How To Generate Sales Data With The Shopify Dashboard
In an insightful analysis of the importance of sales data, Frank V Cespedes argues that ‘You Can’t Do Strategy Without Input From Sales’.
The premise is very simple.
Cespedes identifies the problems that arise when “selling, however clever and creative, is divorced from the main strategic reality facing the firm”.
Written By
Dan Partridge
It’s a simple enough concept, and yet in many businesses this remains a fundamental problem. If the creative and strategic areas of the business are not directly impacted by the experience of getting your product into the customer’s hands then you are always likely to be missing the mark. At the very least, a lack of sales data will inevitably mean that you’re unlikely to fulfil your potential in this area.
The article ends with this brilliant summary:
“Without credible sales input, any strategy runs the risk of dealing with yesterday’s market realities, not today’s. Conversely, daily selling efforts—successful or unsuccessful, smart or stupid—constrain and redirect strategies in often unintended ways. Selling in your firm can’t generate sustained returns if it’s not linked to your strategy“.
Sales Data for Ecommerce Businesses
As a web design agency one of the areas that we specialise in is designing and building Shopify Ecommerce websites for our clients. In fact, Shopify have recognised us as one of their expert developers. Whilst there are many privileges to working in such close relationship with our clients, one of the things that we find most satisfying is helping businesses to grow their business through strategic use of Ecommerce.
With this in mind, we’ve identified three ways in which our clients can use Shopify to ensure that you get the sales data that you need to make informed strategic decisions.
1. Conversion Rate
Perhaps the most important piece of sales data that you can get from Shopify is your conversion rate. This, very simply, is the percentage of people that you manage to ‘convert’ from being a visitor to your website to a paying customer.
The Shopify dashboard provides this information in a very accessible way. This will help you to see how many people are actually buying your products, and, perhaps most importantly, how many are putting your products into their shopping basket but leave before paying. With this data, you’ll be armed with the information that you need to improve your sales process and rapidly increase your turnover without even needing to reach new customers.
2. Traffic Sources
Another key piece of sales data that you can generate from the Shopify Dashboard is a comprehensive overview of your traffic sources. This tells you where your customers are coming from. When you combine this data with your conversion rate you’ll start to see which channels are generating revenue for your business – and which ones aren’t.
This information will help you to make informed decisions about marketing, advertising, content generation and social media.
3. Top Selling Products
Finally, Shopify can give you a detailed breakdown of your top selling products. Whilst you probably have a good idea of which products are most popular, having tangible data will help you to make decisions about the future direction of your Ecommerce business with greater clarity and conviction.
You can find valuable information about using the Shopify dashboard by watching this short video: