Importance of E-Commerce Logging – Why It’s Critical You Understand Your Site Data
During the launch of the Boston Computer Exchange online marketplace in 1982, online shopping was a radical concept. In 1992, Charles M. Stack launched an e-commerce site, books.com, whose business model had virtually no competition – leading to its success. Years later, it’s clear that Stack stumbled upon a monster that would grow to unprecedented heights.
Today, numerous purchases are done online – in fact, a huge percent of millennials and gen-Xers today prefer shopping online. If Stack had opened his online business in today’s environment, chances are high that the venture wouldn’t be as successful as it was. The main reason is competition, which is incredibly fierce and success only comes to e-commerce sites with all their moving parts well oiled.
In the business environment today, e-commerce logging, as well as the capacity to monitor the performance of an e-commerce site, offers businesses an important competitive advantage. Each broken transaction or link on the site leads to revenue loss. In addition, it’s critical that you have accurate site data to ensure that pages like your registration, login, and checkout load properly.
While the knee-jerk reaction is turning to Google Analytics, ad-blocking software use makes this option questionable. Fortunately, other analytics tools remain unaffected by the software, making them a better solution for understanding your site performance. Through log files generated every time user browsers request data from a server, you can get business-critical information for the success of your site by bringing you the following capabilities.
Evaluation of User Experience
One thing that has not changed when it comes to shopping is prioritizing your user’s experience. In a physical store, proactive clerks and an optimized layout help in improving customer experience. For an online store, this means high page-loading speed, easy navigation, as well as a hassle-free checkout process.
E-commerce logging lets you find out the areas that don’t perform as expected, eventually damaging a user’s experience and limiting your sales potential. For instance, in case of a slow-loading page, you can assess what’s wrong with it and quickly correct it. On the other hand, if people leave your site on visiting a specific page, you can quickly optimize it for better results.
For Collecting Customer Demographics
You can also get valuable insights into your customers with the help of e-commerce logging. For instance, geo-location gives you an idea of where your online visitors are located at while shopping. This gives your marketing team the necessary information for creating ads customized for their locations.
Logs from your ecommerce site help you find out what times it is most active as well as the time of day people use it most. Such data helps ensure that your website is ready for high traffic times and aid in creating ad campaigns while improving site experience during peak hours.
Precise Identification of Problems
Site logging also helps you adopt a proactive approach towards solving problems before they escalate. Not only are you in a position to find the source of the problem, but logs also help you find out when the issue occurred. In addition, you also get vital insights such as where the problem is while offering you diagnostics that can help you deal with the issue at once. (source: https://www.loggly.com/blog/syslog-for-newbies)
For the ecommerce business, time is money. Today’s society appreciates instant gratification, and if a problem occurs, there’s a good chance that site visitors will move on to your competitors. Having all the details about a problem in the form of a log reduces the time taken for correcting it and keeping your online visitors/customers happy.
Increasing Security
While running an ecommerce site, you not only want it to run smoothly (at least 99.9 percent of the time), you also want it to run safely. A huge part of running the site efficiently is protecting the data provided and generated by your customers.
A proper logging protocol helps in the identification of attempted security attacks or weak points that may be susceptible to attacks. Utilizing these functions in your site gives your customers the confidence required to share their personal information.
Conclusion
As seen, ecommerce logging plays a critical role in the success of your business. Be proactive and the results will increase your bank balance!