ca. 30 Minuten
nach Wunsch auch mit VideocallThe internet’s measurability lets eCommerce be easy metric-generation – and this means boon and bane at once. Getting the corresponding metrics for every midget action with a simple mouse click makes it easy for the webshop-owner to compile large amounts of valuable data in a short space of time. Top.
The downside: It’s as simple to get lost in those huge masses of metrics, miss the forest for the trees or be mislead to a partial contemplation which most often turns out to be quite self-defeating. Flop.
To walk this tightrope successfully, a handful of handy hints can prove itself exceedingly valuable in a first step: five tricky traps in your BI-project – five ways to avoid them.
Trap 1: What the eye does not see (I don’t have to be concerned with)
- The threat: Whether heavily loaded with the eCommerce’s initial phase or busy with rapid growth – other tasks seeming more important than the collection of data is not an unusual phenomenon. Certain phases in business make us perceive this topic as added and avertible ballast weight quickly. But watch out! This way, important data can get lost forever easily.
- Your way out: Don’t fear the big data! Even if you can’t exploit the collected information immediately – later on it might be worth its weight in gold.
Trap 2: Most of all: Go ahead!
- The threat: The final aim is perfectly known – sales increase. But this objective doesn’t allow you to deduce strategically clear action steps. Soon you get lost in your own precipitance, entangled in uncoordinated efforts.
- Your way out: Firmly verbalized goals. Big ones as well as small ones, short-dated as well as long-dated. When do we want to be where regarding which item? Where is our potential for optimization and up to where it would be realistic to exploit it in a first step? A purposefully specified step-by-step-approach is strategically plan- and realizable.
Trap 3: What’s in a name!?
- The threat: A careless dealing with terminology slips in quickly. No surprise: Various people work on various problems in various departments with various tools. This complicates communication and thus a target-aimed work on metric’s optimization.
- Your way out: Especially for your work with huge masses of collected data, the investment of time and manpower to work out a clear terminology definitely pays off. What do “sales” (gross, net, inventory, return…) mean for our business exactly? When is a customer a new one, when an existing one? What precisely do we understand by “rate of return”? A clear and consistent terminology effects miracles on your controlling.
Trap 4: Pars pro toto
- The threat: Traffic x conversion rate x average order value = sales, so we press the traffic-button and wait for the sales to increase. Rapidly, this can evoke the effect of a severely decreasing conversion rate, and instantly sales as well as efficiency leave a lot to be desired.
- Your way out: Holistic view. It’s here where the only key to long-ranging success will be found, for all metrics are always part of a complex metric’s system that can only be controlled successfully and sustainably in its holistic mechanisms.
Trap 5: The first impression counts
- The threat: Sometimes, the answer to a problem seems to be so obvious – but the analysis of improvable metrics isn’t untainted by mistakes either.
- Your way out: At times, you won’t find a problem’s real cause until you have a really close and in-depth look. Take the time you need and feel certain about the results of your analysis in return!
Five prevalent traps – five ways to avoid them. In many cases, the mere awareness of threat potentials is enough to get around them.
So – keep your eyes open for the pitfall!
