eCommerce KPIs and the Online Buyer Journey

Executive Summary

To make informed decisions, eCommerce businesses need to know how their stores are performing and which areas need to be improved. That’s where eCommerce metrics and KPIs come in. Tracking key metrics and KPIs is essential for any eCommerce store to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities; and to drive sales, increase revenue, and meet their business goals.

To help you understand KPIs and how to read them, we’ve put together a list of the top eCommerce KPIs and key metrics you should be reviewing on a regular basis, and how PIM can help you smash those goals. We’ll start by bringing you up to speed on PIM and KPI fundamentals.

After that, we’ll run through the main KPIs you should be tracking at every stage of the eCommerce buyer journey: Discovery, Consideration, Conversion, Retention, and Advocacy.

Then we’ll explain how Pimberly (the world’s most powerful PIM) maximizes the effectiveness of your eCommerce strategy so you can achieve all your KPIs year-round. You’ll discover how Pimberly’s all-in-one system makes it simple for marketing and sales teams to utilize vast amounts of data to create outstanding customer experiences at every stage of the buyer journey, thereby increasing sales and improving KPIs.

This is a 30-minute read. So grab a coffee and get comfortable – you’re in for an ultimate session of eCommerce learning!

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What is PIM and how can it help smash your eCommerce KPIs?

PIM stands for Product Information Management. PIM systems serve as a centralized hub for all product data. Companies use them to gather, store, enrich, and publish product data directly to all sales channels with ease and efficiency. 

PIM encapsulates all product data management, including: 

  • Key product attributes – Titles, descriptions, SKUs
  • Technical specifications – Sizing, measurements, materials used
  • Marketing data – SEO meta descriptions, keywords, titles
  • Digital assets – Any format of media, including images, videos, animations, etc.
  • Taxonomies – Relationships, categories, product tags
  • Localized data – Product descriptions translated to local languages, currencies
  • Sustainability & traceability data – Net environmental impact, carbon emissions, resources saved

With Pimberly, you can gather product information from an unlimited number of internal and external data sources. You can also create a single source of truth to ensure you’re always serving customers with the most accurate and up-to-date product information.

Our industry-leading PIM system enables you to create immersive online experiences your customers will love and makes it easy to open new sales channels and enter new geographies to extend your brand reach.

Smashing your eCommerce KPIs using PIM is most effective with a world-leading platform like Pimberly. Essentially, the quality of your product data will determine how well your online store performs and the quality of the customer experience. The better the customer experience, the more likely you are to convert browsers into buyers.

Now, let’s refresh your knowledge of eCommerce metrics to help you smash your KPIs.

The difference between metrics and KPIs

Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) both contain information about the performance of your business, and both are critical in tracking how your store is progressing and driving business growth. The terms are often used interchangeably; however, there are some key differences. 

A metric is a figure that relates to the performance of processes. In eCommerce, conversion rates, average order values, and cart abandonment rates are classed as metrics. On the other hand, key performance indicators (KPIs) are the figures you track for growth. They are subjective, specific targets you want YOUR store to achieve. So for instance, you could be using the average order value metric, but your KPI would be an average order value of £40.

KPIs demonstrate how you achieve specific business goals, while metrics differ in that they only track certain business processes. So, KPIs are all about whether or not you’re hitting your business goals, and metrics simply track processes.  

Having goal-oriented KPIs can make a huge difference in the success of your business. The proper KPIs will:

  • Help you make data-informed decisions about your business
  • Provide evidence of progress – whether positive or negative – over time
  • Focus measurement on one thing and only one thing
  • Be chosen and monitored depending on your unique business goals

In order to move your businesses forward, it’s vital to constantly monitor your KPIs and adjust them accordingly. It’s all about continuous improvement: what areas of the business do you want to improve and by how much? Using your direct competitors is a great way of benchmarking how your business should be performing.

How KPIs relate to your buyer journey

Many high-performing eCommerce businesses think about their store’s performance in terms of the eCommerce funnel, which includes five steps:

  1. Discovery
  2. Consideration
  3. Conversion
  4. Retention
  5. Advocacy 

The further you go down the funnel, the bigger the difference each KPI can make. For example, improving just one retention or advocacy KPI by 5% can create more value than even a much larger top-of-funnel increase.

Every business is different, and which KPI you choose to focus on most depends on where your priorities lie. There’s no right or wrong answer, but this white paper will help you make an informed decision on which KPIs are the right fit for your business – and how you can knock them out of the park.

Product data, content, and digital assets are all integral to a successful eCommerce strategy. When leveraged to their full potential with a powerful PIM solution like Pimberly, you can use these assets to smash your eCommerce KPIs, ultimately taking your customers on a journey of discovery right through advocacy. 

Let’s start at the top of the funnel:

Discovery KPIs

It may seem elementary, but you can’t attract visitors to your site if you don’t create the awareness that leads to them discovering your brand. Around 35% of product searches start on search engines like Google or Bing. Increasingly, browsers are also discovering brands on social media platforms. When it comes to B2B, you may want to consider publishing your products on industry-specific websites and forums.

The right eCommerce metrics in this stage will help you measure the activities that create awareness and – of course – discovery. Marketing efforts should be focused on generating brand awareness and building demand for your product. Increasingly, customers are discovering more directly on Google search engine results pages (SERP) as more information is being displayed on-page, such as metadata, video, and more.

The main aim of the game is to ensure you’re getting the right products in front of the right people at the right time. 

Here are the KPIs you should be considering at this stage:  

  • Social media likes and shares – The number of likes and shares your content receives on various social media platforms
  • Impressions – The total number of times your content is displayed on a social platform, whether it is clicked or not
  • Reach – The total number of people who see your content on a social platform or whichever channels are important for your business 
  • Engagement – Any interaction with your content, either on your site or whichever channels are important for your business. The type of engagement varies by social platform; for example, Twitter has ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’ and Facebook has ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ 
  • SEO keyword SERP positions – Where your pages rank for various keywords on the search engine results pages (SERPs)
  • Organic traffic sessions – The number of sessions on your site that come in organically (not via a paid medium like advertising)

Impacting discovery KPIs:  

Improving your discovery KPIs is crucial, as these will lead directly into later stages of the buyer journey. Here are some ways to positively impact KPIs at this stage:

Reach, impressions, & engagement

To boost these KPIs, best practice would be to use a combination of paid and organic promotion across social media platforms, Google Ads, and more. In other words, aim to organically spread your message across various platforms through sharing and engagement, and combine that with paid strategies on advertising (e.g., Google Ads) and through paid social media (e.g., Facebook boosting or ads).

Additionally, ensure the content you’re sharing is useful and engaging in its own right so viewers don’t just scroll past. Make use of video where possible, as video content can be up to 1200% more successful than other content.1

SEO keyword SERP positions & organic traffic

We want to improve these discovery KPIs to boost the chance of customers coming across your products and not your competitors. 

Where you rank for certain SEO keywords will also impact how much organic traffic your site receives. Here are some ways to improve your keyword SERP rankings:

  • Ensure you’re targeting the relevant keywords
  • Research long-tail keywords 
  • Optimize meta titles and descriptions
  • Ensure the keyword is in the H1 tag
  • Include your keyword within the page

Most of all, Google can suss out when a page doesn’t have high-quality content. Improve your page quality – copy, images, user experience – and your keyword rankings will likely improve as well.

Smashing discovery KPIs with PIM: 

Social media likes and shares: Impressions, reach & engagement

To smash your social media engagement KPIs, make the most of your digital asset management (DAM) to store all digital assets associated with your campaigns, promotions, and anything used on social media to build brand awareness. 

Here’s how to boost your impressions, reach, and engagement on social media:

  • Storytelling – Tell your brand story and showcase your brand in the best possible light. Developing your story over time will humanize your brand and differentiate you from the competition.
  • Lifestyle – Share lifestyle shots so your audience can empathize with your products and brand.
  • Video – As mentioned before, video is highly effective as a marketing tool. Use it to capture audience attention, increase awareness, and boost engagement.
  • Efficiency – Store Google Ad copy and set up the channel to publish with ease and speed. Automation and repeatability are key!

Organic traffic 

The quality of your product information and content will ultimately determine the success of your eCommerce SEO strategy.2 This is all optimized and managed within your PIM. 

Using a PIM like Pimberly creates a centralized location for your SEO teams to work from, enabling them to manage the below all in one place:

SEO Keyword positions

Your keywords are the backbone of your eCommerce SEO strategy. Use your PIM to automatically update keywords against your SEO automation tools. Always make sure you’re using all your keywords, e.g. longtail, LSI. It’s also important to consider the language potential customers use in their search results and mirror this in your keyword strategy. 

Product descriptions

Be sure to write unique, high-quality copy. Report on the length of descriptions and create an alert if one is too long, too short, or if there are too many/few keywords. Need support? Pimberly can send your copy to an external engine such as Grammarly to determine its “readability”.

Digital assets

Store multiple images and videos for the same product and automatically generate SEO-friendly alt text. Powerful scoping functionalities within a powerful PIM like Pimberly enable you to distribute different digital assets to your various channels. For instance, you may have one image you want to use for Facebook and a video for Instagram. Moreover, all digital assets will be automatically re-sized and optimized depending on the specific requirements of your channels, so your customers will always get the best possible experience regardless of where they’re interacting with your brand. 

Google featured snippets

In case you haven’t heard of them, Google’s Featured Snippets are short excerpts from a webpage that appear on the SERP in order to quickly answer a user’s question. To optimize for Featured Snippets and boost your click-through rate (CTR), ensure you use keywords in the meta titles and longtail or LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords3 in the meta description. Your product pages will also need to meet customer expectations once they have clicked through, otherwise, you’ll experience a high bounce rate.

Mobile optimization

Mobile accounts for over 67% of all eCommerce,4 so it’s crucial to optimize for mobile-responsive content. Like with your sales channels, Pimberly will automatically optimize all your digital assets for mobile, so your customers get the best possible experience, regardless of the device being used.

Site structure

Make sure on-site discovery is easy for your visitors, with clear navigation so they can instantly find what they’re looking for. When categorization needs to be switched up, Pimberly gives your SEO team the ability to create “on the fly” product categories quickly and easily depending on changes in behavior, market trends and more.

Reviews and UGC

PIM gives you the ability to store and distribute reviews and user-generated content (UGC) directly to your sales channels. 

Penalty reduction

With your PIM, the SEO team will be able to prevent penalties from Google before they happen. Having a clear view of all your product information makes it easier to spot and address issues like image mislabelling, duplicated content, and keyword stuffing. 

Collaboration 

Using a PIM means everyone can access everything they need in one place. With Pimberly, you can create and alter workflows to notify relevant team members when action needs to be taken.

Consideration KPIs

The consideration stage of the buyer journey is when potential customers will be making the decision on whether or not to visit your store. You can’t have a buyer if they never get to your online store. Now that they’ve gone through discovery and are aware of your brand, let’s define some eCommerce metrics that measure actually getting them to your website. There are almost endless metrics you can choose in this phase of the funnel, so we’ll only focus on a few. 

In the consideration stage, you want to get potential and existing customers to engage with your brand. To do this, you’ll need to highlight the key features, benefits, and other crucial pieces of information they’ll need to move to the next stage of the funnel. 

This is the moment where you really need to maintain your competitive edge. You want customers to choose you over your competitors, so you need to make sure your products match exactly what your customers are looking for. Give them all the information they need to make them want to click through to your products. Make your products stand out from the crowd and instil confidence in your customers. 

Here are some key KPIs you could track in the consideration stage:  

  • Click-Through Rate (CTR) – This metric helps you understand the success of your campaigns. If someone is actually clicking through to learn more about a product or consider your business, it’s a sign that your content was relevant and interesting to them. Click-through rates can be generated from organic traffic, paid traffic or from social media platforms for instance. 
  • Sessions / average session duration – The number of visits to your site and the average duration (in seconds) of each visit. 
  • Bounce rate – The percentage of users who only visit one page on your site before leaving. A high bounce rate is often an indication that your site doesn’t meet customer expectations, which is especially problematic with paid traffic. 
  • Pages per session – The number of pages visited per session. A higher number indicates higher engagement and a desire to explore more of your site. 
  • Traffic to key pages – This will be especially important when you have seasonal promotions. You may also have key category pages you want to monitor and capitalize on these by ensuring they’re completely optimized for the best results. 

Impacting consideration KPIs: 

To positively impact your consideration KPIs and get closer to reaching your objectives, try some of these best practices:

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

You can positively impact your CTR in many ways, including:

  • Use quality, relevant metadata
  • Use descriptive URLs
  • Simplify your page titles
  • Localize your content 

Average session duration/pages per session

To increase the amount of time visitors are spending on your site, focus on boosting engagement so viewers don’t want to navigate elsewhere. For example, you can use video formats, structure your data in terms of the buyer journey (to help lead them along it), include rich product descriptions and a variety of viewing options, etc.

Bounce rate

To decrease your bounce rate, your pages must meet customer expectations:

  • Ensure quality of product data 
  • Use relevant meta descriptions and titles
  • Ensure product descriptions are accurate and match what the customer expects to see 

Smashing consideration KPIs with PIM: 

Nailing your consideration KPIs is crucial, as this will directly feed into a key step in the funnel – conversion (more on that later). Let’s run through some ways to smash your eCommerce KPIs in the consideration stage using PIM:

CTR and average session duration 

PIM can boost CTR as well as the amount of time users spend on your page because you have massive storage capabilities. Making sure your meta descriptions are informative and engaging will be key in boosting your CTRs. Manage this within your PIM, focusing on your keywords, features, and benefits to draw your customers in. 

Additionally, you can store unlimited digital assets for each of your products. This is especially helpful for storing video assets, and video will mean customers are spending longer on your product pages. Try a variety of image videos, lifestyle videos, or user-generated content to build a more personable relationship with your audience.

Another fantastic option for boosting on-page engagement is the 3D spin round, especially when selling clothing, shoes, and luxury items. This format offers a full view of the product from every angle, allowing users to see all the details and leaving no room for confusion.

Finally, ensure your site navigation makes sense and enables your customers to easily find what they’re looking for – ideally within three clicks. Remember, the structure of your product data will determine this, for example:

  • Categories – seasonal, sale, or product type
  • Product attributes – “sustainable”, “ethically sourced” or “vegan”

Bounce rate  

Achieving a low bounce rate is easier with PIM, as it provides a single source of truth to ensure complete accuracy across channels. Essentially, this will lead to a better customer experience and will help create a sense of trust with your brand. This is also where you can make use of your digital assets to captivate your customers’ attention and instantly give them a clear view of your brand personality and your products. Here are some specific ways you can use PIM to lower your bounce rate:

  • Set up workflows to ensure you never publish a product with missing information
  • Connect to other internal/external systems to ensure accurate stock levels (for example, ERP)
  • Create meta descriptions that meet customer expectations once they’re on-site
  • Store numerous versions of product descriptions, giving your customers the choice to see as much detail as they choose 
  • Streamline the way you manage your digital assets and provide the best viewing options regardless of the device or platform your customers are using 

What’s the best part about smashing your consideration KPIs? All of this will lead to higher conversion.

Pages per session

PIM helps increase the number of pages visited per session in several ways:

  • Personalize which products are shown for the target audience based on data and past purchases, leading them to click through more pages over time
  • Simplify site navigation so users can visit any page they’re looking for, or browse by category or product attribute
  • Optimize for mobile, making it easy for customers to browse your site no matter what device they use

Conversion KPIs

The conversion stage of the buyer journey is when a customer makes the decision to commit to their purchase with you. So, you’ve drawn a visitor to your online store. Now how can you measure your performance in converting them from a store visitor to a paying customer – i.e. adding products to their shopping cart and actually checking out? Conversion KPIs5 should help you do just that. 

Bear in mind that average eCommerce conversion rates tend to sit between 1% – 2%, so improving this will be an ongoing exercise. 

Here are the key KPIs you should be considering at this stage in customer journey order:

  • Cost per acquisition (CPA) – Sometimes also referred to as customer acquisition cost (CAC). Equal to the sum of all marketing costs, services, software, and overheads divided by the number of customers acquired.
  • Average order value (AOV)/Average Basket Value – The total amount of all sales divided by the number of transactions.
  • Number of online transactions – A helpful baseline eCommerce metric for calculating other sales KPIs. Also helpful in determining the success of discounts and promotions. 
  • Items per order (IPO) – The average number of items per customer order.
  • (Shopping) cart abandonment rate – The rate at which visitors “abandon” items in their shopping cart without purchasing.
  • Checkout abandonment – The percentage of customers who leave checkout after initiating the checkout process.
  • Conversion rates – The percentage of sessions that end in a transaction (conversion). This enables you to track the performance of specific campaigns and promotions. 

Impacting conversion KPIs: 

Cost per acquisition (CPA) or customer acquisition cost (CAC) is one of the most crucial conversion KPIs. To start positively impacting your CPA (i.e., decreasing), you’ll need an efficient marketing strategy:

  • Fully leverage your omnichannel strategy to attract customers from multiple platforms
  • Extend your marketing reach by adding new sales channels and/or geographies 
  • Use conversion rate optimization (CRO) techniques to boost the conversion rates of your product pages
  • Aim to deeply understand your cost per lead (CPL)
  • Test low-cost lead generation platforms and methods to save resources

Smashing conversion KPIs with PIM: 

Acing your conversion KPIs is exciting, as this is the stage where we start to see actual impact on revenue. The improvement of these metrics is proof that your marketing strategies are effective, and you’ll see the results as more browsers convert into buyers. Let’s run through some ways to smash your eCommerce KPIs in the conversion stage using PIM.

Cost per acquisition (CPA) or customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Using PIM creates a single source of truth and allows you to manage everything from one central location. That’s synonymous with being able to deliver consistent messaging across all sales channels, social media platforms, and more.  

With a PIM system like Pimberly, you can set up new sales channels with just a few clicks. Scoping functionalities help ensure all product info, content and digital assets meet the different requirements of the channels you’re distributing to.

The same goes for the different geographies you sell to. Easily store product info – descriptions, currencies, measurements, imagery, video, etc. – in a format that’s familiar to that specific geography. For example, you can use localization within Pimberly to match their specific language. You can even connect directly to your translation services via API. 

Using high-quality videos, images and other digital assets will instill confidence in the quality of your products. Accurate product info will have the same effect, so you can ensure you’re answering all the questions your customers might have so they don’t have to go elsewhere i.e., on your competitor’s site.

Average order value (AOV) / number of online transactions / items per order (IPO)

There’s nothing better than a personalized shopping experience, and nobody likes to feel that they’re getting the “hard sell”. That’s why intelligent product recommendations will go a long way in increasing your AOV. 

With the Pimberly PIM, you can connect AI tools to your system to gain deeper insights into your customers’ shopping preferences and serve them products that:

  1. are relevant,
  2. are complementary to the products they’re looking at, or
  3. have been previously viewed on the site.

Pimberly also makes it easy to create kits and bundles. Build unlimited product relationships within the PIM system to maximize sales and improve the overall customer experience.

No matter how large your product selection, Pimberly has you covered with unlimited storage within the integrated DAM solution. Store multiple image variations against one single product to showcase the full variety you have on offer.  

(Shopping) cart abandonment rate

To decrease the number of customers abandoning their shopping cart, it’s a good practice to flag shipping and returns info early on. A recent survey carried out by Pimberly showed that 50% of consumers expect to see clear delivery details on the product page.6 To add to that, over 34% of respondents said they’d abandon before checkout if they couldn’t find clear delivery details. 

Store all this information in your PIM and offer a wide variety of options to cater to different customer needs and preferences. Those might include:

  • Click & Collect
  • Curbside pick-up
  • Buy online, pick-up in store
  • Home delivery
  • Locker systems (like Amazon)

One way to manage customer expectations is to include a delivery date estimation tool. This usually comes in the form of a box to enter their address and see when the earliest expected delivery date would be. Knowing when their products will arrive is likely to increase conversion rates and reduce the number of people abandoning their cart before they hit “BUY NOW”.

Checkout abandonment

Our recent survey showed that over 88% of respondents would go elsewhere if they couldn’t access their favorite payment method.7 This is why it’s so important to offer a range of online payment options to cater to all your customers’ preferences, no matter their specific needs or requirements.

To avoid checkout abandonment, store data around the different payment options you offer within your PIM. Using the Pimberly DAM solution, you can store all the logos for the different payment options you offer, providing instant reassurance to your customers. 

Retention KPIs

Depending on the data source you look at, acquiring a new customer can be anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. 

Given the higher value of repeat and long-term customers, analyzing and understanding retention metrics is key to finding quick wins that will have lasting impacts on your bottom line. 

Note that each of these retention-focused metrics will benefit from a common theme: good customer service, loyalty programs, repeat purchase campaigns, and a true investment in customer satisfaction.

Here are the key KPIs you should be considering at this stage:  

  • Customer retention rate – The percentage of customers a company retains over a given period of time
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV/CLTV) – The average total amount spent by each customer over their lifetime. Calculated by multiplying average order value times purchase frequency. 
  • New and returning visitors – The proportion of repeat customers from the overall customer base
  • Refund and return rate – Sometimes also tracked using returns as a percentage of sales. Shows the rate at which customers are returning items/ receiving refunds
  • Customer churn rate – The percentage of customers that have left the brand over a certain period of time. 

Impacting retention KPIs: 

Customer retention rate: 

To impact your customer retention rate, focus on providing excellent customer service. There are a variety of ways to do this:

  • Special offers – Introduce special offers such as exclusive discounts or gift certificates for existing customers to encourage them to keep returning   
  • Loyalty program – Use your special offers to develop a loyalty program
  • Continued touch & events – Use techniques like a regular newsletter and offline events to build up a strong, loyal customer base
  • Post-sale support – Are your products sold as a one-time purchase (i.e. lifetime warranty)? Do you offer a repair service – e.g., zips, buttons, etc. for garments – to extend the life of the product beyond the first user? This comes down to providing excellent service for all the products you’ve ever sold, not just the ones on your website now.
  • Product life cycle – How long do you expect your product to last? Have you considered following up with customers who purchased a year ago with the latest equivalent? Where can they buy accessories or replacements for parts of the product (e.g. buttons)?

Customer lifetime value (CLV/CLTV)

A great way to improve your CLV is to keep an open dialogue with your customers and your brand. After all, no one knows what customers want better than the customers themselves.

To complement that, use AI analysis to deeply understand your audience and design products they love. Then, launch new products on time to enable your marketing team to regularly promote them to all segments.

Engaging your customers on multiple channels each time new collections are launched will go a long way in building brand loyalty. You can also segment your customers by LTV and track data on which channels you acquired each segment from. That will allow you to double down on the acquisition channels that are giving you the highest LTV customers. 

Repeat purchase rate

Increasing your repeat purchase rate will have an immediate impact on revenue. To impact this metric, consider reviewing your end-to-end customer experience auditing the performance of key web pages. Can anything be improved? Can you repeat the things that are working elsewhere?

It’s also good practice to review each marketing campaign and acquisition channel to gauge the long-term value of various segments and channels. 

Refund and return rate or returns as a percentage of sales

No company wants a high return rate. To decrease these metrics, ensure your product information is accurate and always up to date. Where appropriate – for instance, if you sell garments – include sizing charts so customers can make sure they order the right product on the first try.

Ecommerce churn rate

Remarketing (or retargeting) is when marketers serve ads to people who have visited their website (or a certain page) and who either have or have not taken a certain action.8

You can decrease your churn rate by making the most of remarketing opportunities. For example, marketing new product releases, new promotions, etc. based on your customers’ data and browsing history. This will ensure they’re always seeing content relevant to their purchase intent.

Smashing retention KPIs with PIM: 

Customer retention rate  

With a PIM system like Pimberly, you can make the most of unlimited storage of data to truly understand every customer, from their browsing history to their purchasing history and more. This enables you to develop a hyper-personalized service, giving them product recommendations that truly resonate and make them feel valued. 

Once the purchase has been made, provide your customers with an extra layer of detail: how to get the best use out of the product, how to look after it properly, etc.

All these details can be stored, managed, and distributed from your PIM to your sales channels. When the amazing customer experience continues post-purchase, there’s a higher likelihood that they’ll keep coming back.

Customer lifetime value (CLV/CLTV) 

PIM systems can connect with powerful AI tools to offer deeper insight into your customers’ behavior. With Pimberly, you can also use unlimited sales channels to push out your new products or promotions to maintain engagement. A constantly refreshed eCommerce site with plenty of choice will keep customers coming back again and again.

PIM will save you time while improving the CLV as well:

  • Unlimited storage means you can queue up any campaign ahead of time, so it’s ready to launch at a moment’s notice
  • Marketing teams have access to all the product information and digital assets they need to get the campaign set up and ready to launch 
  • Use workflows to determine when a product or campaign is due to launch, and for how long, giving you complete control
  • Bulk updates and powerful automations help streamline the entire product data management process, speeding up the time to market 
  •  Auto-link digital assets to your products to avoid manual tasks

Repeat purchase rate 

PIM systems can help solidify the relationship you build with your customers through tools like hyper-personalization, 100% accurate product info, and relevant digital assets. When customers feel that you’re delivering on your promises (accurate product info) and personalizing their experience (hyper-personalization and relevant digital assets), they’re more likely to become repeat purchasers.

With Pimberly, you’ll also have full visibility over the performance of your different product ranges. This enables you to gauge which ones have or have not performed strongly and capitalize on that information. Plus, you can do all this inside our user-friendly interface that gives a clear view of all products through dashboards and more.

Refund and return rate or returns as a percentage of sales 

Pimberly’s  auto-sizing charts will  automatically  show the relevant  key  sizing metrics  of each of your  garments  to help customers buy with confidence and  ultimately  reduce return rates. Bulk updates will also ensure any changes made are reflected on all product pages and sizing charts in real-time (and localized for different geographies).  

High-quality digital assets that leave no room for confusion will also decrease returns. Video assets or 360° spin rounds that show how the product should be used and what it looks like in real life will also help.

With PIM, your eCommerce store will have a centralized repository, ensuring totally accurate product information. The ability to integrate with other systems will also keep everything from stock levels to prices up to date at all times.

Advocacy KPIs

Advocacy is the height of eCommerce success: this is where you have customers who are willing to spread positive reviews about your company and products. There are two types of advocates. You have true advocates who willingly speak out positively about your products. You then have those who will speak positively about when promoted and will give recommendations to friends, family, etc. 

This stage of the funnel is often overlooked, but shouldn’t be – satisfied customers who are willing to spread the word are giving you free marketing. They’ll continue to be repeat purchasers, while helping you bring in new customers at the same time.

Here are the key KPIs you should be considering at this stage:  

  • Net Promoter Score (NPS) – A measurement of the customer’s loyalty to the company. This typically is uncovered using a single survey question that asks people to rate the likelihood that they would recommend your company or product to a friend or colleague.
  • Subscription rate – The rate at which customers subscribe to a certain offering, e.g. your newsletter or emails
  • Program participation rate – The percentage of customers who participate in a certain program, e.g. the company’s loyalty program
  • Referral rate – The rate at which customers are referring other prospective customers to your products

Impacting advocacy KPIs: 

Impacting your advocacy KPIs comes down to communication. At this stage, customers who are advocates have high expectations for their relationship with your brand.

For starters, ask your customers to leave feedback and reviews, and ask how likely they’d be to recommend your brand or products to friends and family (Net Promoter Score).

Make sure they see the value in maintaining communication with your brand:

  • Showcase the value that comes with subscribing to your emails. Tell them what they could receive: first dibs on promotions, new product releases, etc. 
  • As with subscriptions, clearly demonstrate what your customers can gain from taking part in something like your loyalty programs: will they earn freebies? Discounts over time? Access to a special group?
  • Offer a discount code for referrals in order to track how many returning customers you have

Smashing advocacy KPIs with PIM: 

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Encourage your customers to leave reviews by publishing existing ones and storing all this in your PIM system. If customers see other reviews, they may be more likely to leave one as well; plus, seeing positive reviews may impact the NPS value they choose for your brand.

Additionally, remember that the quality of your product data and digital assets will impact the overall customer experience: good quality leads to a top-notch CX, and that will boost your NPS.

Subscription rate / program participation rate 

Your PIM system is the perfect place to store details on your loyalty and subscription programs. As you develop these programs, make the most of your digital assets to get customers engaged post-purchase: 

  • Store different variations of created assets within the DAM
  • Prepare campaigns for launch ahead of time

Using a PIM system like Pimberly means the marketing and sales teams can access everything they need to keep customers updated on upcoming promotions, campaigns, and new product releases – all in one place.

Other considerations

Gross profit margin 

Using a PIM system means you can automate the main parts of the eCommerce role – product information management – to boost productivity, reduce costs and grow the business without hiring more people. PIM ensures the entire operation is efficient enough to respond quickly to market demands. 

Impacting gross profit margin 

To positively impact your gross profit margin, there are several key considerations. Selling as many products at the highest price possible is clearly a priority. To do so, being able to get your products to market quickly and with quality data will be key, as you’ll be able to gain vital extra selling days. Having a powerful PIM enables you to do all this and more. 

Getting to a position where you can reduce your return rates will also mean you can save precious time and money. Ultimately, this will be achieved by ensuring your product data is totally accurate. Where possible, make use of sizing charts so customers know exactly what size will be best for them. 

Your PIM enables you to impact gross profit margin in a variety of ways. First, it enables you to run multiple campaigns at once and be ready to launch at a moment’s notice. By doing the work in advance and queuing up everything you’ll need for a successful campaign, you can “lock and load” well ahead of time so a launch can happen whenever the time is right. Automation for the win!

With PIM, you’ll be able to launch new collections on time. That way, you can sell them at full price for the maximum number of days possible per season, helping you maintain a competitive edge.

Using PIM also makes personalization easy – and that’s key to increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction. PIM helps provide a better customer experience and allows you to display products that are specific to the target audience. No more random assortment – your customers will be shown products that match their past views and purchases, increasing the likelihood that they purchase this time. Language can also be personalized with PIM, allowing you to resonate with that customer’s lifestyle and, in turn, increase sales.

PIM also enables you to automate stock management to create efficiencies. Get rid of the stock you’ve got and sell as much of your product at list price as possible. If you’ve got a high selling item, there’s always the opportunity to increase the price. Because PIM enables you to connect with unlimited systems, you can even optimize prices depending on variable factors such as weather or market trends. For instance, you can increase the price of umbrellas on a rainy day, or up the prices of your overcoats when a cold snap is due. Alternatively, you can monitor other market trends to ensure you’re selling your products at the right price at the right time to get the best results. 

How can you ensure you sell as much of your product as possible at the maximum price? This often comes down to things like the geography, size, and color. Optimize what you have available for what your customers want, and your gross profit margin will increase.

But what if you have an overstocked store and need to encourage people to buy a specific SKU in a specific location? Try pushing a personalized discount to the mobile app while the customer is in that store. It will feel unique to them and help move merchandise faster.

Another key way to impact gross profit margin is to decrease returns. Returns hurt your bottom line in several ways:

  • Aging merchandise – Whilst that stock is out of the store, it’s not available to be sold
  • Logistics – The reverse logistics are very expensive – cost of transport, labor, repackaging, quality control (i.e. is the product damaged?) 
  • Reputation – There’s a potential for loss of goodwill with the customer, especially if they only ordered one garment and it wasn’t right 

To prevent returns from happening in the first place, there are some best practices your store can try:

  • Showcase sizes – Having multiple models modeling your items shows customers what that product looks like on different body shapes. When doing this, be sure to give details of what sizes each of your different models are wearing. 
  • Case personalization – Show customers what an item looks like in context. For example, if you’re buying this red dress, here’s how it looks at a birthday party, outdoor event, business meeting, etc.
  • “Shop the look” – Showcase other items that could pair with the product, different ways to wear it, how to style, etc. This drives upsell and cross-sell while also decreasing returns.

Improve your eCommerce KPIs today

Pimberly gives your products the backup they need to perform in your store all whilst providing your customers with an unrivalled online experience. A powerful PIM is an integral piece of a holistic eCommerce strategy and will help you achieve your chosen KPIs at every stage of the customer journey.

To nail your eCommerce KPIs with PIM, there’s only one thing left to do. 

Book your personalized Pimberly demo. 

About Pimberly

Pimberly is a powerful cloud-based SaaS PIM (Product Information Management)/ Digital Asset Management platform that synchronizes all aspects of product data & digital asset management processes. We help businesses around the world manage their product information more efficiently. 

Pimberly enables businesses to create amazing online experiences across multiple sales channels and regions. With richer, differentiated product descriptions, you can drive better demand generation and speed your time to market. 

Appendix

eCommerce KPIs (with calculations)

Bibliography

  1. G2 Learn Hub, 2018, 55+ Powerful Video Marketing Statistics for 2019, https://learn.g2.com/video-marketing-statistics
  2. Pimberly, 2021, The Ultimate Guide to PIM for eCommerce SEO, https://pimberly.com/resources/seo-essentials-for-product-data/
  3. Backlinko, 2020, LSI Keywords, https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/lsi
  4. TechJury, 2021, 65 Wowing M-Commerce Statistics for 2021, https://techjury.net/blog/mcommerce-statistics/
  5. Human Marketing, 2020, 30 Ecommerce KPIs for Every Stage of the Funnel, https://inbound.human.marketing/ecommerce-kpis-for-every-stage-of-the-funnel#consideration
  6. Outbrain, 2021, The Remarketing Guide for Dummies, https://www.outbrain.com/blog/remarketing-guide/
  7. Styllitics, 2021, Stylitics Insights, https://stylitics.com

What our customers are doing with PIM

Pimberly Success Story: Westcoast
Pimberly Success Story: Ellis Brigham Mountain Sports
EMM-centralising-product-information-with-pim

See us in action!

Creating a product in Pimberly Screenshot