In a month of grim news, we have some good news to share. Whoever you are, wherever you are, we think everyone deserves to make data-driven decisions We're excited to announce that we've extended Littledata's free trial from 14 days to 30 days. 🎉 The 30-day free trial is available to any Shopify merchant on any plan -- Shopify Plus? Multi-country setup? Selling by subscription? We've got you covered. Successful brands use Littledata to know the real return on their advertising spend (ROAS), calculate customer lifetime value (LTV or CLV), get complete marketing attribution, and much more. So as companies around the world move online and need to make data-driven decisions quickly, we're here for you. With the free trial, you can: Fix your Shopify tracking automatically: With just a few clicks, you'll see accurate data in Segment or Google Analytics within 24 hours. No more data discrepancies between Shopify and GA! Set up any number of connections: Add connections to track CartHook funnels, ReCharge subscription ecommerce, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and more, with our full range of connections and integrations. Get support from an analytics expert: We started as Google Analytics consultants and we're always here to help. Choose the plan that's right for you and your business, and get help with everything from data audits to custom setup, analytics training and GTM support. (And yes, we offer support during free trials!) Getting started with the trial You can get started here. After clicking Start Your Free Trial, you'll be brought to a sign up page to create your account. From there, just a few quick steps before accurate data starts flowing: Connect your Google Analytics account Connect Shopify to Google Analytics You're all set. Welcome to accurate Shopify tracking! If you have questions, get in touch with our team of Google Analytics consultants. We're here to help! Using Shopify and Segment? If you're looking for a way to send Shopify ecommerce data to your Segment workspace, you're in luck. Over the past year, we worked closely with Segment to create the ultimate tracking solution for Shopify stores. Our Segment connection is now available to all Shopify merchants, and we've extended the 30-day free trial to the Segment app for Shopify too. Connect Shopify to Segment with a free trial today. Selling by subscription? If you're selling products by subscription, you'll be pleased to know that the extended free trial includes unlimited access to our top-rated subscription ecommerce tracking tools. Use Littledata's ReCharge connection or Bold Subscriptions integration to fix your data today. Why wait? It's the most advanced solution on the market for Shopify stores that want to track recurring payments and subscription products -- yet remarkably simple to set up, and powerful from the get-go. Start your free trial today. Stay home. Stay calm. And say hello to accurate data! [subscribe]

Even if you only run one business, that doesn’t mean you should only have one Shopify store.  Indeed, there are many reasons why you may want to start using multiple Shopify stores for your business: Remove obstacles from the buying process: If you have a large inventory, customers may need to navigate through cluttered menus or click through multiple category pages before they can find the product they want and place their order. Breaking your inventory up into different stores removes friction from this process and makes it easier for customers to purchase products from you. Create a personalized experience: If you sell to many different areas, developing a unique online storefront for each location allows you to create a more personalized experience for your customers. By peppering the sales copy on your sites with local references and colloquialisms, you’ll be able to catch the visitor’s attention and stand out from the competition.  Improve SEO: With the more streamlined and personalized experience that the multi-store approach provides, customers are encouraged to stay for longer periods of time. The average amount of time visitors spend on your site carries a lot of weight in search engine algorithms, so this should make your business more visible online.  But, there are challenges to managing multiple stores as well. We’ll show you how to overcome these challenges and use a multi-store approach to improve customer experience, increase traffic and make more sales.  Top challenges of managing multiple Shopify stores Perhaps the biggest drawback to the multi-store approach is that it makes managing your inventory and orders more difficult. Customers placing orders on the same pool of items from different sources can lead to confusion, delays and errors.  Another issue is that manually creating multiple sites and duplicating content when necessary can be a very time-consuming process. This is more than just frustrating — it pulls you away from all the other tasks you must complete to keep your business running smoothly.  Top Apps for Managing Multiple Stores The two challenges described above can both be addressed with a quick trip to the Shopify App Store.  With the SKULabs and Shogun add-ons, managing inventory and content for multiple stores is much easier.  SKULabs The SKULabs dashboard is designed to be especially intuitive and help users keep track of their inventory, orders and shipments for multiple channels. If you use solutions other than Shopify to sell your products (Amazon, eBay, etc.), SKULabs allows you to review the activity of those channels and your multiple Shopify stores all from the same place.  Other notable SKULabs features include low inventory alerts for preventing stockouts and barcode scanning for fast and human error-free inventory data entry.  Image source: Shopify Shogun Anyone can use Shogun’s large library of web-building elements and drag-and-drop interface to quickly create their own custom landing pages, product pages and blog posts. Shogun also has a Sync feature that’s quite useful for multiple stores — with Sync, you can copy a page from one store to another with just a single click.    Image source: Shogun Multi-store Shopify best practices In addition to taking advantage of these apps, you should keep the following best practices in mind when managing multiple stores: Consolidate customer support: Just as it helps to manage all your inventory from the same place, it helps to manage customer support for multiple stores from the same place, too. That way, it’s easier to monitor performance and ensure there are no support tickets slipping through the cracks.  Analyze your audience and discover new niches: Google Analytics andsimilar reporting tools can tell you a lot about the people who visit your store. With this information, you can determine which groups of people make up your core audience. If you’re popular with a certain group, you should consider creating a version of your store that’s designed just for them.  Pay attention to SEO: To make the most of the multi-store approach’s SEO benefits, be sure to include the keywords associated with each version of your store (for example, “California dry cleaning” might be targeted by a national dry cleaning service’s California site) in headings, page titles, image alt descriptions and any other area that’s picked up by search engine algorithms.  Managing Multiple Stores for Multiple Countries A multi-store approach is especially effective for businesses that attract a large amount of interest from international buyers.  Seventy-five percent of consumers who don’t speak English prefer to buy products in their native language, and 59% rarely or never make purchases on English-only stores.  There are many tools available for automatically translating the language used on your site to whatever’s used in the browser settings of the visitor. This is convenient, but these translations often contain errors. Machine translations may be mostly accurate — they just can’t process the context that’s required to get everything right.  While it does take more time and effort to develop manually translated versions of your site for the different regions you serve, this will provide a better experience for non-English speaking visitors and help you generate more international sales.  CRO Tips for Shopify and Shopify Plus Setting up multiple Shopify stores is an excellent method for conversion rate optimization (CRO). Using the following techniques will increase your conversion rate as well: Optimize for mobile: Since 2016, mobile devices have been a more popular way to browse the internet than desktop computers. If your site isn’t fully responsive, which means it automatically adjusts to the type of device that’s used by the visitor, you’re missing out on many potential conversions.  Maintain performance: Most visitors will only wait a few seconds for your site to load before they move on to one of their other options. Mobile users are particularly impatient — the majority of them will only wait three seconds for your site to load. High-end performance allows you to keep people on your site long enough to make conversions. Offer free shipping: The most attractive offer you can make to potential customers is free shipping. In fact, simply shifting the shipping fee to the price of the product in order to offer free shipping should lead to a significant improvement in your conversion rate.  By combining a multi-store approach with the above CRO techniques, you can jumpstart your conversion rate and set your business up for both short-term and long-term success. Shopify tracking for ecommerce success Of course, CRO is no good if you're not consistently tracking what's working (and what isn't). Luckily, Littledata's Google Analytics app fixes your Shopify tracking automatically, so you have accurate marketing attribution and shopping behavior at your fingertips (including ecommerce events like adds to cart, removes from cart, checkouts and more). You'll also get full access to data audits and ecommerce benchmarks so you can know exactly where your store stands among the competition.   Adam Ritchie is a writer based in Silver Spring, Maryland. He writes about ecommerce trends and best practices for Shogun. His previous clients include Groupon, Clutch and New Theory.

In the wake of COVID-19, things in the ecommerce world are hanging in balance. We've been encouraged by businesses and agencies in the Shopify ecosystem stepping up to pool their resources and talents to help more vulnerable store owners (e.g. see how Shopify is helping, as well as Offline2On, an initiative we're involved with at Littledata). But, since we're analysts at heart, we wanted to take a closer look at recent sales trends among Shopify stores to see the impact COVID-19 is actually having on shopping behavior. Shopping behavior during COVID-19 While some stores have seen a surge of shopping activity and orders, others have struggled to match their normal volume. With no end in sight to the global pandemic, many shoppers are choosing to be frugal with non-essential spending. To find out how many Shopify stores were either surging or struggling to stay afloat, we broke down the data, week over week, from Q1 2020 (8 weeks total). We focused on: Order volume Average order value (AOV) We chose these metrics in particular because they're two of the strongest indicators of overall shopping behavior. [note]See how Littledata is responding to COVID-19 to help ecommerce sites survive and thrive during the crisis.[/note] We sampled 200 Shopify stores from across 5 different industries: Beauty Food and drink Health and fitness Pets Style and fashion But before we drill down data by industry, let's look at ecommerce as a whole. Global ecommerce trends and observations While global ecommerce has experienced an increase in order volume over the past 2 months, you can see the recent, steady decline in AOV during the same period (though it has mostly remained unchanged since Feb). It's possible the spike in order volume is due to social distancing, as country after country institutes their own version of stay-at-home orders. Interestingly, AOV's decline could be due to shoppers squeezing their wallets a bit tighter during the pandemic. With uncertainty looming in just about every area of life, some marketers believe shoppers are more reluctant to spend more per order; they're mostly sticking to "essential" purchases. Shopify order volume & AOV by industry The first graph below shows change in order volume by industry. The second graph illustrates changes by average order value, also segmented by industry. Beauty From the middle of February to now, the beauty industry seems to have leveled out in terms of orders. This is a pretty standard showing for beauty, which does not seem to be drastically affected by COVID-19 so far. The beauty industry's AOV may have seen an early drop, but has been steady since. Food and drink Food and drink likely experienced the rise in order volume the past few weeks due a the surge of worrisome shoppers; global uncertainty about the pandemic means grocery stores and supermarkets were packed for weeks as people stocked up as much as possible. Many subscription boxes (and meal replacement brands such as Soylent and Huel) have also seen a surge in order volume. However, the industry has hit a steep decline in the week since. A slight increase in order value overall, but nothing alarming or surprising here. Health and fitness Similar to food and drink, health and fitness saw a spike in AOV a few weeks ago that has since led to a steady decline. With no end in sight to the pandemic, this may continue as people opt to do their workouts at home and spend less on non-essential nutrition supplements and apparel. Pets Interestingly, the pets industry sank into a trough through most of February and March in terms of order volume, but has remained steady in terms of AOV. Style and fashion Style and fashion is looking like the "trendiest" industry (bad pun, I know) since early February, with a sudden spike in order volume (about a month ago) followed by a sudden drop. Style and fashion stores may see a resurgence soon, but it's too early to tell if this shopper behavior was due to COVID-19. As you can see, average order value has increased over the past few months in this space. So what's next? Over the next few months, we'll analyze the data from Q2 for a bigger picture of COVID-19's affect on Shopify stores. In the meantime, check out our benchmarks for Shopify stores and general website performance benchmarks. These tools are designed to help you gauge your site performance, as well as metrics like AOV, ecommerce conversion rate, mobile search bounce rate, server response time, and more. Stay tuned for new Shopify data analysis soon!

As a store owner, you’ve probably already heard the arguments for engaging returning visitors. You know that it costs 25 times more to win a new client than to win repeat business. You know that increasing customer retention by a mere 5% can boost your sales by 25% - 30%.  And you’ve also heard that returning visitors are more likely to add products to the cart, complete the purchase, and even spend more than first-time visitors.  The problem? How do you ensure that it all happens on your site? How do you engage returning visitors and convince them to continue buying from you?  [subscribe] In this guide, I’ll show you 5 strategies that will help you engage returning visitors and strengthen their connection with your store.  Before we dive in, let’s take a look at how Shopify stores typically engage visitors.  The state of visitor engagement on Shopify stores  Close to the end of 2018, we conducted a research study to identify the level of visitor engagement among Shopify stores.  We were pleasantly surprised that 62% of stores use at least one engagement strategy. Brilliant! The most popular strategies include popups, live chat, and social proof notifications.  But we also discovered that the majority of stores do not use these strategies to their full potential.  For example, 76% of the stores we researched fire off a popup immediately after a visitor lands on their site. At the same time, we know that timing and segmentation can multiply conversion rates and drive more signups.  Similarly, for many stores, a live chat is nothing but another customer service channel. Yet, those who use it as a sales tool tend to report better results and conversion rates.  To maximize your potential to convert returning visitors, try out these 5 strategies: Strategy #1. Acknowledge the returning visitor This is a simple trick that can drive conversions. When setting up your call to action, acknowledge the person’s return visit, and use it to engage them with your brand.  Medium, although not an ecommerce brand, does this wonderfully. Take a look at the popup example below. Note how candid the company is about its intentions. After all, since the visitor has been on the site before, why not openly ask them to create an account?  A similar strategy in ecommerce would involve creating a “Welcome back” popup, acknowledging the return visit and offering value to the visitor.  Strategy #2. Evoke the returning visitor’s curiosity When you think about it; engaging returning visitors is as challenging as ensuring that anyone visiting your site for the first time wants to buy from you.  Now, it’s true; returning visitors don’t feel anxious about buying from you anymore. But because they have bought from you before, it’s also harder to fire up their interest. At the same time, it’s that same interest that can keep them engaged with your store… Luckily, there is a way to do it – Evoke the shopper’s natural curiosity. You don’t have to do much to achieve it, either. Ask a returning visitor about themselves, for example. This will naturally make the person’s antennas go up. They might think whether you’re asking because you know something about them they don’t know. And that natural curiosity will engage them with your offer.  (Note, whether they’ll convert will rely on the offer, of course. But the curiosity will get them to notice.) Here’s a popup using this strategy to get a visitor to read the rest of the offer.  Strategy #3. Create special offers for returning visitors only Another powerful strategy. This one, however, relies on you showing returning visitors how much you care about them and their repeat business.  In this strategy, the goal is to engage those visitors by rewarding them for their loyalty.  How, by creating an offer - a discount, typically - that applies to them only, and rewards them for their subsequent purchase.  PureCycles, for example, displays a popup offering a hefty 15% discount for the next purchase.  But your offer doesn’t have to involve discounts, of course. At Wisepops, we've found offers to attract the highest engagement. Still, you could offer access to exclusive product lines before anyone else is able to purchase those. Or even the ability to purchase products that will never be released to the public store.  The key is to offer returning visitors something unique for them, something they can’t get unless they do come back to the site over and over again.  Strategy #4. Run a contest aimed at returning visitors Contests are one of the most popular ways of engaging visitors. They’re fun, promise getting something in return, and offer you a chance of your brand going viral.  But what if you run a contest designed for returning visitors only? What if you advertise it as such, and present it only to people who visit your site for the nth time?  I’d imagine they’d be quite intrigued by the concept (and engage with it immediately, at that.) Native, who uses Littledata's Google Analytics connection, ran this time-limited contest on their site, promoted with a clever Shopify popup.   Strategy #5. Show returning visitors the downside of not buying from you The final strategy works particularly well on visitors who tend to sit on their purchase. Instead of completing it, they add products to the cart, then wander off, contemplating their next action.  It happens all the time, sadly.  One way to engage them and gently “push” towards the sale is by showing the downside of not acting now.  Gaiam, for example, uses a simple scare tactic. The site tells visitors how popular a product is (one the shopper is thinking about buying), and how likely it is to sell out before they get it.  Many hotels and travel sites use a similar strategy to convince visitors to act now in a similar way. They display the current interest in a given property or a room to evoke fear in visitors and push them to act. Trust your Shopify tracking This isn't technically in the top 5 strategies, but it's perhaps the most crucial part of the shopper re-engagement process. Tracking your returning visitors tells you exactly which of your marketing channels are working (and which are not), which campaigns are converting, and the re-engagement methods (email campaigns, etc.) that work best for your store. Without proper tracking, you're stabbing in the dark. Unfortunately, many Shopify merchants rely on the broken tracking of Shopify's native analytics or the incomplete attribution in Google Analytics. Have you experienced these data discrepancies between Shopify and GA? They can be extremely frustrating, especially since they have a negative impact on your decision-making. [note]Here's why your Shopify data doesn't match what you see in Google Analytics[/note] Luckily, Littledata provides an ideal solution. Their Shopify app, which automatically fixes your tracking. That means accurate data for shopper behavior, marketing attribution and more. [tip]Get a full month of accurate data — try Littledata free for 30 days[/tip] Not to mention, the app offers daily data audits and ecommerce benchmarks, so you can know exactly how your store stacks up against similar products. Wrapping up Returning visitors offer an incredible business opportunity. They are far more likely to buy and spend more on their purchases at that.   However, to increase those repeat purchases, you need to engage returning visitors and keep them close to your brand.  All that’s left is to start implementing the ones you liked the most in your store.  Good luck!   This is a guest post by Greg d’Aboville, Head of Growth at WisePops, a popup app. Greg has helped major brands like Fender, Nissan, and Skechers maximize lead generation strategies and 10X their results.

In a past post, we shared a similar post about the top 6 coffee brands using ReCharge for Shopify.  This time around, we'll take a look at some top subscription fashion and beauty brands running on Shopify and using ReCharge to manage their subscriptions. If you run a subscription store and don't use ReCharge, check out some of the benefits of the Shopify ReCharge connection. As we mentioned in that post, ReCharge helps Shopify and Shopify Plus merchants sell and manage subscriptions with ease. [tip]Learn about our new ReCharge v2 connection, which tracks your subscription lifecycle events automatically[/tip] When you connect ReCharge to your store, you’ll see ReCharge’s full feature set at work — track a variety of subscription types, including single product, mixed cart & entire cart subscriptions.  Why connect ReCharge with Shopify? Whether you're an agency, ecommerce manager, marketing manager or part of a development team, the ReCharge and Shopify APIs allow you to: Customize the checkout experience for customers Personalize how those customers manage their subscriptions Automate product discount codes Order cancellation processes or updated pricing on select items And that’s just scratching the surface. Installing ReCharge on your store also means orders are processed faster (thanks to an increased API call limit). [note]Littledata’s Google Analytics app is designed for better subscription ecommerce, including accurate tracking for marketing attribution and checkout steps.[/note] According to McKinsey, the ecommerce market has grown over 100 percent per year  over the last three years, with 60% of those subscriptions purchased by women. 31% of millennials are also currently subscribed to a subscription box, and that number is expected to rise. According to Shopify, revenue for fashion ecommerce will rise from $481.2 billion to $712.9 billion by 2022. But while fashion and beauty brands continue to soak up every ounce of consumers' preference to shop online, the online fashion market has become extremely saturated, especially as brands use influencer marketing and focus their advertising efforts on Instagram. Let’s take a look at 6 of the top beauty brands on Shopify making a splash in the online subscription world. Keep in mind, these brands have found success using ReCharge to manage their subscriptions.  From sustainable beauty products to personalized subscription beauty boxes, the market is filled with options for consumers — there's something for everyone. 1) Kopari Beauty Kopari Beauty is a California-based beauty brand specializing in coconut oil-based skincare products. Kopari launched its store in 2015 and have taken the beauty world by storm. The company uses 100% pure, organic coconut oil sustainably sourced from farms in the Philippines. Their products are paraben-free, cruelty-free, sulfate-free, phthalate-free, and vegan.  2) Ellie Activewear A Littledata customer, Ellie Activewear is an active wear brand tailored to women through their online lifestyle Shopify store. This subscription box has a focus on self-love with outfits that promote confidence so women can love the skin they are in. Ellie delivers high-quality activewear right to your door, so you can "smile with the time you save and feel good about what you’re wearing."  3) Box of Style Another Littledata customer, Box of Style is backed behind the fashion powerhouse Rachel Zoe.  The American fashion designer, celebrity stylist and reality TV star launched this box in 2018 and it’s taken off since. Their store lets shoppers go through a preference list before shipping out subscription beauty boxes, carefully curated to fit each customer's style. 4) Laurel and Reed Laurel and Reed deliver a subscription beauty box filled with all natural and non-toxic beauty products. The founder started the company after her father was diagnosed with cancer with the goal to provide products that are clean. They want their customers to have beautiful skin from products that are not loaded with chemicals. You get to choose the plan you want whether that’s 1x/3x/6x/12x or a one time not renewing box. You’ll receive 3 full size products that total to $100+.  5) Vegamour Vegamour is a plant-based beauty brand that specializes in brows, eyelashes, and hair growth. This clean beauty brand has been featured in Allure and InStyle and offers a starter kit  so that you can try the products before committing to full size products. 6) Luxe Catch Luxe Catch is a fashionista subscription box that packs a new surprise each month, each with hand picked designer items. Customers fill out a style profile that helps cater items to each customer items. Luxe Catch fills boxes with designer wear from popular brands. The boxes begin at $50 ($200 value) and $250 ($1000 value).  Track your subscription data with accuracy If you’re confused as to how the connection works (and which subscription events you can track), don’t worry — there's an ebook for that! Download it for free.  ReCharge is a terrific Shopify app that will save you countless hours by automating and managing your subscription lifecycle from start to finish. If you’re a subscription store and you haven’t tried ReCharge v2, we highly encourage you to give it a go!

The subscription ecommerce market has an estimated worth of $12B-$15Bn. What’s more, 2018 was the year in which the highest amount of capital was invested into subscription box businesses. Fast-paced growth and yet-to-be-discovered niches attract numerous big retailers and new market entrants. To stay ahead of the competition, you must utilize pricing power to the fullest extent. Luckily, we’ve gathered four pricing optimization strategies for your Shopify store. But before jumping into that, let's figure out why the subscription business model is attractive to online retailers as well as shoppers. [subscribe] What makes people subscribe? People have recurring needs. Instead of shopping for everyday products over and over, they use subscription services that deliver everyday needs to their doorstep. While big retailers apply this model mostly on consumer goods, an increasing number of SMBs utilize it to send subscribers a selection of enjoyable lifestyle products to be discovered. The lifestyle products range from a french press to a book, from candles to clothes, and so on. From a retailer point of view, this model reduces the risks arising from uncertainty. SMBs often have a hard time estimating business costs and profits accurately, whereas subscription stores do not face uncertainty problems thanks to their steady customer base and stable costs. [tip]Trust your subscription tracking with the ultimate ReCharge guide for Shopify[/tip] More and more retailers either switch to this model entirely or apply it on certain products in their assortment. So, what’s a good pricing strategy to outshine the competition? 1) Measure Willingness to Pay (WTP) Willingness to pay is the maximum amount of money people are willing to give up in exchange for your products. Before setting the price of a product, measure WTP. Charge a price in line with customer expectations to substantially increase the likelihood of purchase. Surveys are the easiest way of measuring WTP, and they grant you a chance to get to know your audience better. Ask the value-adding qualities of your service and find out customers’ pain points: "Please rank order the product features below according to the value you see in each" "Which product feature(s) do you think should be improved?" Keep up the good work and improve the negative aspects identified by customers. Perhaps more importantly, customers will be happy to know that their ideas are appreciated and taken seriously. It’ll increase the chance that they refer your subscription store to their friends, and referrals are far more effective than traditional marketing channels. In turn, offer referral discounts to enhance customer loyalty. Out of WTP research, you'll obtain multiple price points around which people are clustered. The following step is to utilize that data to divide your target audience into several segments. 2) Offer a variety of options and pricing Naturally, people differ in their WTP for a product. Now that you've segmented your audience based on shoppers' WTP, it's time to target each segment at different price points. For example, if you sell lifestyle subscription boxes like Birchbox, make boxes of varying quality and charge more for high-quality ones. Tiered pricing structure entices both price-sensitive and luxury customers to subscribe to your boxes. WTP changes over time, but it’s impossible to conduct WTP research frequently. Instead, test different price points to see if they yield better results. Note that even though fewer people buy luxury products, they can generate higher profits. Since high-end buyers don’t look for cheap prices, provide them a truly premium service quality. When it comes to commodity goods, however, no one wants to pay extra money for toothpaste. If your Shopify store specializes in everyday essentials, offer competitive prices. Which brings us to our next point... 3) Track competitor prices Millennials are financially worse off than older generations, and it's reflected in their shopping behavior. Price is the most influential factor  when US shoppers decide where to buy a product. Thanks to the transparency of online prices and ease of using comparison shopping engines, shoppers effortlessly find the cheapest deal for their everyday needs. The only way to appeal to a price-sensitive and tech-savvy audience is by offering the cheapest deals for commodity goods. That's why you have to track competitor prices. You can try manual tracking, but the results won't serve the purpose. By the time you finish collecting competitor prices, the data will be irrelevant. Prices change far more frequently than we could track manually. Another option is building an in-house pricing engine. Since it'll only belong to you, you can customize it according to your needs. The important thing to note here is that the software requires maintenance. You'll devote a lot of time and resources to software development, and the expenses will keep coming up. And finally, you can use pricing SaaS with a monthly fee. Your activity is limited to the standardized service the company offers, but you don't spend hours on software development and maintenance. It's more affordable than maintaining an in-house engine. 4) Make use of predictive analytics Predictive analytics is a technique to predict future outcomes based on historical and real-time customer data. What does it mean for a subscription ecommerce store? You know that customer retention is far more important than customer acquisition. Returning customers account for more than 40% of US revenue even though they make up only 8% of all online visitors. What does it have to do with predictive analytics, or pricing to start with? Costs increase over time. Since you can’t sell at a loss, you have to increase prices. But price increases come at a cost. It’s highly likely that a portion of your customers will leave when faced with a price increase. Before making major changes in your pricing structure, use predictive analytics to determine which customers/segments will likely to churn after an increase. Don’t alienate the most price-sensitive customer segments with an increase. A small profit is way better than no profit. Final Words Subscription ecommerce is gaining popularity among online retailers. To stay ahead of the competition, retailers must utilize the power of pricing. Implement these optimization strategies to gain and maintain a competitive edge: Measure Willingness to Pay and take it into account when pricing Provide multiple products at different price points to target each segment Track competitor prices Make use of predictive analytics And of course, track with accuracy – the data never lies, and tools like Littledata's Shopify app for Google Analytics (or Segment) also help optimize your pricing strategy. With better data, you can price better!   This is a guest post by Betül Parlak, Inbound Marketer at Prisync, which helps ecommerce companies increase sales by tracking prices automatically from any marketplace around the world.

At Littledata, we believe Google Analytics (GA) is one of the best free tools out there. Google Analytics is a great platform to access detailed data about your Shopify store’s user behaviour and sales performance. Regardless of your industry, as long as your Shopify store is in business, you need a platform where you can monitor your marketing performance and identify ways to increase your conversions.   Google Analytics is the one of the most popular analytics platforms for a few reasons: It’s free. It can show nearly any metric you want to track, straight out of the box. But with a lot of data comes a lot of complexity. Even for experienced analysts, Google Analytics can be a hurdle at times. Your Shopify data needs constant monitoring since it's the single biggest factor in your marketing and sales decisions. And who better to do that than proven Google Analytics consultants! [subscribe] What to expect from a GA expert A Google Analytics expert will (or should) always know what to look for and where to find it, even before opening GA.  Why? Because they’ve learned through experience to take the time and think through the data insights merchants need most. [tip]Here's what you should expect from a Google Analytics expert[/tip] On the other hand, if you’re taking the self-learning path and tackling GA by yourself, you’re really trying to achieve two things at the same time: become a web analyst and learn the GA platform. But are either of those time-efficient tasks to help grow your store? Probably not. Here's another thing: while a Google Analytics expert will help you make sense of your Shopify data, it's the digital implementation specialist who ensures you have the right Enhanced Ecommerce Conversion (EEC) data in your GA dashboard in the first place.  Whether your EEC tracking will be implemented via GTM or other tools, the end game is the same: Get me the correct data in GA. And for this, Shopify and Shopify Plus stores are in luck — Littledata automates the EEC tracking so you don’t have to. Why get an expert? If Littledata automates tracking, why is it necessary to hire an expert? For things like Day to day checks on basic metrics like revenue and transactions Basic campaign monitoring for Facebook Ads, Google Ads, etc. For the most part, you can do these on your own. But a tool like Littledata provides the raw data in Google Analytics for much more granular insights, and that’s where a GA expert will come in handy. Here's an example: With every transaction, Littledata accurately sends to Google Analytics a set of raw properties (e.g. Shopify CustomerID, TransactionID and campaign parameters).  For this data, a Google Analytics expert will be able to link the source or campaign path with customerID’s and transactionID’s in a custom report. This custom report will show the true return on ad spend (ROAS) based on different attribution models. Determining which conversions are linked to a first interaction or an assisted interaction will help you measure and optimize your marketing campaigns with more accuracy. [tip]Find out the real ROAS of your Facebook Ads for your Shopify store[/tip] Metrics that matter One of the main metrics marketers want to know is Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) per channel. If you get that right, you’ll know exactly where to increase your marketing spend. And in doing so, you’ll probably acquire more customers for about the same fixed budget.  A GA expert will be able to gather your (true) marketing costs from all your marketing campaigns over a given time period, and calculate the amounts by channel. This sounds easy, but things can get a bit more complicated when you're trying to find the CAC based on each attribution model. By now you should know your ROAS and CAC, but what about customer lifetime value (LTV)? In other words, you should know how much $$$ your marketing leads are spending with you, what your acquisition cost is per customer, and where to find the highest converting leads. But do you know how much time they are spending with your brand? Which channels are bringing the stickiest clients? Which channels bring the most repeat purchases (or subscriptions)? LTV is one of the most coveted metrics for ecommerce managers. A GA expert will help you calculate LTV by summing up the gross profit from all historic transactions for each individual customer, then splitting those conversions by channel and calculating the median for each.  And if you want things laid out for you in plain english, at Littledata we provide the necessary custom dimensions you need to accurately calculate LTV.  So what's the verdict? For Shopify merchants, Littledata is one of the best solutions to ensure reliable data for accurate marketing attribution and buyer behaviour. And since your Shopify store already needs fixing when it comes to data collection, an enterprise plan (with full support and a dedicated team of Google Analytics consultants) just may be an answer to your prayers.  With Littledata enterprise, get all the analytics support you’ll ever need, for a fraction of the cost to hire an experienced Google Analytics consultant. Get in touch with our team today to see how an enterprise plan can accelerate your path to scale! 🚀

We're at it again with another podcast episode! Following last year's appearences on Honest Ecommerce and Ecommerce Fastlane, we joined our friends at The Cut this time around. A few months ago, our team traveled to LA for #ChargeX, a conference for Shopify subscription businesses and agencies, hosted by our partners at ReCharge. [note]Check out our CEO's ReCharge talk on calculating LTV with accuracy[/note] Before heading to California, I joined The Shopify Dropify podcast, hosted by The Cut, a group of Shopify Experts and a creative agency based in Perth, Australia. Check out the 30 min podcast below. If you have questions about how how we can help your store get accurate data, be sure to get in touch with support or our team of Google Analytics experts. Main points How our Shopify app helps merchants measure the core metrics for your business, such as average order value (AOV), customer lifetime value (LTV), etc. The most common mistakes we see Shopify stores make Why it's vital to have complete, accurate tracking at each step of the buying funnel Differentiating first-time purchases from recurring purchases via our revamped ReCharge connection for subscription Shopify businesses How merchants using our Shopify ReCharge connection have been able to predict their subscription sales performance Where many Littledata customers find themselves in the path to scale The questions we get most often Why doesn't my Shopify data match what's in Google Analytics (or what's in my bank account)? How can I get advanced analytics support? The unique challenges we think ecommerce businesses face the most How ecommerce is (ironically) driving the re-opening of physical storefronts Data trends for Shopify stores (e.g. POS systems, pop-ups, new data touch points, etc.) The one thing we suggest merchants do right now to improve your store [tip]Try our Google Analytics app for Shopify free for 30 days[/tip]