Regardless of the industry or size of the organization, eCommerce reports are valuable tools for tracking and analyzing the performance and overall health of the enterprise by identifying new opportunities for improvement and growth of the business. Unfortunately, businesses often ignore reports so long as their revenue continues to increase. However, eCommerce reports offer several benefits and should never be overlooked.
What is an E-commerce Report?
First and foremost, eCommerce reports provide vital data on sales, finances, marketing, and all other information that needs to be monitored to make informed business decisions. As a result, they help make informed decisions for growing the sales and revenue while improving customer service. According to Data Box, 60% of people think that regularly monitoring Ecommerce reports for eCommerce business is vital, and 37.1% think that studying these reports is crucial.
E-commerce reports aim to provide an overview of how the e-commerce business performs within all spheres of an organization. E-commerce reports help business owners and senior managers get a better sense of what is happening in their organization.
These reports are created by compiling and reviewing the data within a certain functional area, such as finance, sales, operations, inventory control, or any other area in the e-commerce business. After the data is apprehended and analyzed, conclusions and recommendations can be made accordingly. ECommerce reports may also explain why a problem occurred, and general recommendations can be made as to what to do next!
What should an ECommerce Report consist of?
In an e-commerce business, different types of reports provide value for different functions, and a usual e-commerce report should surely consist of market analysis, trend analysis, and financial analysis. In addition, operational analysis and performance analysis will also provide insight into successful business performance. Therefore, a top-notch E-commerce report should consist of the following sub-reports:
Conversion Reports
The report shows how many people visited and completed a purchase on the e-commerce site. By having this information available, business owners can expand their business in multiple ways. Hence, conversion reports should be considered an opportunity for creating optimization and retention e-commerce strategies and improving the marketing tactics. Various metrics are used in conversion reports, including sales, average order value, time on site, bounce rate, etc.
From a conversion report, it can be identified which conversions are working and which are not. It helps to allocate resources efficiently, as it becomes easier to determine what is working and what isn’t.
Inventory Stock Reports
Reports related to inventory provide a company with information regarding how inventory is coming in and out of the warehouse. This information can be used to diagnose problems with performance, such as product loss, obsolescence, and dead stock.
Market Analysis Reports
Analysis of the market helps business owners assign their resources accordingly. For example, when a market analysis report shows increased growth for the upcoming year, the marketing budget will be increased. Hence, market analysis is an important aspect of the E-Commerce report.
Trend Analysis Reports
A trend analysis report identifies lucrative growth opportunities by examining the newest consumer preferences and demographic trends. They support long-term successful business development and enable businesses to have a market share ahead of their competition.
ROPO Analysis Report
The ROPO report, which analyses online and offline sales, is another essential piece of the Ecommerce Report. As per Simon Brisk from Click Intelligence, ROPO analysis is a popular report among eCommerce businesses that can even be employed to check whether advertising campaigns are worth the money!
Financial Reports
Companies generally regularly prepare financial reports to ensure they are on track to achieve revenue and profit targets. These reports highlight any variances in operating results compared to forecasts in the annual successful business plan. These reports can also validate the reasons behind any major negative variation in the finances.
Operational Analysis Reports
Analysis of operations demonstrates how efficiently a company operates and offers ways to improve productivity further. For instance, an analysis of operations might reveal that the company experiences periodic shortages of key raw materials that prevent the delivery of orders.
Performance Reports
Performance trend monitoring helps companies identify KPIs, benchmarks, and goals based on the most important aspects of their business. Performance reports should always align with KPIs and show whether the results were achieved or exceeded. In addition, business performance can be compared across different timeframes with performance reporting.
SWOT Reports
SWOT Reports help understand the vulnerabilities of the E-commerce business. It helps manage and eliminate any threats that would otherwise be left unchecked. It enables businesses to focus on their strengths, limit threats, and capitalize on opportunities as best.
Why does management need E-Commerce Reports?
Business reports contain important management aspects, such as information on spending, profits, and growth. These reports provide valuable details that can be used to plan budgets, generate forecasts, and make better decisions by the management. Besides providing information about business operations, managers can also use business reports to track progress and growth and identify trends or anomalies that should be further investigated. Moreover, business reports also act as an audit trail of past transactions.
E-commerce business reporting of e-commerce businesses promotes transparency and is a legal requirement for many public companies. The report can provide financial information and ownership information to shareholders, the government, and management. In addition, regular E-commerce reporting allows similar-sized companies and their managers to compare their performance with others throughout the year.
What are the benefits of E-Commerce Reports?
A business report provides an overview of the progress of the business, and the data collected helps in a variety of ways. Here are some of the key benefits of E-commerce reports:
- Strategic decisions can be taken based on E-commerce reports.
- The reports can help business leaders formulate budgets and plan activities for the coming year.
- The reports can also justify choices and provide rationales for each decision.
- The regular monitoring of E-commerce reports can highlight critical issues that could often get neglected.
- It also helps in identifying business opportunities for growth or expansion.
- E-Commerce reports can also define future growth opportunities by determining what could be done moving forward.
Conclusion
The Ecommerce reports allow business owners to track and improve all their essential elements of growing their eCommerce business. However, to be accurate and consistent in their business functions, these reports need to be tracked. Furthermore, for those unfamiliar with eCommerce and its unique terminology, e-commerce can be intimidating. Hence, an E-commerce report should be put together in a way that also helps other members of the organization who otherwise might not understand the business plans. This way, the e-commerce report proves invaluable to the employees and the stakeholders in keeping them informed of eCommerce business performance over the years.
Why choose YRC as E-commerce Consultants?
E-commerce reports are created from data, and this data analytics gives valuable insight into site performance. However, most people aren’t sure what to ask or where to begin when creating a report, and that’s where we can help. Your Retail Coach is an ecommerce consulting firm. YRC helps clients put together great e-commerce strategies and increase operational efficiency. As each organization is unique, their eCommerce solutions should also be custom-built and be aligned to best practices. At YRC, we modify the e-commerce SOPs as per each client’s business requirements.
We have helped numerous e-commerce startups prepare e-commerce SOPs through our business consulting services. To begin with, our experts try to understand the intents, purposes, approaches, inclinations, and needs to come up with a top-notch e-commerce process blueprint supported with reports. The strength of the E-commerce SOPs prepared by YRC is that it can uncover various well-suited opportunities for business. To explore more, schedule a discovery call with YRC Experts today.
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