Guest Post by Maryam Oseni, Content Manager at Narrative BI GA4 E-Commerce Reports allow online businesses to track their website's e-commerce performance and optimize their sales strategies. Learn how GA4 can help you make data-driven decisions and grow your business. Google Analytics is a powerful tool for e-commerce business owners. With the release of Google Analytics 4 (GA4), e-commerce tracking has become even more sophisticated. GA4 E-commerce Reports are a set of reports specifically designed for e-commerce businesses, providing detailed insights into customer behavior, product performance, and revenue metrics. In this article, we will explore GA4 E-Commerce Reports in detail and explain how e-commerce business owners can use them to gain valuable insights into their customers' behavior and optimize their sales funnel. What are GA4 E-Commerce Reports? GA4 E-commerce Reports provide detailed insights into e-commerce transactions, customer behavior, and product performance. The reports are specifically designed for e-commerce businesses and offer various metrics and dimensions highly relevant to online retailers. These reports provide a wealth of information, including: Total revenue Total purchases Conversion rate Revenue by product Revenue by traffic source, and much more. GA4 Ecommerce Reports work by tracking specific user actions on an e-commerce website. These actions might include: Viewing a product Adding a product to the cart Starting the checkout process Completing a purchase By tracking these actions, GA4 can provide detailed insights into the customer journey on an e-commerce website, including where customers are dropping off and where they are converting. To start analyzing GA4 reports, you need to enable Enhanced E-commerce tracking when setting up your GA4 property. This will allow GA4 to track specific user actions on your website, such as product views and purchases.  Enhanced e-commerce tracking in Google Analytics provides additional information about visitor behavior for specific products at different stages of the purchasing process (for example, the ratio of product views to purchases). It is highly worth it for you to have that additional granularity because you are operating an online retail business. Now that you are acquainted, let's get into some important Google Analytics 4 E-commerce reports. Monetization Overview Report The Monetization Overview report summarizes all monetary transactions on your website, including total revenue, number of purchasers, average revenue per user, products bringing in the most revenue, and so much more. This will help you identify trends or patterns in your website performance and make data-driven decisions to optimize your sales funnel. This report also shows data on the most viewed products, most sold items, and revenue from any active coupons. Each section has a link that allows you to drill down on the data displayed.  You can access the monetization overview report by clicking Reports on the left-hand side and selecting Monetization under the Lifecycle tab. E-commerce Purchases Report The E-commerce Purchases report provides information on how often your customers viewed, added to the cart, and purchased the items on your website, with a total of the generated revenue from each item. This information helps you measure sales and your customer's interests. For instance, if an item was added to a cart 200 times but was only purchased five times, it can indicate that the price is too high and they don't love it enough to pay that much even though they want it. It also displays data for up to 5 product sub-categories with the dimension item category 1 to 5. For example, as a fashion store, you categorized women's purses on your website as Women's Fashion > Accessories > Bags > Purses; GA4 will label all four categories respectively and display data on how many items were added to the cart, viewed, and purchased in each category. This extra granularity helps to fine-tune the customer experience.  It is important to note that the data in this report comes from the e-commerce events recommended by Google Analytics 4. If you want to add extra events, you must manually create one unless you are using Littledata’s GA4 connector.  User Acquisition Report As an e-commerce marketer or business owner, it's important to understand how new users find your website or app for the first time. This is where the User Acquisition Report comes in handy. Analyzing this report lets you gain valuable insights into the channels driving new user acquisition.  Each dimension in this report contains the text "First user," which denotes how the user visited your website for the first time. For example, selecting the First user default channel group shows how many users were acquired via direct search, organic traffic, social media, paid ads, etc. It also displays metrics like the engagement rate, conversions, average engagement time, and total revenue of each channel. Analyzing the User Acquisition Report lets you identify which channels drive the highest amount of new users. This information can help you optimize your marketing efforts and allocate resources to the most effective channels for new user acquisition. For example, if you notice that many new users are coming from social media, you may want to invest more resources into your marketing efforts. On the other hand, if you see that very few new users are coming from paid search, you should reevaluate your paid search strategy. Traffic Acquisition Report The Traffic Acquisition report is a section of Google Analytics that provides information about how users get on your website. It shows you the different channels driving traffic to your site, such as organic search, social media, email, and paid advertising. The report also provides data on the behavior of users who come to your site from each channel, such as bounce rate, pages per session, and average session duration. This information can help you understand which channels drive the most engaged traffic to your site. It's important to note that the User Acquisition Report differs from the Traffic Acquisition Report. While the Traffic Acquisition Report focuses on where new sessions are coming from, regardless of whether the user is new or returning, the User Acquisition Report looks explicitly at how new users find your site or app. To find the Traffic Acquisition report, select Reports from the menu on the left. Click to expand the Lifecycle section and select Acquisition. Conversion Paths Report The Conversion Paths report in Google Analytics 4 provides valuable insights into the different touchpoints that lead to a conversion and how different attribution models distribute credit on those paths. This report is divided into two sections: the data visualization and the data table. The data visualization section provides a quick overview of the channels initiating, assisting, and closing conversions. This information is crucial for understanding which channels drive the most conversions and where to focus your marketing efforts. The data table section provides a more detailed view of users' paths to complete conversions. This section includes metrics such as Conversions, Purchase revenue, Days to conversion, and Touchpoints to conversion. Analyzing this data lets you gain insights into the customer journey and identify areas to improve your marketing strategy. By analyzing the Conversion Paths report, you can identify the most effective channels and campaigns to drive conversions. This information can help you allocate your marketing budget more effectively and optimize your campaigns for better results. To access the Conversion Paths report, select Advertising on the left, expand the Attribution tab, and select the report.  Using Explorations for Custom Reports Google Analytics 4 Explorations go beyond the basic e-commerce reports. It helps you create custom reports to analyze purchase paths, shopping behavior, product/sales performance, and checkout behavior. To find GA4's multiple exploration templates, click Explore on your dashboard's left side. Here are some ways to customize Explorations reports for your eCommerce business to maximize GA4 benefits. Analyze purchase path Use the Path Exploration template to create a custom report of your customers' purchase routes. This report helps you see which traffic sources drive the most revenue and identify any drop-off points in your funnel. You can also see which events drive towards purchases or abandonment and optimize accordingly.  You can use this report to identify any drop-off points in your sales funnel, identify any fields in your checkout process causing friction for your customers, and make data-driven decisions to optimize your checkout process. You can also use this report to identify which traffic sources are driving the most revenue and allocate your marketing budget accordingly. Observe Shopping Behavior The funnel exploration report is excellent for observing shopping behavior. It shows your users' steps from their first visit to purchase. You can also see the average time it takes for a customer to make a purchase and identify any patterns in their behavior. It can also help you uncover seamless purchase funnels on your website. Let's assume you are running a 10% discount, and you offer it to your buyers during checkout. You can use the funnel exploration feature to observe what behavior spurs from that action. Do your buyers go ahead and complete the purchase? Or do they go back to add more products to their cart?  Optimize Checkout Process You can also use the funnel exploration reports to optimize your checkout process. First, you have to customize this report by adding all the checkout steps your customers must take. For example, your customer has to complete four steps to make a purchase, and these steps are:  click to checkout, add a delivery address, add payment details, and complete the purchase.  A high abandonment rate after they add their payment details can signal a technical difficulty with your payment gateway. Or if there is a high abandonment rate after delivery details, it can indicate that the delivery rates are too high. This will help reduce your checkout abandonment rate and improve your e-commerce performance. Analyze product performance GA4’s path exploration lets you know the top pages that new users open after landing on your homepage. You can display product banners leading to different product catalogs on your homepage and use path exploration to know which one is getting more clicks. Automate Google Analytics 4 Reports Now that you know about GA4's reports for your e-commerce business, here is an extra tip for ease, especially if you are just starting with Google Analytics: Connect your GA4 property to Narrative BI. This lets you receive GA4 automated reports on essential metrics directly in your inbox. There are many metrics and dimensions in Google Analytics 4 reports; some do not translate into actionable insights that can help you optimize your e-commerce business. With Narrative BI, you can focus on the key metrics and see how they are performing at a glance. 

Digital marketing as we know it was built on third-party cookies, allowing businesses to build promotional campaigns based on user behavior data captured across their web activity.  While many marketers are concerned by the death of third-party cookies, we can assure you that it isn’t actually a bad thing. Data-driven brands on platforms like Shopify Plus and BigCommerce can still capture data across the customer journey, understand their customers at scale, and build hyper-targeted marketing campaigns — they just need to shift their tactics.  And by tactics I mean both strategy and the right tools to help you get there! Instead of tracking users’ activity across other companies’ websites, brands have had to discover new sources of insights into their target market’s demographics, buying preferences, and browsing behaviors.  What better place to start than your own site? That’s where first-party data comes in.  [tip] Want to see where your ecommerce tracking can improve? Book a data audit with one of our analytics experts. [/tip] First-party data is data that you own, collected directly from your customers through your website, app, or channels like email and SMS. This includes everything from contact details and purchase history to browsing behavior on your site and more. It can be used to build powerful marketing campaigns, create precise audiences for retargeting, and guide product and UI/UX decisions, all while respecting recent privacy regulations.  Adapting to a world without cookies It’s not enough to know what first-party data is, understanding how to collect it in full and utilize it to fuel your marketing efforts is a whole other challenge. Lucky for you, our latest white paper covers everything you need to know about first-party data: What is first-party data? And what isn’t? How to track first-party data in the top reporting tools How to use first-party data to optimize your marketing and make smarter business decisions Learn what using first-party data looks like in practice with insights from industry experts in A World Without Cookies. Download your copy>>>

We are off to the races in 2023 already with Shopify officially launching Commerce Components by Shopify (CCS), an improved offering for large retailers. CCS allows enterprise retailers to access Shopify's foundational, high-performing components, such as its checkout, along with flexible APIs to build dynamic customer experiences that integrate seamlessly with a retailer's preferred existing services. But larger brands don't just want composable commerce. They also want -- actually, need -- complete, accurate, actionable data. Have Shopify's new Commerce Components been designed with the modern data stack in mind? There are lots of good things to say about Commerce Components. Enterprise retailers can take the components they need and leave those they do not, and developers are “free to build with any front-end framework they choose”, says Shopify. CCS uses Shopify's global scale infrastructure, which has over 275 network edge points to enable fast storefronts and checkouts no matter where customers are located -- and in a year where consumers are savvier than ever and demand a great experience. While we are excited about how this will attract larger brands to the Shopify ecosystem, we feel the Data Analytics component is underwhelming -- and won’t allow enterprise brands to track full server-side event data for building marketing attribution, product recommendation, or personalization data models. This component uses ShopifyQL, launched in mid-2022, as a neat query language for charting. But data analysts using ShopifyQL to query Shopify’s own data tables can only query the current state of the customer or order, and not understand the customer journey that led to that order. Popular reports such as marketing attribution by campaign or channel are just not possible from this data set. Furthermore, most enterprise brands we talk to want to own their own data warehouse and have the flexibility to use best-in-class tools like BigQuery, Looker, and dbt to store and analyze the data. Littledata provides a raw event data feed, directly sourced from Shopify’s servers to power just such a modern data stack -- and gives analysts the flexibility to build their own data models. Littledata is excited to work with brands using Commence Components (including headless stores), but we think Shopify will need to lean on its partner network to provide the breadth of functionality, especially in data analysis, that enterprise brands require. For now brands on our Littledata Plus plans are skeptical about the initial release of Commerce Components, just as they have been about Shopify's new Web Pixel and overall Shopify Theme changes.

Have you mapped out a data plan for 2023 yet? If you’re selling on a major DTC platform like Shopify or BigCommerce, GA4 is probably on your mind. With the sunsetting of Universal Analytics (GA3 or the “old version” of Google Analytics) on the horizon, it’s time to get going with event-based tracking. Many brands have been procrastinating about setting up GA4 – or, worse, only setting it up halfway so that browsing behavior is tracked but revenue and conversions are missing. But can you blame them? Shopify isn’t planning to release native GA4 integration until March 2023 at the earliest (and nobody’s expecting it to work well for serious DTC brands) BigCommerce released a beta version of their GA4 integration in November, but it’s extremely minimal, tracking only begin_checkout and purchase events Manual setup is costly and confusing (and has to be maintained every time you change your site or checkout flow) GA4 revenue tracking should be your top priority, but there’s a lot of confusion around GA4, made worse by Shopify apps that claim to offer GA4 integration but only offer client-side tracking. It shouldn’t be so complicated. At Littledata we’ve already fixed GA4 tracking for hundreds of top DTC brands. In this post I’ll show you how to check if you’ve set up GA4 correctly to capture orders and revenue, and how to start tracking ecommerce conversions today in the most secure and reliable way possible. Follow this guide to GA4 and you’ll be on your way to ecommerce data tracking in no time. We’ll look at how to get from this: To this: How to check if you’re tracking GA4 revenue and conversions After creating a new GA4 property and following the setup assistant to create a new data stream, you might have noticed that you’re instructed to copy and paste the Google tag (gtag.js) script on every page of your ecommerce site. Once you’ve added the Google tag to your site and linked your GA4 property, everything will just start tracking automatically, right? Wrong. With the basic script all you get are engagement events such as page_view, session_start, view_search_result, and click. Obviously these “automatic events” are super important, but they don’t tell you what happens post-click. Here’s how to check if your GA4 ecommerce setup is working or not. 1. Check your Acquisition reporting in GA4 There are two places to look to see if you’re capturing ecommerce conversions. First, the Acquisition reports. You’ll see user and traffic engagement details grouped by channel, but no conversion or revenue data exists. You’re seeing which organic or paid channels are bringing visitors to your store, but you can’t tell if you’re generating any revenue from these visitors. GA4 revenue reporting not showing is one of the most asked questions by merchants and performance marketers. 2. Check your Engagement and Monetization reporting in GA4Taking a step further, check your Engagement and Monetization reports. Do you see GA4 reporting data about cart updates, interactions with the checkout flow, or any purchase or revenue data? If revenue is missing in GA4’s monetization overview, you need to start tracking ecommerce activity ASAP. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a lot of data points that lead nowhere and you will not have an accurate understanding of your ecommerce store’s performance.  [tip] Use our complementary instant order checker for GA4 to check your property [/tip] How to track ecommerce conversions and revenue in GA4 After landing on your store, online shoppers interact with collections and products before adding items to their carts and going through the checkout process. These web interactions must be captured as events and linked with customers and marketing data in GA4 to get a complete picture of your business. We have looked at what data can be missing from your GA4 events and which enhanced ecommerce events you should track. But how can you get all these ecommerce events in GA4?  Google Tag Manager (GTM) has always been the most common tracking method for Universal Analytics, and the setup process can be carried over to GA4. However, for a lean team, the setup process can be quite time-consuming and complex, having to create a Data Layer In Shopify, and then for each event, you must create: Firing Triggers in GTM  Data Layer Variables in GTM Ecommerce Tags in GTM Needless to say, there are quite a few maintenance pitfalls if you're going down this route. Setup is just the beginning. To make matters worse, Shopify is removing GTM from the checkout for Shopify Plus stores (standard Shopify stores never had access). So even if you take the time to add all your own events to tracking visitors before they make a purchase, you’ll no longer be able to track checkout steps (add-to-cart, etc) with GTM. If you want to save time and money while still having confidence in the accuracy of your GA4 data, Littledata is the perfect solution for you. Our proven app is used by over 1500+ brands and can help you track your ecommerce conversions with ease, giving you the reliable data you need to make informed decisions about your business. Littledata’s data layer uses a unique combination of client-side and server-side tracking to ensure accurate, complete ecommerce data in GA4 and any connected data warehouse or reporting destination. Littledata captures complete ecommerce data automatically in GA4 for Shopify and BigCommerce stores. We can break down those events into seven general categories: Marketing channels Browsing behavior Checkout steps Conversions Revenue Recurring orders Upsells Of course, each reporting category has useful data, but brands that really want to scale link it all together to look at revenue and LTV by channel, splitting out first-time purchases from repeat purchases or recurring orders (subscription analytics). As I mentioned earlier, Acquisition reports are some of the most valuable sets of data GA4 offers. They show which of your team’s marketing efforts bring the most results, from traffic through engagement and conversions. The difference between having accurate or questionable ROI data in these reports rests on how the purchase event is tracked. It is useful to have the engagement metrics grouped by channel, but the difference between having accurate or questionable ROI data in these reports rests on how the purchase event is tracked.  Get started with Littledata today so you will have the data you need to scale faster the smart way. We recommend tracking in UA and GA4 “in parallel” as soon as possible.

First-party data is the buzzword floating all about the ecommerce world—and for good reason. As you probably know already, third-party cookies are soon to be no more. Add in the overhaul that iOS 14's tracking opt-out and other intelligent tracking prevention brought about, and getting accurate metrics on attribution and customer behavior looks a whole lot different to marketers than ever before. That's where first-party data collection comes to the rescue to save your campaign reporting. First-party data is data you collect directly from a user, and it's about to become the standard for data collection across the ecommerce landscape. To help you learn more about first-party data—and start using it yourself—we have three helpful posts covering different first-party data solutions and how they fit into your marketing strategy. 10 reasons to switch to server-side tracking for ecommerce analytics Server-side tracking is a method of collecting first-party data via a cloud-based server rather than by taking data directly from a website visitor's browser (known as client-side tracking). In addition to being a more secure way to process data, server-side tracking complies with new privacy regulations and is not disrupted by ad blockers. There are numerous benefits server-side provides, and we've got 10 of them for you to check out in this blog post. https://blog.littledata.io/2022/07/23/10-reasons-to-switch-to-server-side-tracking-for-ecommerce-analytics/ How to run dynamic Facebook ads with Facebook Conversions API While there are plenty of promotion methods available to ecommerce store owners today, PPC and social ads still reign supreme as the top option. From top DTC brands to small startup stores, ads are a great way to get your product in front of ideal buyers using personalized ads to convert leads into sales. Of course, ad blockers and tracking prevention has changed the way brands can leverage this tool. To help you learn how to keep personalized ads that return on spend, we have a guide on how to create dynamic Facebook ads using Facebook's Conversions API (CAPI). https://blog.littledata.io/2022/03/09/how-to-run-dynamic-facebook-ads-with-facebook-conversions-api/ How to build customer behavior reports in Google Analytics 4 Marketing methods aren't the only things that need changing in our new first-party data world. Reporting on your marketing efforts requires the same overhaul—and we can show you how to do it with the newest version of Google Analytics (GA). GA4 comes with tons of new custom reporting features and advanced capabilities previously only available to paid users. That includes the ability to use more custom dimensions to build detailed reports on customer behavior. One of the more helpful reports we recommend using is behavior reports. They allow you to see what customers are doing once they make it to your store, and what they do when they're at the checkout. Plus, setting these reports up in GA4 only takes a few minutes, as you'll see in our how-to video on creating shopping and checkout behavior reports. https://blog.littledata.io/2022/07/01/how-to-build-customer-behavior-reports-in-google-analytics-4/ [subscribe]

Creating and delivering a memorable subscription experience is a must in today’s competitive ecommerce subscription market. Not only is the market competitive, but the ecommerce subscription model is growing. It's estimated that 54% of online shoppers have subscribed to an ecommerce subscription box. Every touchpoint that a subscriber sees and engages with is an opportunity for your brand to impress your subscribers and drive a lasting impression. Building a strong subscriber experience will help your ecommerce subscription business in a number of areas, including: Growing your brand loyalty. It is estimated that existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more on average compared to new customers. By creating a powerful brand experience, you instill trust in your brand with subscribers, leading to more loyalty. Differentiating your offer. A generic subscriber experience does little to separate you from the thousands of other competing brands. By creating an engaging subscription experience, you stand out from the crowd and become memorable. Driving growth. By deploying a beautiful, frictionless subscription experience for your subscribers, you make it easier for them to shop with you. Thus, you're driving the growth that you need to take your business to the next level. While working on bringing an ecommerce subscription model to life and building out an experience may seem time-consuming and costly, it is actually just the opposite. Apps like Upscribe help your subscription business deliver a great customer experience and grow through out-of-the-box tools (more on that later). Here are four tips that you can follow to deploy a beautiful, memorable customer experience that drives brand loyalty and growth. 1. Match your subscription experience to your “regular” shopping experience When building an ecommerce subscription experience, you want to make certain what you're creating is connected to the rest of your brand's overall shopping experience. A disjointed experience could create confusion and friction in the eyes of the customer, hindering your ability to convert sales and drive brand loyalty. A mismatched subscription vs. one-off purchasing experience could lead to a few challenges for your brand, including: A decrease in the number of customers signing up for your subscription offering. Consumers could be confused as to what brand they are shopping with or may encounter friction going through the checkout process if the subscription experience feels different than the “regular” checkout process they're accustomed to. Increased churn. The enemy of any ecommerce subscription model is churn. If you're deploying a fragmented customer experience that makes it challenging for a subscriber to get what they want when they want it—they're more likely to churn from your subscription offering too. Less brand advocacy. If your ecommerce subscription model is delivering a sub-par experience, your subscribers will be less loyal to your brand and will be far less likely to tell their family and friends about it. Referrals play a large factor in growing your revenue, as it is estimated that customers acquired through referrals have a 37% higher retention rate than those acquired through other mediums. Having a brand that drives a high number of referrals puts less strain on your acquisition funnel which saves your brand valuable budget. Creating an ecommerce subscription model for your business may seem daunting, but it's actually rather easy to do. Assuming that you have an existing ecommerce business, you don’t need to build an entirely new website when adding a subscription model to it. Think of creating a subscription model the same way that you would think about adding a new product. Make sure that new product is part of the brand that you have built and that purchasing the new product (or in this case the subscription) follows the same process and path as purchasing any other item on your site does. The more connected your experiences are, the more seamless it will be for your existing customers to become subscribers. [tip]Learn how to track subscriptions in the Shopify checkout and improve the shopping experience for your customers.[/tip] 2. Build an on-brand customer portal As a fast follow to creating a connected experience, the subscriber customer portal that you deploy must match your brand aesthetics. This includes adding your brand's fonts, colors, and logos. We don't advise deploying a customer portal that has a different look and feel than the rest of your website experience. If you go down this path, it will negatively impact your brand loyalty as subscribers will be confused about what your brand looks and feels like. Creating an on-brand subscriber portal allows you another opportunity to build brand recognition and drive loyalty by enforcing what your brand looks and feels like. Plus, creating this on-brand customer portal for your ecommerce subscription business is relatively straightforward. As an example, by leveraging Upscribe's WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor, a merchant can easily select their brand colors, logos, and fonts to deploy a beautiful customer experience in a matter of minutes. No need to worry about complicated, time consuming and costly coding customizations to the portal. Because Upscribe was built from a subscriber's perspective, all of the tools in the Upscribe tool kit are designed to make merchants look professional and save time. [tip]Discover 3 ways to better your subscription sales through a combination of the right strategies and tools.[/tip] 3. Make the subscription experience frictionless While aesthetics are important and highly visible, it’s just as important that the actual subscription experience is as frictionless as possible. Not only will this make subscribers' experience better—it also helps to reduce the customer support debt your team could face. We’ve all been locked out of an account or forgotten a password. In fact, a recent survey indicated that 65% of respondents will forget a password unless they write it down. Prevent this issue from happening in the first place by enabling Passwordless Login for subscribers in just a few clicks. Once enabled, when a subscriber wants to get into their account, they will get a secure email sent to their inbox and with a click they can login to their account, no password or headaches required. Similarly, it’s important that you meet subscribers where they are and let them manage their subscriptions directly from email or SMS. This reduces the friction of them needing to navigate complicated processes to add or edit a product in their subscription. Removing as many hurdles as possible so that buyers get what they want fast is the key to creating a frictionless and memorable experience. By implementing these tactics, you will be doing your part in creating a loyal and growing subscriber base. You'll also be more likely to see a jump in the metrics that matter most for your ecommerce subscription business, including average order value (AOV) and customer lifetime value (LTV) since you will be making it simple for your subscribers to add items to their subscription. [tip]Learn to leverage these metrics and more with our complete guide to subscription analytics.[/tip] 4. Leverage your data to deliver subscribers smart recommendations Whether you use Klaviyo or another email service provider, customer data is more readily available than ever. However, it is not enough just to have access to the data. It’s important that you use your customers' data to deliver smarter, more personalized recommendations to them to make their subscription experience better. Doing so will not only grow your business, it will make your subscribers more loyal. Here are a few examples of ways you could engage with your subscribers to deliver them a more personalized and memorable experience: Send them a message on the anniversary of the first time they purchased a subscription from your brand. This small engagement point can go a long way in making a subscriber feel special and is a great way to differentiate your ecommerce subscription model from other competitors. Provide subscribers a discount on an item that goes well with their subscription. For example, if they subscribe to receive a pound of coffee every month, send them a coupon for a new coffee mug. In the message with the promotion, talk about how the mug is the perfect accessory to go along with their coffee. Give subscribers access to an exclusive pre-sale only for subscribers. This will not only make them feel wanted and special, but it will also give you the opportunity to increase subscriber LTV—a metric that every ecommerce subscription business is after. These touchpoints and sample engagement tactics are ways to show your subscribers that they matter. Even better, they allow you to prove to them that they aren’t just another “one” of your customers. These tactics are simple to try, but go a long way in building your brand, developing loyalty, and creating an experience that subscribers won't forget. Creating a memorable experience that fosters loyalty from subscribers and charges your ecommerce subscription experience has never been easier than with Upscribe. Upscribe gives you all of the tools that you need to grow your subscriber business and deploy a beautiful customer experience in a matter of clicks. Dan is the Marketing Lead at Upscribe. Prior to Upscribe, he spent time at Klaviyo and Shopify. When he is not working, he likes to run, golf and work on his side hustle business, a sock brand named Neon Bandits.

Going multichannel is an important step for any growing ecommerce business. Whether you start on Shopify, Etsy, BigCommerce, or your own direct-to-consumer store, diversifying to other channels allows you to spread risk, find new markets, meet new customers, and secure your business against changing platform requirements. At the same time, that diversification can introduce a nightmare of logistics issues. Selling through multiple channels can mean overselling, needing overstock to prevent overselling, and other warehousing issues. You might quickly find that your job changes from store manager to warehouse manager. Taking steps to streamline the process will save you time, reduce inventory management headaches, and ensure your customers have a consistent and positive experience – no matter which channel they buy from. In this article, we’ll talk about leveraging outsourced solutions, mastering your distributed order management data, and other fulfillment best practices. [tip]Related reading: 4 tips for Shopify Plus merchants selling internationally.[/tip] Leverage outsourced solutions As your ecommerce store scales, you’ll have to make a decision between investing in inventory and order fulfillment infrastructure or outsourcing it. For most small-to-midsize stores, outsourcing is the way to go. It’s cheaper thanks to economies of scale, faster thanks to enhanced efficiency, and scalable thanks to wider warehouse networks. Many ecommerce organizations don’t have the budget or the resources to set up a fulfillment and distribution network. Relying on a partner that specializes in fulfillment enables you to quickly leverage infrastructure to enable the kind of fast, traceable, and reliable order fulfillment your customers want. Third-party logistics providers Third-party logistics (or 3PLs) include a range of services—all basically amounting to paying for logistics as a service. Often, this includes warehousing, pick and pack, fulfillment, and returns handling. 3PL providers may also maintain a network of geographically distributed warehouses, allowing them to ship products from closer to the point of order. In other cases, they’ll use their own shipping networks as well. 3PLs also offer other advantages, like: Existing warehouse management software and infrastructure Shipping volumes high enough to offer negotiated postage rates from shipping providers Integrated order tracking with automated pick and pack and warehousing management Affordable packaging and labeling capabilities The ability to meet packaging requirements per channel – e.g., Amazon boxes for Amazon sales and Walmart boxes for Walmart sales. Of course, not all 3PL offer the same services. Not every provider will offer a good trade-off between control of inventory and costs. However, you can research and choose an option that suits your business well. How to find the right fulfillment partner Your fulfillment partner should be a partner to your organization. This means they should be able to adapt and make changes for your business, should meet all existing needs, and should have a growth plan in line with your own. In addition, you’ll want to look for: A warehouse management or inventory management system that integrates into your own software solutions AND sales platforms Order tracking capabilities in every market you sell in Support for features/offerings you need (geographic locations, type of inventory, certifications, returns, etc.) Flexible order fulfillment options (so you can offer different types of shipping, different packaging, etc.) Packaging and labeling options (for custom branding, packaging inserts, discounts, return labels, etc.) Data-driven inventory management/analytics (so you can see costs, rate of sale, inventory flow, etc., to better inform your own inventory automation and planning You’ll also want to look for an organization that is communicative, able to respond to your growth, able to adapt features to meet your needs, and otherwise able to be a partner rather than solely seeing your business as another revenue stream. [tip]Littledata provides accurate and deep analytics on every aspect of your store, from the customer journey through to fulfillment and subscription order tracking.[/tip] Marketplace fulfillment solutions In addition to 3PLs, many marketplaces provide their own fulfillment solutions exclusively for purchases made on their platforms. Of these, the most popular comes from Amazon. Fulfillment by Amazon Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is Amazon’s in-house logistics service, which operates globally and is famous for lightning-fast delivery speeds. In addition to excellent customer experience, FBA provides advantages when selling on Amazon. Quality guarantees, boosts to product visibility in search, Amazon returns, and the ability to easily expand to a global market are just some of the benefits. For example, FBA listings can get the Prime badge, indicating the fast fulfillment speeds that consumers look for. However, whereas many 3PLs can accept shipments directly from your manufacturer or provider, Amazon has specific packaging and labeling requirements, so you’ll still have to be hands-on about FBA prep. Master your inventory management While a 3PL will cover fulfillment, you’ll still have to stay on top of inventory and order management. Doing so means adopting good software, deciding on an order management system, and optimizing that over the long term. While there are many options for managing inventory across multiple sales channels, you’ll normally either have to choose between splitting that inventory or using software to synchronize sales in as close to real-time as possible. To split or not to split inventory Splitting inventory is the process of creating a separate inventory or stock per channel you sell on. In some cases, this can be a good idea. For example, if you make sales on Amazon using FBA, you might run into FBA stock limits, especially during the fourth quarter. In addition, stockout events could harm your listing. Plus, if you don’t utilize Amazon’s multi-channel fulfillment solution, FBA only ships to Amazon. In this case, retaining at least some stock to ship from your own warehouse or another provider would be a good idea. You can sell at a higher volume than FBA allows – while preventing selling out of product. In most other cases, it doesn’t make sense to maintain separate inventory pools for each channel you sell on. Separate inventory pools increase costs, add overhead cost calculating delivery per channel, and increase complexity—aka the likelihood of things going wrong. For example, if your product sells more quickly on Walmart Marketplace than eBay, your product could sell out on Walmart. You’d lose sales while more inventory sits, unused, in your warehouse. Similarly, if you’re splitting inventory, you have to buy for peak sales across all channels – meaning you’ll overstock. If something goes wrong or the product loses popularity, you’ll be stuck with a lot more dead stock. For this reason, split inventory is generally avoided unless it has a practical purpose, like trialing a new channel or supplementing FBA. Utilize distributed order management software Distributed order and inventory management software is built to handle the needs of multichannel sales. Often, that means automation that uses API to synchronize inventory across channels – so sales show up in your central inventory management near real-time as possible. Here, tools like Flxpoint offer centralized product and inventory management complete with order fulfillment processes, automation, and data integration for both suppliers and sales platforms. Flxpoint also offers custom price points, categories, and product descriptions per channel, distributed order management to automatically select the warehouse nearest to the customer, and purchase order management with automation linked to total product stock. Tools like this allow you to track sales across channels – ensuring that you don’t oversell – by synchronizing and automating data import/export. When a product sells on Amazon, it updates the central inventory via API, which is then pushed out to update available inventory on all other channels. So, available inventory is always up to date. That same centralization also adds value in direct fulfillment, where orders are pulled into a centralized system and can be managed in one place. Even if you’re running your own warehouse, you can see everything in one location, making it less likely that you’d miss sales going through a less-busy channel. Eventually, that improves your full order fulfillment process, allowing you to get in control of incoming/outgoing, stock, and actual sales data across every channel. Keep an eye on sales trends A good order fulfillment solution and good inventory management software will solve most of the problems you might have with multichannel inventory management. However, there’s always room to improve by auditing sales and acting on predictive trends to optimize your logistics. Audit your sales regularly. Taking the time to understand where sales are actually happening can help you to optimize your warehousing and order fulfillment options. For example, if you know that one product most often sells on Amazon, you could move it to FBA. If you rarely sell it on Amazon, moving it out of FBA could save you significantly while improving your Inventory Turnover rating. If you know where sales are coming from, you can optimize fulfillment for that channel, that geographic location, and more. [tip]Tracking sales trends is easier when you have the right tools, like Segment's robust data reporting source which reports sales data along with detailed insights.[/tip] Invest in a cohesive buyer experience While many channels don’t require that you offer fast shipping, it’s important to offer a cohesive experience across every channel. Customers often research and look up brands across multiple channels. If you offer free 2-day shipping with Amazon Prime, most customers will choose that unless you also offer free 2-day shipping on your other website. That holds true for other aspects of fulfillment like shipping options, free shipping thresholds, customer service offerings, return offerings and other aspects. These should be as cohesive as possible across every platform you sell on – because you’re building a brand not just meeting platform requirements. Wrapping up – streamline your multi-channel fulfillment for better results Ultimately, the key to good multichannel order fulfillment is having all of your inventory management in one place, having good infrastructure with which to support that, and ensuring you have traceability between orders and delivery on every platform. Utilizing a 3PL partner and implementing multichannel inventory management software will get you most of the way there – however, you’ll still want to invest in data management so you can make smarter decisions with that centralized data. Rachel Go is a content marketer and strategist at Flxpoint, an enterprise ecommerce operations platform. Flxpoint enables merchants and brands to unify and automate every aspect of your ecommerce operations, and scale without manual processes or custom development slowing you down.

Subscription selling has taken over the collective focus of ecommerce selling in the past couple of years. Yes, the pandemic accelerated our newfound obsession with getting products delivered regularly right to our doors. But, in truth, this boom had been brewing long before now. Whether you're brand new to the subscription ecommerce business or a veteran looking for ways to get a new edge, we have three blog posts to help you better your subscription sales. Tracking Subscriptions in Shopify Checkout: Everything You Need to Know Ah, the mighty checkout. It's where the most important part of the shopping experience happens—and where you as a store owner get rewarded for all your hard work. A lot goes into creating the best checkout experience, especially if you're selling by subscription. The best way to ensure you're getting the most out of your checkout is data-driven decision-making. So to help you out, we broke down the most common questions merchants have about tracking subscriptions in the checkout. The post has everything you need to know, including: Why Shopify moved to a unified checkout The state of subscription ecommerce Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) in the subscription industry Tracking subscriptions in the Shopify checkout Subscription apps supported by Littledata https://blog.littledata.io/2021/09/02/tracking-subscriptions-in-shopify-checkout/ How to take a "Smartrr" approach to subscriptions The subscription ecommerce industry's growth is nothing short of staggering. With sales on pace to hit $246 billion in worth by 2025, it's no wonder there are so many merchants entering the arena. Before you can grab your slice of the subscription ecommerce pie, you need to follow the right strategies to build a dependable customer base and get the recurring revenue flowing. To get you started on the right foot, we called up our friend, Smartrr Founder and CEO Gabriella Yitzhaek Tegen. She's seen it all when it comes to subscription businesses of many sizes. In our Lunch with Littledata interview, she broke down how merchants can best retain customers, what the future of subscriptions holds, and how to leverage data to become a subscription-selling superstar. https://blog.littledata.io/2022/03/21/lunch-with-littledata-smartrr/ How to win with subscription selling on BigCommerce Customer retention is key to the success of any ecommerce merchant. For subscription sellers relying on recurring revenue, however, it’s essential. If you're using BigCommerce as your ecommerce platform, we have just the guide you need to drive strong recurring revenue and win repeat business. It starts with having the right sales tools in your tech stack—so to walk you through the setup you need, our friends at ReCharge put together a post on how to win big with subscription selling on BigCommerce. https://blog.littledata.io/2022/02/11/how-to-win-with-subscription-selling-on-bigcommerce/ [tip]Looking to do an audit of your tech stack to optimize for subscription selling? Chat with one of our analytics experts to see where you can improve your setup[/tip]