Atash - Data analyst

Data analysis

CASE – How can I optimize the sales funnel?

For an online store, I did a thorough analysis to optimize the sales funnel. The online shop wanted to know when people give up during the ordering process and whether a distinction could be made between different types of customers. If the funnel will be optimized according to the following analysis, there is a potential for sales to increase by 6.4%

The figures below have been adjusted because of anonymity of the online shop.

How many visitors does the webshop have and how many orders?

In 2021, there was an increase in visitors due to the campaigns. The percentage of “one time” visitors has been relatively steady over the past three years. The number of orders has grown with the number of visitors, but the number of items per order has not reached the expected level.

What does the sales funnel look like and where do visitors drop out?

Together with the webshop we identified the processes a visitor goes through until the purchase is done. Using Google Analytics and the online store's own systems, we were able to verify what visitors visit the site and what process they go through.

More than 63% of the visitors visit the website via organic search, these are visitors who found the website via a search engine. 13.9% of the traffic comes from visitors who entered the website themselves in the browser, followed by e-mail (9.2%), social (4.8%), referral (3.1%) and other (5.9%).

1. People add products to their shopping cart, but they do not view the contents of the total basket (loss of 2.5% of the visitors).
   Solution: display the icon of the shopping basket more prominently and if there are at least two items in the shopping cart, display a pop-up to navigate to the total shopping basket.
2. After people viewed their total shopping basket, 2.21% leaves the website during the process of logging in or creating an account. Solution: people can also pay as a guest without creating an account.
   Solution: people can also pay as a guest without creating an account.
3. 1.04% of the visitors leave the order process after they saw the total order amount. The two most common causes are unexpected costs (delivery costs) or unaccepted voucher codes.
   Solution: mention delivery costs clearly on the website and show the telephone number if a voucher code is not accepted.

By making the above adjustments, the number of orders can increase by a maximum of 5.83%.

Which channels are most effective?

When I look further into the ordering process, I found visitors who reach the website via e-mail are more likely to place an order. One reason for this is that people are automatically logged in on the website after clicking on the e-mail. Therefore, the percentage of people who leave the ordering process between viewing the shopping basket and checking the delivery data is much lower.

E-mails are especially effective around special days. The graph below indicates that lots of orders are placed around Mother's Day and Father's Day due to an email.

At the moment, there is no clear e-mail strategy within the company. As a result of this research, an e-mail strategy is set up which takes into account the frequency of the e-mails, the moment of send out, a clear CTA and an appropriate discount.

What is the average order size?

We would like to increase the number of orders, but it is also interesting to increase the number of items per order. That’s why I looked at the number of items ordered per channel.

The average order size is 1.42 items per order. Social is a channel where people do not often place an order, but the average order size is high, followed by referrals and e-mail.

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