The Knowledge is a term used to describe the process that London cabbies go through in the course of understanding the best routes and important landmarks for getting people around the Capital. In a retail context The Knowledge could be the term for understanding the key data you get from an ecommerce website to help you improve your sales. If you are running a bricks & mortar store, you will be familiar with footfall, merchandising, up-sell and cross-sell techniques plus measuring and tuning the way a shop looks and performs. Of course there are similar indicators that apply to online retail and, once mastered, you should be able to use this knowledge to make changes and updates to your online retail store very rapidly.

Key indicators:

Bounce rate - this is the percentage of visitors that land on the home page and then leave. A high bounce rate indicates that maybe your home page does not engage with visitors, or perhaps your search engine entries may not be matching the goods and services that you supply.

Conversion rates - the ratio of visitors to sales, a very low conversion rate is not good for business and will demand further investigation; below one percent means that 99% of visitors are not finding anything they want to buy. However, a conversion rate of 3 or 4% is reasonable for an online store, especially given how easy it is for customers to browse online and click between different ecommerce sites.

Lost sales (basket abandonment) - If people are spending time to place items in a shopping basket, then they are getting serious about making a purchase. However, if the majority are abandoning the process at this point then you may need to look at perceived barriers, such as hidden delivery costs, that are stopping customers from completing the transaction.

Understanding your ecommerce visitors

Moving on to the visitor perspective, customers want a choice of how to access your online store. Some will prefer to use their desktop or laptop computer at home or work to research and buy, but increasing numbers are recognising the power and versatility of their smartphone to browse and shop online. In order to accommodate these various ways of buying it is important to be able to deliver choices via your website. Consumers are beginning to expect options such as:

• A simple button click to swap between a full web display and a mobile/smartphone friendly version.
• Having multiple (and easy to use) ways to search for items on your website, such as a search text box, refine by brand, price or size, etc..
• Being able to switch between a list of products (search engine results style) and a picture gallery display.
• Not being forced to go through a full new customer setup when buying from you for the first time. Some customers prefer using a ‘guest checkout' that slims down the information required to the minimum needed to complete a transaction.
• A choice of payment service providers will also help conversion, especially if you expect visitors viewing on smartphones, as not all payment providers currently have a working checkout version for iPhone, Android and other mobile systems.

The items above, and many more, should be mainstream options within any good ecommerce system. Your ecommerce supplier should have the knowledge of what works effectively online and provide advice on how to use these options within your website. And with around 50% of UK consumers now shopping extensively online, now is the time to ensure your ecommerce site is as friendly and easy to use as possible to maximise your sales.