DECEMBER 20199Conversion Rate was, is and would be essential to ecommerce success as it measures profitability. The best salesman needs to be the website/app providing seamless user experience. It matters because improved conversion rate means a lower cost-per-acquisition. Since the conversion rate affects (average 2 -3 %) ecommerce business's bottom line, localising ecom-merce website around high quality product visuals, driving quality visitors with targeted advertising, free shipping and product videos would be key hooks to capture a market.A few metrics enabling data driven decisions would need to be adopted in order for new ecommerce busi-nesses to generate recurring revenue. Here are some to help you gain more traction:· User-Generated content to build consumer trust: Providing a rating and review mechanism in the cus-tomers' language will help an ecommerce website lev-erage its potential of generating revenue from different versions of website. Understanding the offline environ-ment will provide insights on how successful one would be in online sales. As one goes about collecting geo-graphical data about customers, marketing campaigns can keep getting refined.· Avoiding Bounce Rates: Poor design or non-en-gaging user interface could lead to customer leaving the marketplace without browsing or clicking on any products. A lower bounce rate means visitors are find-ing relevant content on website. · Analyzing Customer location data: Measuring pin codes or IP data to analyse population density, insti-tutes, residents, and commercial complexes will help in mapping a tier 2/3 city within a state.· Hourly, Daily and Weekly Sales: Measuring sales by the hour or daily as oppose to only weekly/monthly will help in identifying specific trends like what time of the day are purchases taking place and which are the down days· Average Order Value: WhileSEO, paid advertising, and other marketing tactics are valuable, you want AOV strategies in place to maximize each purchase oppor-tunity. Analyse how well customers are responding to your products and brand to adjust pricing.· Decrease cart abandonment rate: Besides provid-ing incentives like discounts, simplifying the process like guest checkout and convenient ways to pay ­ BHIM etc will be critical for repeat customers· New VS Early Repeat customers: On average for ecommerce companies, 43% of revenue comes from returning customers. Learning about your early repeat customers can provide you insights into their purchas-ing behaviour ­ driving focused future marketing initia-tives for other products.India's big advantage is our huge and vibrant domes-tic market. Digital inclusion comprising of voice, video and vernacular will keep becoming part of day to day lives. With increasing number of aspirational and tech-nology embracing entrepreneurs, favourable regulatory environment and declining cost of doing business ­ the country will witness emergence of new models and lo-calized ecommerce will play a very important part in it.Shashank Randev is Founder VC at 100X.VC (www.100x.vc), India's first Fund to invest in early-stage startups using iSAFE - India SAFE Notes. He is also an Advisor to PIOCCI.orgHe has entrepreneurial and investment understand-ing with 15+ years of cross-functional expertise - hav-ing worked in large companies, a startup (acquired by a Fortune 500 Company) and an early-stage fund invest-ing in technology-enabled startups. Conversion Rate was, is and would be essential to ecommerce success as it measures profitability
< Page 8 | Page 10 >