Unlock the Secrets of WooCommerce Success: A Deep Dive into Data Analytics

Data analytics is generally an underrated category. People build websites without analysing keywords, start businesses without analysing the competition, some invest without analysing the underlying asset. Better not mention mortgages.

When we surveyed our active e-commerce clients, we found that almost two-thirds of them do not use data at all. They monitor monthly, quarterly and annual sales, but they do not go beyond that. Often they don't even know where to get their data.

Yes, it is important to track business results because they matter at the end of the day. But it is good to realise that it is strictly a retrospective activity. It's an evaluation of the situation that has arisen as a result of past decisions that the e-commerce entrepreneur may not have even been aware of, or that were the product of an impulsive or subjective evaluation of the situation.

The majority of our clients are e-commerce entrepreneurs on the WooCommerce platform. So we took a closer look at the possibilities of analysing business data directly on and off the platform. As a result, we came up with two options, each with a slightly different focus and very little penetration between them.

The first is the infamous Google Analytics and the second is a relative newcomer – WooCommerce Analytics – a built-in analytics tool within the WooCommerce platform.

Google Analytics

One of the most common phrases online advertising agencies say to their clients is "check your Google Analytics". And for good reason. They benefit from the fact that the Google Analytics interface is confusing to the average e-shop owner. Unless the customer spends a lot of time getting to know it, they will not find relevant data. Therefore, they prefer to pay for monthly account management with report delivery.

Google Analytics provides statistics and basic analysis tools for search engine optimisation (SEO) and marketing purposes. This free service is part of the Google Marketing Platform.

The main purpose of the service is to monitor website performance and collect data about visitors. You can use this data to identify the main sources of traffic to your e-shop, measure the success of your marketing activities and campaigns, and monitor the achievement of your marketing goals.

This data is used to analyse customer behaviour. And subsequently, to improve your marketing campaigns, increase website traffic and better retain your visitors.

How does Google Analytics work?

Google Analytics uses cookies to collect user data from every visitor to a website. At least until version 3. Be careful, it only collects data from users who confirm the use of cookies in the bar. These conditions alone affect the accuracy of Google Analytics results. According to the information available, version 4 is already based on cookie-less technology, but not 100%.

Basic metrics in Google Analytics

Google Analytics allows you to track various metrics to measure the performance of your website or e-commerce store. And this is an important piece of information – this tool does not measure business performance. Just the performance of your website or e-commerce in terms of traffic. Some of the most popular metrics include

• Users. A user is a unique or new visitor to a website.
• Bounce rate. Percentage of visitors who viewed only one page. These visitors only made one request to the Google Analytics server.
• Sessions. A group of visitor interactions that occur during a 30-minute activity window.
• Average session duration. How long on average each visitor stays on the site.
• Percentage of new sessions. Percentage of website visits that are first time visits.
• Number of pages per session. Average number of page views per session.
• Completion of objectives. The number of times visitors complete a specified desired action. This is also known as conversion.
• Page views. Total number of pages viewed.

The Google Analytics service has its advantages, but also its limitations. The advantages are generally that the platform is powerful and free. As mentioned above, the overall accuracy of the data can be increasingly compromised by users who block cookies.

Although it provides a lot of information about the success of your marketing activities, it does not provide the necessary data about the actual performance of your online business.

This tool is therefore particularly useful if you already have a fine-tuned product/service and business processes and have started to focus on SEO optimisation of your e-shop. Or you have decided to expand your marketing strategy with paid advertising.

WooCommerce Analytics

So we focused our energy on WooCommerce itself. We assumed that the platform needed to store data about individual transactions, customers, coupons and the like. When we solved this question some time ago, we found that there was a large amount of data, but no tool to analyse it. This changed with WooCommerce 5.3, when a tool called WooCommerce Analytics was introduced.

Unlike Google Analytics, WooCommerce Analytics focuses mainly on the internal performance of an e-commerce store. It is an integral part of WooCommerce and is free. At first glance, it seemed like an ideal solution for our clients. It offers features such as

• filters
• segmentation tools
• several types of reports
• customizable information dashboard

Basic metrics in WooCommerce Analytics

The WooCommerce Analytics panel consists of three sections: Performance, Charts and Leaderboard.

The Performance section provides an overview of your WooCommerce store's status during a specific date range compared to the previous period. By default, it shows performance since the beginning of the current month, so you can immediately see if sales are higher than the same month last year. You can select data for the last quarter or year.

The Charts section shows more details about the selected period. In this section you will find the following indicators:

• Total sales
• Net sales
• Gross sales
• Orders
• Average order value
• Items sold
• Goods reclaim
• Discounted orders
• Gross discounted amount
• Total tax
• Tax on orders
• Transport tax
• Transportation

In the last section of the rankings you will find 4 indicators:

• Best customers – total spend
• Top coupons – number of orders
• Top categories – Sold items
• Best Products – Sold Items

There are lots of statistics and filtering options. But it is not difficult to get lost.

During the analysis, our team of economists came to the conclusion that this tool was missing a large number of important metrics. These are crucial for business efficiency. It's nice to know that the online store has $1,000 in refunds for the current month. But it is always more interesting to know the percentage – whether it is $2,000 or $100,000 in sales. And there are many more such cases.

Another disadvantage is the lack of data sharing and analysis.

Business data analytics

We thought about how we could add value for our customers – a simple and clear analytical tool that displays relevant indicators (especially ratios), works in a globally recognised environment and can be shared easily and securely.

The facts speak for themselves. Almost everyone who works with a computer uses or has used Microsoft Excel. It has more than 750 million users around the world today. After all, such a sample cannot be wrong. We found out about its availability. The online version of MS Office is free, but packages with applications are not. So we knew we had to create a version that was compatible with the online version of MS Excel.

This is how Business Data Analytics was born. A simple but powerful tool that helps you make informed decisions based on up-to-date data. And improve the performance of your e-commerce business.

To ensure maximum automation, we have developed an export plugin for WooCommerce data. Just install it, set some basic pairing data, date range and export. It's as simple as that.

Then you paste the exported data into the prepared MS Office workbook, close the document, re-open it and you're done. So why? So we don't have to use macros, which would disqualify usability for desktop applications and people who click to activate macros. We've measured it, this action takes 3-5 seconds, so it's worth the information you'll learn.

If you are uncomfortable with reopening the document, you can right-click on any contingency diagram and choose "Refresh". There are several options.

Metrics in Business data analytics

Working closely with our team of economists, we have developed Business Data Analytics to provide you with the most relevant economic indicators.

You can select the topic you are interested in from separate tabs in the navigation. You can choose from:

• Sales performance
• Cancellations
• Refunds
• Success
• Payment methods
• Discounts
• Users
• Devices
• Demographics
• Shipping
• Affiliates
• UTM
• Product sales
• Category sales
• Product refunds
• Product cancellations
• Product discounts

You can filter each indicator within the themes according to the following parameters:

• Month
• Quarter
• Year
• State
• Affiliate
• UTM
• UTM Source

The list of indicators is as follows:

Sales performance

• Revenue including taxes
• Revenue excluding taxes
• Number of orders
• Average order value
• Number of items sold

Cancellations

• Cancelled revenue
• Cancelled revenue rate
• Number of cancellations
• Number of cancellations rate

Refunds

• Refunded revenue
• Refunded revenue rate
• Number of refunds
• Number of refunds rate

Success

• Money success rate
• Money success chart
• Money lost
• Orders success rate
• Orders success chart
• Orders failed
• Average time to complete order

Payment Methods

• Payment transaction number
• Payment transaction number rate
• Payment transaction revenue
• Payment transaction revenue rate
• Payment provider transaction number
• Payment provider transaction number rate
• Payment provider transaction revenue
• Payment provider transaction revenue rate

Discounts

• Number of discounted orders
• Discounted orders rate
• Revenue at a discount
• Revenue at discount rate
• Average discounted amount
• Average discount percentage
• Top coupons – number of orders
• Top coupons – total discounted value
• Top revenue form coupons

Users

• User registrations – number of orders
• User registrations – number of orders rate
• Average time from registration to order
• User registrations – revenue
• User registrations – revenue rate
• User registrations – logged in
• User registrations timeline
• Private persons vs. companies – number of orders
• Private persons vs. companies – revenue

Devices

• Devices – number of orders rate
• Devices – number of orders
• Devices insider – number of orders
• Devices – revenue rate
• Devices – revenue
• Devices insider – revenue
• Devices – average order value

Demographics

• Top countries – number of orders
• Top countries – number of orders rate
• Top countries – revenue
• Top countries – revenue rate
• Top countries – average order value
• „Top“ countries – number of refunds
• „Top“ countries – refunded revenue
• Top cities – number of orders
• Top cities – revenue
• Top cities – average order value
• „Top“ cities – number of refunds
• „Top“ cities – refunded revenue

Shipping

• Free shipping – number of orders
• Free shipping – number of orders rate
• Free shipping – revenue
• Free shipping – revenue rate
• Shipping charges
• Shipping methods – number of orders
• Shipping methods – number of orders rate
• Shipping methods – revenue
• Shipping methods – revenue rate

Affiliates

• Affiliates – top 10 number of orders
• Affiliates – top 10 revenue
• Affiliates – top 10 average order value
• Affiliates – lowest 10 revenue
• Affiliates – „top“ 10 number of refunds
• Affiliates – „top“ 10 refunded revenue
• Affiliates – „top“ 10 number of cancellations
• Affiliates – „top“ 10 cancelled revenue

UTM

• UTM – number of orders
• UTM – number of orders rate
• UTM – revenue
• UTM – revenue rate
• UTM source – top 10 number of orders
• UTM source – top 10 revenue
• UTM source – top 10 average order value
• UTM campaign – top 10 number of orders
• UTM campaign – top 10 revenue
• UTM campaign – top 10 average order value
• UTM medium – top 10 number of orders
• UTM medium – top 10 revenue
• UTM medium – top 10 average order value
• UTM content – top 10 number of orders
• UTM content – top 10 revenue
• UTM content – top 10 average order value

Product sales

• Top 20 products – quantity
• Top 20 products – revenue
• Low 20 products – quantity
• Low 20 products – revenue

Categories sales

• Categories – quantity of products sold
• Categories – share on quantity
• Categories – revenue
• Categories – share on revenue
• Categories – average item value

Products refunds

• "Top" 10 refunded products – number of items
• "Top" 10 refunded products – revenue
• "Top" 10 refunded products – refund rate
• "Top" 10 refunded products – quantity sold vs. quantity refunded
• Categories refunds – number of items
• Categories refunds – share on refunds – number of items
• Categories refunds – revenue
• Categories refunds – share on refunds – revenue
• Categories – average refund value
• Categories refunds rate – number of items
• Categories refunds rate – revenue

Products cancellations

• "Top" 10 cancelled products – number of items
• "Top" 10 cancelled products – revenue
• "Top" 10 cancelled products – cancellation rate
• "Top" 10 cancelled products – quantity sold vs. quantity cancelled
• Categories cancellations – number of items
• Categories cancellations – share on cancellations – number of items
• Categories cancellations – revenue
• Categories cancellations – share on cancellations – revenue
• Categories – average cancelled value
• Categories cancellation rate– number of items
• Categories cancellation rate – revenue

Discounts

• Top 10 highest average discount provided per item
• Average discount per category
• Top 10 product coupons – number of uses
• Top 10 product coupons – generated revenue

You can filter all these indicators with all the available filters, so you can get interesting statistics, such as a timeline of income or refunds from a specific affiliate, or a specific UTM campaign. There are hundreds of possible combinations.

How is Business data analytics different?

In today's world, creating the same or a similar product would be a waste of energy for both customers and developers. That is why we brought in a team of economists and people experienced in business and process management.

The result is a tool that differs significantly from competing solutions.

Data relevance

In addition to the well-known data such as turnover, number of orders or average order value, it is worth monitoring a number of key performance indicators. These will tell you whether you are spending your time and energy on your business effectively.

For example, you'll know the percentage of revenue you've lost due to order cancellations or refunds, not just their value. You can then set targets for the percentage you don't want to exceed and plan specific steps to do so.

Or you might discover that you have allocated too much money to work-in-progress orders and review the situation to see if there is a problem with suppliers or your own production.

You may be paying a flat rate to a payment provider whose services customers do not use at all. Or it takes more than 5 days to process an order. Maybe 70% of your visitors are using a mobile device to browse your e-shop and you need to look at your responsiveness. You can find out all this with Business Data Analytics. And based on this data, you can make fully informed and targeted decisions.

Clarity

Because the business data analysis is divided into clear tabs (topics), the user does not get lost. The data is not rewritten in a graph according to the selected parameters and is always separate and clearly visible.

Security

Data is your most valuable asset. With Business Data Analytics, it's always with you, not in an application, and you have complete control over who you share it with.

Sharing

Because it is an Excel document, you can share it however you like. Either send a physical document as an attachment to an email or instant message. Or use the collaboration feature directly from Microsoft.

You don't need to give anyone access to your e-shop administration or install role-restricted plug-ins.

Conclusion

The very fact that you are interested in analytics for your own e-commerce business is good news, no matter which tool you choose. It is a way to identify problems, set solutions and goals. The result is your business growth.

Google Analytics is a great tool for measuring the performance of your online store from a traffic point of view – either to drive SEO optimisation or to measure the performance of paid advertising. You will learn almost nothing about economic performance.

WooCommerce Analytics is a little closer to our goal. It shows basic performance indicators, but does not put them into context and ratios. This tool is fully integrated and free, but in our view it is a missed opportunity because of the amount of data it collects in the background. It also has complicated data sharing and storage options.

Business data analysis goes further. Not only in the number of indicators, their organisation and clarity, but also in the relevance of the metrics. It is not a product of developers, but its development has been dedicated to people with real experience in the economic and process management of companies. As a result, you have a highly effective data-driven tool to help you make strategic decisions and improve the performance of your business.