by e-commerce businesses. The average online shopping cart abandonment rate, calculated based on 37 different studies, stands at a whopping 69.23% (Baymard Institute).

This metric is the lowest hanging fruit to dramatically improve your sales figures.
How eCommerce and ERP Integration can Help Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment?
There a number of reasons why shopping carts are abandoned. E-commerce and ERP integration has its role to play in addressing a few of those reasons and thus reducing cart abandonment. For example, e-commerce and ERP integration helps in building trust with the customer by displaying accurate product and inventory information.
Need more reasons to integrate your e-commerce and ERP systems? Read our eBook, 18 Crucial Reasons You Should Integrate ERP and E-commerce or contact i95Dev at info@i95dev.com.