Data-driven E-Commerce: smarter decision-making for online growth

Data is the secret sauce for making smarter decisions, understanding your customers, and saving money. When you follow the data instead of gut feelings, you're on the path to better pricing, effective marketing, and products people actually want. 

Dive into your own data goldmine, discover trends, and adapt to what your customers really want. It’s not rocket science — just good business. 

Why should you care about data? 

1. You’ll make smarter decisions. Follow the data instead of your gut feeling, and you will make better, more informed and more effective decisions about pricing, marketing, product development and customer experience. 

1. Your customers will no longer be a mystery. What do they want? What are their habits? What do they really need? Use data to take the guesswork away and provide a personalized, relevant experience. A tailored shopping experience will improve customer satisfaction and lead to more business. 

1. Costs will go down. Data-driven decisions help you allocate resources more efficiently. When you focus your efforts on what really matters, you will see your ROI rise. 

1. You’ll keep adapting and stay relevant. Using data to improve your business practices continually means you will stay on top of market changes and customer preferences. You’ll stay ahead of competitors, build a culture of continuous improvement and ensure your own future, responding to new trends and customer demands. 

 What we mean when we say “data” 

We’re not the first to tell you that gathering data is key to a successful online business. Everyone is going on and on about customer data, and how to leverage those in your business. And yes, it’s a great idea to find out as much about your customer as you can. 

Hear us out, though: there’s a trap. You can gather customer data until you turn blue in the face, without seeing any benefits at all. Why? Because you’re not building on the basics. 

Customer data are only the tip of the iceberg — or rather, the data pyramid: 

Start by building a broad base of product data 

Use your product data to offer customers a well-informed, clear buying journey. Help them to understand precisely what they’re buying: 

• List relevant product attributes 

• Show beautiful and informative images 

• Add reviews from previous buyers 

Detailed product data make your customer feel confident they’ve found the perfect product. Without all that information, they may feel lost on your website or unable to decide to buy your product. 

Even though managing product data seems simple, don’t underestimate the effort it takes to offer them to your customers. But we promise you it will all be worth it. Visualize product data just right, and you will help customers to find the product they’re looking for and buy it straight away. 

Get your own data to work for you 

You’re already sitting on piles and piles of data, long before a particular customer steps through your digital front door. Your e-commerce platform is keeping track of everything from your marketing efforts to conversion rates. These analytics give you valuable insights on how your target audience behaves as a whole. And there’s a lot you can learn from them as a group: 

• What trends do they follow in their buying decisions? 

• How effective are your marketing strategies? 

• Which devices are people using to interact with your website? 

• Which channels do they go through before they make a purchase? 

Use these data to find out who, precisely, is using your channels and buying from you. Chances are, you will see a few personas emerge. Once you know what a certain group of customers want, you can start tailoring their experience. 

Finetune with customer data 

The cherry on top of your sales effort should be a tailored, personalized shopping experience. Tracking individual consumers through your sales funnel is only effective after you’ve implemented the previous two tiers of data. But oh, how effective it can be: 

• Offer items at a reduced price for a customer who has visited your store before, but hasn’t made a purchase. 

• Get in touch via email at just the right time to remind customers of your brand. 

• Introduce your chatbot or customer service when it looks like someone might have a question (instead of throwing it in their face the second they land on your webshop). 

This is where you truly show your customers you understand their needs and make them feel like they’re interacting with you one-on-one. And that’s how returning customers are made. 

Get to work! 

How do you start building a data-driven company of your own? Here’s a step-by-step guide: 

1. Find a data nerd in your organization. Start small if you need to: this doesn’t have to be a full-time employee. Someone who understands data and sees the value in it (and can do this cross-business).  

1. Create a data inventory and add data value to it. Get a clear view of which data you already have, what you can do with it, and where you need to expand. 

1. Build from the ground up. Don’t jump immediately to personalization, but start with a broad base of product and business data. 

1. Get everyone excited about data. This is what people mean when they tell you to “democratize data”: give everyone access to data and show them how easy it can be to make data-based decisions. 

1. Make data-based decision-making a habit. Next time you’re in a marketing meeting, looking into new software or considering broadening your catalog: look at the data. You have them. Use them!