18 Must-Know Ecommerce KPIs for Growing Your Business

A successful ecommerce business isn’t just about opening an online store or listing products. It requires data-driven decisions to refine strategies and scale effectively. If you don’t use valuable data or insights to make decisions, it may be hard to optimize your ecommerce business relying on intuition alone. That’s why ecommerce KPIs matter so much.

Ecommerce KPIs are a series of metrics to measure and analyze how successful your online store operates across core areas. These indicators cover everything from customer service and sales to marketing effectiveness, providing a complete picture of your business performance.

Then, what are KPIs for ecommerce? This post explores the key types of ecommerce KPIs and shares 18 top KPIs for your business performance, curated lists for customer service, sales, marketing, manufacturing, and B2B operations.

What are KPIs for Ecommerce

Key performance indicator (KPI) is a type of performance measurement that tracks the success of businesses or individuals in achieving their goals. For ecommerce businesses, KPIs refer to the specific metrics that help online retailers evaluate their progress and performance on the road to success. These metrics offer valuable insights into sales, customer service, marketing, operations, etc.

Still feeling confused? Here’s a real-life ecommerce KPI example: an online electronics retailer, Anker, aims to boost Net Promoter Score (NPS) by 20% to 50% yearly. In this case, NPS will become a metric tied to this goal and serve as one of the business’s core performance indicators.

What are the Types of Ecommerce KPIs

Ecommerce business KPIs can be categorized into the following 4 main types, and each is designed to measure performance in a distinct business function and guide targeted improvements.

1. Customer Service KPIs

Customer service KPIs are usually used to gauge how effectively an ecommerce business supports its shoppers post-purchase and during interactions. Metrics like average handle time, CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) scores, and return resolution efficiency fall here. Tracking these metrics can help businesses deliver a positive customer experience.

2. Sales KPIs

Sales KPIs focus on measuring how well a business performs in terms of revenue and transactions. Key indicators include gross sales revenue, conversion rate, customer retention rate, etc. These figures help online retailers identify the most profitable products and diagnose friction points in their sales funnel, ensuring sustainable revenue growth.

3. Marketing KPIs

KPIs for marketing measure performance and return in relation to your marketing and advertising goals. They also influence your sales KPIs. Core metrics in ecommerce business include website traffic, bounce rate, page views per visit, and so on. These KPIs are crucial for optimizing marketing strategy and budget.

4. Manufacturing KPIs

Manufacturing KPIs help ecommerce business track operational efficiency and product quality, covering everything from inventory turnover rate and order fulfillment time to yield and product defect rate. These indicators are critical for optimizing stock levels, streamlining production workflows, and ensuring timely delivery.

Why It’s Important to Track Ecommerce KPIs

It is essential for ecommerce businesses to track and analyze the key performance indicators for long-term success and scalable growth. These metrics give you a clear and data-backed overview of your business health. By quantifying core performance, you can turn raw data into actionable strategies that align with your business goals.

• Provides clear direction: KPIs act as a compass that offers a clear view of your business performance across departments, which ensures all employees strive for the same goals.
• Enables data-driven decisions: Replacing intuition with concrete evidence, KPIs like sales and marketing help you allocate resources to the most effective strategies and campaigns.
• Drive sales and growth: As the KPIs align with goals, it means that you can refine tactics to optimize key metrics like average order value and conversion rate, directly driving revenue growth and scalable success.

18 Top Ecommerce KPIs to Track Your Business Success

Are you looking to scale your online business and gauge its performance? This section narrows down the 18 most important ecommerce KPIs spanning customer service, sales, marketing, manufacturing, and B2B to guide your success.

Ecommerce KPIs List for Customer Service

1. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) is one of the most common KPIs that measure how satisfied customers are with a brand. It typically asks customers a question like “How satisfied were you with your experience?” and rates their satisfaction with a numbered scale.

How to improve it:

• Gather customer feedback to identify their pain points and solve them.
• Ensure your customer service teams are equipped with the right tools, like an AI shopping bot, to respond timely. Solvea stands out as the best one that offers instant and personalized support with human-like accuracy, helping many ecommerce businesses like Amerlife improve CSAT and response rate.

2.Net promoter score (NPS)

NPS reflects how likely your customers are to recommend your products to their friends, colleagues, and others. This provides you with valuable insights into customer loyalty. It can be measured by a customer feedback survey, which asks customers to rate their willingness to recommend your brand.

How to improve it:

• Use open-ended questions to collect detailed suggestions from customers.
• Focus on making improvements that boost customer experience.

3. First Respond Time (FRT)

FRT measures how long it takes your support team to initially respond to customer inquiries. The longer the response time, the more time customers will spend waiting for assistance, which may lead to dissatisfied customers.

How to improve it:

• Integrate a helpdesk system like Solvea and Zendesk to ensure customers get a 24/7 instant response.
• Offer self-service options and automated responses to frequently asked questions.

4. Average Resolution Time (AST)

It is the total of the average time that your support teams spend on solving customer issues, starting from the first contact when the customer reaches out about the issue. Put it simply, a lower AST means customers have their issues resolved more quickly and directly leads to higher CSAT.

How to improve it:

• Adopt automation tools like live chat, IVR systems, and self-service portals.
• Prioritize customer support tickets to ensure your team tackles important issues first.

Ecommerce KPIs List for Sales

5. Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the percentage that your online store visitors who actually purchase something. It’s calculated by dividing the total number of visitors by the total number of actual conversions. In ecommerce businesses, most stores have a conversion rate of a little over 3%.

How to improve it:

• Optimize your store pages and product descriptions to make them attractive.
• Offer proactive and pre-sale support automatically via AI tools.

6. Average Order Value (AOV)

AOV is a key metric designed to measure the average amount spent by customers per transaction. To calculate it, you can divide total revenue by the number of orders. Improving this metric can generate more profit for each customer, improving the overall profitability of your store.

How to improve it:

• Launch more personalized marketing campaigns on high-value products.
• Offer discounts or promotions for more orders, such as free shipping on orders over $200.

7. Customer Retention Rate

This KPI tells you how many customers remain loyal to your product after a specific period. It indicates customer loyalty and satisfaction for a brand. A good customer retention rate usually means consistent revenue for an online store.

How to improve it:

• Use loyalty programs and rewards to improve customer loyalty.
• Deliver exceptional customer experience.

8. Average Margin

Average Margin is a percentage that rates how much you profit on average for each product you sell over a period of time. The higher the number, the more profit your business makes relative to its costs.

How to improve it:

l Reduce the costs of the products/services you sell.

l Focus on prompting products with high profit margins.

Ecommerce KPIs List for Marketing

9. Website Traffic

Website traffic is the total number of visits to your ecommerce website during a given time period. Most of the traffic comes from organic search, while others may come from blogs, social media, and referral sources.

How to improve it:

• Grow your website’s organic traffic using SEO tools.
• Drive followers from your social media, blog, or other online platforms to your website.

10. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is an important indicator that tells you how many visitors will leave the site after viewing a single page. If the rate is high, it’s critical to dive into why visitors are exiting the site instead of exploring more.

How to improve it:

• Make sure your web pages load quickly and function smoothly.
• Attract visitors to your web pages by adding eye-catching photos and engaging content.

11. Mobile Site Traffic

Apart from the overall website traffic, it’s crucial to track the total number of visitors who use mobile devices to access your website. This is because a huge portion of your traffic comes from mobile devices, and probably most of your conversions from them too.

How to improve it:

• Optimize your web pages and content for mobile users.
• Develop an app version of your store where customers can shop directly within it.

12. Click-through-rate (CTR)

CTR shows the percentage of clicks to impressions in your marketing campaign. It’s mainly used to measure the effectiveness of paid advertisements. Improving CTR can direct more traffic to your website and enhance brand awareness.

How to improve it:

• Target ads and marketing campaigns to potential customers precisely.
• Make well-polished ads with clear and compelling CTAs.

Ecommerce KPIs List for Manufacturing

13. Overall Labor Effectiveness (OLE)

This KPI is used to measure the workforce productivity of your staff. It provides you with a comprehensive view of how effectively your employees contribute to production and identifies areas for improvement.

How to improve it:

• Streamline production workflows to eliminate redundant labor.
• Train your employees regularly to improve their efficiency.

14. Cycle Time

Cycle time tells you how long it takes to manufacture a product from start to finish. It gives insight into manufacturing efficiency and identifies bottlenecks.

How to improve it:

• Minimize downtime caused by machine failures.
• Use automated tools to make work more accurate and faster.

15. Yield

As a straightforward manufacturing KPI, yield refers to the number of products you have produced. A high yield often indicates an efficient operating process with minimal waste.

How to improve it:

• Implement a quality assurance management tool.
• Invest in employee training to optimize their skills.

Ecommerce KPIs List for B2B Business

16. Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

Shopping cart abandonment rate measures how many visitors put orders into the shopping cart but fail to purchase them. In the B2B business, it reveals the friction in the checkout process.

How to improve it:

• Make sure the checkout process is frictionless, simple, and easy.
• Offer free shipping to encourage checkout completion.

17. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

This KPI measures the amount of money spent on acquiring new customers. A lower CAC indicates that you have effective marketing campaigns and budget allocation.

How to improve it:

• Switch to high RIO marketing strategies, such as email marketing.
• Improve your store’s organic traffic to attract more new customers.

18. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

CLV was designed to evaluate the total revenue you can expect from given customers throughout the entire relationship. It gives you a clear look at the benefits of keeping any given customer.

How to improve it:

• Offer exceptional customer support.
• Personalize your marketing strategies based on customer feedback.

Ecommerce KPIs FAQ

1. What are the most important ecommerce KPIs?

Some of the most important KPIs for online businesses often include the conversion rate, the ratio between visitors and actual purchasers, and the average order value (AOV), which uncovers the value of average purchases from a shop. Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is also important because it shows how much visitors spend on your shop over their “life cycle”.

2. What are the 4 C's of ecommerce?

In terms of ecommerce business, the 4 C’s refer to “Customer”, “Cost”, “Convenience”, and “Communication”.

Customer: It focuses on understanding customer needs and satisfying them.

Cost: Beyond the product’s price, it also includes the total cost to the customer, such as time, effort, and other expenses involved in satisfying their needs.

Convenience: This involves making shopping as easy as possible for the customer.

Communication: It includes all conversations between the brand and customers, including messaging, email, social media, and other channels.

3. What are the 5 key performance indicators in sales?

The 5 key performance indicators in sales often include revenue growth, conversion rate, average deal size, sales cycle length, and customer acquisition cost.

4. What are B2B Ecommerce KPIs?

KPIs for B2B ecommerce business are used to measure the performance of an online business-to-business platform like Amazon toward its goals. Common indicators include Customer Lifetime Value, Average Order Value, and Customer Retention Rate.

5. What are the 4 KPIs every manager has to use?

The 4 core KPIs that every manager has to use are customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, internal process quality, and financial performance.

6. What are the leading indicators of e-commerce?

The leading indicators of ecommerce businesses often track metrics that can predict future performance, such as conversion rates, website traffic, and customer acquisition cost. They provide insight into future revenue and long-term growth.