Custom Reporting for Bespoke Ecommerce Systems

Understanding custom reporting

If you’re running an ecommerce business, you’re literally swimming in data. Clicks, conversions, abandoned carts, campaigns, stock levels… the list never ends. But that data is effectively useless unless it actually tells you something. Custom Reporting is exactly what it sounds like - reports that are custom built specifically for your business and wouldn't you know it, can tell you all sorts of really useful snippets about how you're performing. You know what's important - whether that's general sales figures, repeat custom statistics or which products are flying off the shelves - custom reports are built around what's important for your business so you can focus only on the data that matters.

Key components of custom reporting

Every custom report is different (the clue is in the name!) but most are made up of one or more of the following components:

Data

A report is only as good as the data that underpins it. If you're in the ecommerce industry, chances are, you have many different data streams from many different sources and pulling it altogether into something coherent can be a complex and drawn out process. Conversion rates, campaign success, customer demographics and seasonal trends are all important pieces of data for ecommerce organisations. Custom reporting allows you to bring it altogether - regardless of where it comes from and the format it is in - and structure it in a way that makes sense to your and your employees.

Reporting tools

Once the data itself has been collected and organised in a manner of your choosing, you can utilise intelligent reporting tools to transform it into something meaningful. Platforms such as Power BI and Tableau are strong contenders in this space, offering you powerful reporting capabilities. They allow you to generate reports from raw data, turning complex information into clear, relevant and structured insights. Reporting tools are useful for showing detailed data over a specific time period - often in the form of graphs and charts.

Dashboards

Dashboards are similar to reporting tools but serve a slightly different purpose: they give you a high level snapshot of your key performance metrics. With a focus on visualisation - graphs, charts and advanced filters - dashboards let you segment and drill down into your data, all whilst remaining easy for everyone to understand.

Steps involved in designing and building custom reports for bespoke ecommerce websites

Creating custom reports for bespoke ecommerce websites and platforms is easy. What's not so easy is creating custom reports that are actually useful and relevant. For the latter, you need the right technology, the right expertise and a solid understanding of what you actually want to see.

Here’s how the process typically unfolds:

Define goals and requirements
Before touching a single data point you need to work out what the report should actually do. Do you want to track your customer's buying habits? Keep an eye on stock? Checking if a marketing campaign was worth the cost? Figuring this out makes sure the report is genuinely useful and not just something you briefly look at once then forget about.

Identify key data sources
Ecommerce platforms spit out data from everywhere - analytics, CRMs, inventory systems, payment gateways, excel files - the list goes on. Pulling these together and making sure they talk to each other is what gives you a complete picture of performance across the board.

Clean and structure the data
Raw data can be a mess. Duplicates, missing fields and random formatting can turn reports into a nightmare. Cleaning it up, setting validation rules and optimising your databases means the numbers you’re looking at can be trusted.

Pick the right tools
Not every business needs a collection of flashy, complex dashboards. Some might benefit from Power BI or Tableau whilst others just need automated weekly summaries of sales and stock levels for example. Choosing the right tool(s) keeps reports functional and prevents them becoming overwhelming when they simply don't need to be.

Make it look good
Do you enjoy squinting at endless rows of numbers? Thought not and your audience probably feel the same. Clean charts, tables and heatmaps are a great way to identify patterns and anomalies without having to dig into the granular details.

Automate where possible
Manually creating reports is slow, error prone and in some cases a complete waste of time. Automating with scheduled data pulls or live dashboards keeps everything up to date without much manual effort at all.

Lock it down (if you need to)
Not everyone needs to see everything. Financial data and customer details should only be visible to people with the correct credentials. You can use role based permissions to provide access to these individuals only and stop sensitive info ending up where it shouldn’t.

Test, tweak and repeat
Unless insanely simple, reports are not always correct first time. Check the numbers, check the loading speed and check that normal humans can actually understand it. Collect feedback and make adjustments. Then do it all again next time you build or update a report.

Detailed, insightful reports – The end goal

By the time you’ve been through this process, you should have reports that actually tell you something useful.

A well put together ecommerce report:

• Shows clear insights into how your business is running and the metrics that matter

• Is easy for every relevant team member to read and understand, even the non techies

• Is automated wherever possible to save time and avoid human error

• Allows for quick filtering, segmentation and drill down so you can get to the detail where needed

The role of an experienced team

Unfortunately for us all, a well structured reporting system doesn’t just build itself. Having a team of skilled developers, data analysts and/or business strategists is critical and ensures that reports are accurate, insightful and fully aligned with your business requirements. Whether it’s custom data integrations, advanced analytics or predictive modelling, a knowledgeable and experienced team can transform your raw numbers into actionable business intelligence.

Enhancing the customer experience with custom reporting

Custom reporting is not only useful for your business - it is also useful for the prospects and customers who use your online store. Reports can shape and improve the shopping experience tenfold and allow you to provide your customers with cool stuff:

Personalised shopping

Custom reports give you a way to analyse your customer's behaviour from browsing patterns to order history and preferences - all of this lovely data can be put to work to:

• Suggest products based on what a shopper has already looked at or bought
• Send targeted promotions that match specific customer interests again, based on their history
• Tweak website content by learning which products and pages pull in the most attention

Better customer support

Who doesn't yearn for better customer support these days? Through the use of custom reports, your support staff can access live data which allows them to:

• Understand and resolve queries faster by instantly pulling up relevant customer details
• Identify and address recurring problems through historical reports which can in turn, reduce future complaints and improve the wider user experience

Accurate inventory management

How frustrating it is when you find the product you've spent a lifetime looking for - the holy grail - only to be hit with the 'out of stock' screen. All is not lost however as custom reports on inventory trends can:

• Predict which products are about to sell out so restocks can happen before your customers become disappointed
• Flag slow movers so you can rethink their promotion strategy or remove them altogether
• Prevent overselling by keeping stock levels in sync across all of your sales channels

A better checkout process

Understanding why people aren't buying what you're offering doesn't stop at product analysis. The dreaded abandoned cart issue is a big one for ecommerce and is often because the checkout process is a trial in and of itself. Custom reporting on checkout statistics can:

• Identify common 'NO THANKS' points in the checkout process i.e. unexpected fees or complex forms
• Show the preferred payment methods for customers so you can make sure they have access to the most convenient options
• Track abandoned carts and enable targeted recovery strategies such as follow up emails or discount incentives

Improved delivery experience

Your customers expect fast, reliable shipping and clear updates on their orders. With the amount of competition out there, repeat custom can be dependent on it. Custom reports can help by:

• Identifying common issues and reasons for delays in the delivery process
• Providing insights into better performing couriers and fulfilment centres allowing you the seek out replacements if needs be
• Sending proactive automated shipping updates to keep your customers informed and preventing them having to chase for updates themselves

With well structured custom reports, you can ditch the guesswork and make the right decisions that will genuinely improve customer satisfaction and subsequently retention rates in your business.

Custom reporting for marketing campaigns

Marketing campaigns are probably a big deal for your business if you're in ecommerce and the data that drives these campaigns can be the difference between success and failure. Custom reports provide you with detailed insights on your consumers - everything from preferences and behaviours to the point at which they abandon their baskets. You can use this information to ensure your marketing campaigns hit the right audience, in the right way every time. Let's take a look at some examples of what kind of reports might be useful for you:

Email campaign performance - A custom report that allows you to analyse open rates, click through rates and conversion rates which in turn, allows you to refine subject lines, content and send times for better engagement.

Social media engagement - A report that shows you engagement trends across all of your social media platforms which can highlight the best types of content and posting logistics (post times for example) that drive the highest engagement.

Ad campaign effectiveness - Ad campaigns and subsequently their ROI (linking ad spend to actual sales) is another report that may be useful for your business. This type of report can help you reallocate your budget to the best performing channels and highlight those that need to be improved.

Customer segmentation - You can also use custom reports to segment prospects and existing customers based on their behaviour, demographics and purchase history. This allows for more intelligent and personalised marketing.

Channel attribution - Finally, custom reporting can help you understand which channels (ecommerce website, affiliate links, social media etc) contribute the most conversions. This in turn, allows you to tailor your marketing efforts to focus on the most effective channels (or the worst).

Challenges and solutions with custom reporting for ecommerce businesses

Whilst custom reporting is a fantastic tool, especially for ecommerce businesses where data is so crucial - it does come with it's own set of challenges. Let's take a look at some of them as well as ways to overcome them.

Ecommerce in practice - Eco Power Direct

We love a good case study here at Cool Code Company so let us introduce you to Eco Power Direct - an 'accidental' ecommerce business who found themselves unable to move ahead with their initial plans of launching a physical store just prior to the covid pandemic, and instead, opting to launch as a fully digital shop instead.

See how we helped them create their digital brand, develop a fit for purpose ecommerce website with custom integrations and grow into the successful business it is today here - Eco Power Direct - A Change of Plan.

Final thoughts

Custom reporting opens up real opportunities for ecommerce businesses, giving you the insights you need to optimise your operations, improve the customer experience and achieve your goals. A good reporting system  highlights trends, reveals areas for improvement and shows where you’re performing best. With the right approach, it becomes a vital part of your overall business strategy.