A Guide to BigCommerce Analytics: What to Consider

BigCommerce analytics is a treasure trove of valuable insights for online businesses.

It shows your total sales, traffic generated by channel, conversion rates, etc.

Essentially, BigCommerce analytics uncovers critical data that enhance ecommerce marketing strategies, informs strategic decision-making, and propels business growth.

The question is, how do you navigate BigCommerce analytics to extract the insights you’re looking for?

What key factors should you consider to ensure its effectiveness for your needs?

That’s what we’ll cover in this guide.

Continue reading this comprehensive guide to learn more about the inner workings of BigCommerce analytics.

Table of Contents

• BigCommerce overview
• Why BigCommerce over other solutions?
• Understanding BigCommerce analytics
• BigCommerce analytics features and capabilities
• 5 Reports you can generate with BigCommerce analytics
• Important BigCommerce KPIs to track
• Benefits of using BigCommerce analytics for ecommerce
• Use Polymer to get more out of BigCommerce analytics
• Skyrocket your ecommerce business now with BigCommerce

BigCommerce overview

BigCommerce is a popular ecommerce platform that makes running an online business so much easier.  

The platform is a one-stop solution with all the works, including website builders and ecommerce analytics features to simplify starting, managing, and growing your online business.

BigCommerce’s main features help you:

• Build and manage your online store. BigCommerce’s website builder tools help you create a website based on your brand’s look and feel.  It also allows you to add products, manage orders, inventory, and customer relationships.
• Generate ecommerce analytics reports. BigCommerce provides extensive ecommerce analytics reports that give you insights into critical data, such as customer behavior and sales trends.  
• Integrate your online store with other business systems and tools. The platform can integrate with many tools, including accounting, shipping, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and other solutions and tools.

Why BigCommerce over other solutions?

BigCommerce has had notable success, with data showing that the platform’s users have a 28% average growth rate.  

BigCommerce is scalable, user-friendly, and has robust online selling, marketing, CRM, and analytics features.

The platform offers a straightforward interface with customizable web page templates for beginners and experts.

Its built-in features include a responsive mobile design, various payment options, and strong security options, giving you a comprehensive solution to seamlessly create, run, and manage your online store.

The platform’s other key features include:

• Search Engine Optimization or SEO-friendly designs
• Integrated analytics tools
• Support for various third-party apps, from marketing to accounting tools.

Understanding BigCommerce analytics

BigCommerce analytics is an extensive tool for collecting, analyzing, and using data to meet marketing and business goals.

You can use the tools to track and measure your data, including performing an ad hoc analysis.

It can give you reports and real-time insights to understand visitor metrics, identify trends, shape your online selling strategies, and optimize your ecommerce marketing campaigns.

BigCommerce analytics features and capabilities

Ecommerce Analytics includes the following features and functionalities.

Store Overview dashboard

The Store Overview report is a dashboard containing your ecommerce store’s key metrics, such as your number of orders, customers, visits, revenue, and more.

The dashboard gives you a quick overall view of your store’s performance, including high-level summaries of the reports within the analytics suite.

Comprehensive Ecommerce Reports

BigCommerce’s built-in analytics suite includes 11 reports based on aspects of your online store operations.

The reports give you an end-to-end, comprehensive view of your marketing channels and online store’s performance across key metrics, from customer engagement to revenue.  

We’ll go deeper into the report types you can get with BigCommerce analytics later.

Eligible order types (and their status) from your storefront, control panel (manual orders), Amazon, Facebook, eBay, and third-party programs connected via APIs are also included in Ecommerce Analytics Reports.

Timestamp and data range selector

Most reports from BigCommerce analytics update in near real time (within 60 seconds)

The reports (with a few exceptions) show a timestamp at the bottom.

The timestamp indicates when the data was last updated.

Analytics reports (except the Real-Time report) include a date range selector that lets you display data from a specific period.

You can choose from a preset or a custom date range by clicking Custom and selecting your preferred dates.  

(Source: https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/Ecommerce-Analytics?language=en_US)

You can compare specific reports to another date range, such as the previous period or year or a custom range.

Graphs

Some of BigCommerce’s Analytics reports include graphs and visualizations.

The visualization can display additional data when you hover your mouse over a point on the graphs.

Graphs represent vital data and insights, making them easier to understand and convey to your stakeholders.

Exporting options

BigCommerce lets you export the following Ecommerce Analytics data as a CSV file.

• Customers Report
• Sales Tax Report
• Orders Report
• Merchandising Report
• Marketing Report
• Carts Report

Select the data range that covers the data table you want to export and click the Download as CSV button.

The system will notify you when your export is generated and ready to download to your local computer’s drive.

Ecommerce Insights

Ecommerce Insights is a premium BigCommerce analytics feature that you can add to the reports that come with your plan.

The feature helps you dive deeper into your data for more insights.

For instance, you’ll know the marketing channels that get you high-value customers over the course of their relationship with your brand based on your online store’s data.  

Ecommerce Insights has the following features:

• Customer Insights. Ecommerce Insights can analyze your data to help you understand your best customers and their needs. You can use the insight to tailor your strategies to their preferences and entice big spenders to keep buying.
• Product Insights. The tool can drill down on your top-selling, low-converting, and most discounted products to help you make better decisions on the items to feature, the promo offers to run, etc.
• Marketing Insights. Ecommerce Insights analyzes your data to uncover the channels bringing in the most customers and top Lifetime Value (LTV). It helps you understand the marketing channels that bring in the highest returns.  

The key to harnessing the power of BigCommerce analytics is understanding how to leverage it correctly.  

Like what CEO Matin Movassate said…

“Analytics software is uniquely leveraged. Most software can optimize existing processes, but analytics (done right) should generate insights that bring to life whole new initiatives. It should change what you do, not just how you do it.”

5 Reports you can generate with BigCommerce analytics

BigCommerce’s Ecommerce Analytics feature can generate these crucial reports.

1. Store Overview Report

The Store Overview Report acts as a comprehensive dashboard that gives you a complete overview of your key metrics for easy business performance tracking and assessment.

It includes the following data and components:

• Top Line statistics that show all your online store’s key metrics.
• A Revenue graph that charts your business’s total revenue within a specific period and compares it to your revenue from the previous period.
• The purchase funnel summarizes the actions visitors make on your website before buying.
• Abandoned cart data, which shows your store’s top abandoned products, number of abandoned carts, and revenue.
• The top products window shows your store’s top five highest-grossing products. Each product links to its own merchandising product report.
• Top Visits by Origin data shows your marketing channels that drive the most visits and revenue and generate the highest conversions. Each channel is linked to the Marketing Report.

2. Merchandising Report

The Merchandising Report allows you to drill down on your product catalog to understand its performance better.

The merchandising report contains the following elements and data:

• Top Line Statistics that show product-level information such as the number of products sold, orders, merchandising revenue, and more.
• A Merchandise Revenue graph that shows the change in your merchandise revenue within your chosen date range.
• A Products table that helps you understand your best and worst selling products, slowest and fastest growing items, and your least and most visited products.
• An SKU merchandising report that shows all your store’s SKUs in a table arranged based on your top revenue producers.
• A Product Statistics window that displays your store’s revenue, average price, quantity sold, orders, visits, and abandon rate.
• A Product Revenue graph that shows your product revenue changes within your selected date range.

(Source: https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/Merchandising-Report?language=en_US)

3. In-store Search Report

The In-Store Search Report shows your shoppers’ experience and success rate when they use your ecommerce website’s search function.

The In-store Search report includes the following:

• A Search Overview containing a summary of all searches done within a specific date range.

(Source: https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/In-Store-Search-Report?language=en_US)

• Keywords with results that list all the searches with one or more results. The data can tell you which products your customers look for, helping you optimize your marketing, product placement, and selling strategies.  
• Best and worst performing keywords reports that show the keywords with high and low search volumes.

4. Marketing Report

Like many top marketing analytics tools, BigCommerce analytics provides a Marketing Report that shows how your visitors find your store. It helps you determine the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

The Ecommerce Analytics Marketing Report contains the following information:

• A Visit Origin by Revenue Graph that shows each store visit’s origin, including the total revenue associated with it within a specified time frame.
• Supplemental Information on Attributions data shows how Ecommerce Analytics calculates attributions and the order of logic it performs in its analytics pipelines.
• A Visit Origin report that aggregates revenue, orders, visits, average order value, revenue per visit, and conversion rate based on the visit’s origin type.

(Source: https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/Marketing-Report?language=en_US)

5. Customers Report

The Customers Report helps you better analyze and understand your store's customer behavior.

The data includes where your customers come from and the percentage of new versus returning customers, including their total spending the last time they placed an order.

The report also shows individual customer profiles that show every order the customer placed and the product they purchased in your store.

The Customers Reports contain the following data:

• Top Line Statistics showing unique, new, returning, and first-time purchasing customers.
• The Customers Table that shows a list of all your store’s customers. You can sort the data by clicking the arrows beside the column headings.
• A Customer Details report showing the total amount that a customer spends at your store and full order history. The report includes a customer’s total number of orders, the price range of the items in their orders, Average Order Value (AOV), and last purchase date.  

(Source: https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/Marketing-Report?language=en_US)

Other Ecommerce Analytics Reports you can generate with BigCommerce analytics include Real-Time, Orders, Purchase Funnel, Carts, and Sales Tax reports.

Important BigCommerce KPIs to track

The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you track depend on your goals and the data you want to see.

Start with the following essential KPIs every business owner or marketer using BigCommerce should monitor and measure.

• Traffic by channel. The metric shows which channels drive traffic to your online store, including paid ads, organic search, email, mobile ads, or social media. Tracking this can help you determine the best channels to reach potential customers.
• Ecommerce traffic. The KPI refers to the number of people visiting your ecommerce website. It can tell you how interested or aware visitors are of your brand.
• Total sales. The total sales KPI shows the total revenue your online store generates. The sales analysis metric indicates your business’s commercial success.
• Average Order Value. The AOV is the average amount customers spend in one order. Tracking and measuring AOV gives you insight into customer spending behavior. It also tells you the effectiveness of your cross-selling and upselling strategies across the purchase flow.
• New vs. returning visitors. Monitoring your new versus returning visitors allows you to determine the effectiveness of your customer acquisition and retention strategies. High numbers of new visitors can mean your acquisition efforts are successful, and a high percentage of return visitors indicates effective retention.  
• Conversion rate. The metric is the percentage of visitors who completed a purchase. It measures the effectiveness of your online store in turning visitors into paying customers. Industry leaders say that a good average conversion rate is between 2.5% to 3%.  
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Measuring CLV helps you predict the total revenue your business can expect from one customer account. It helps you examine the value of retaining customers while guiding your retention and customer service strategies.
• Revenue by Channel. The KPI helps you determine your most profitable channels. You can leverage the revenue analysis metrics to identify which channels to skip or optimize.

Use BigCommerce analytics KPIs with other data analysis tools to get more out of your data.

It’s been successful since 31.9% of BigCommerce Stores use Google Analytics.

Benefits of using BigCommerce analytics for ecommerce

BigCommerce stands out from other leading solutions because of the following.

• Robust built-in analytics features. BigCommerce’s built-in data analyzer tools let you track and analyze key metrics such as conversion rates, sales, and customer behavior. You’ll get basic yet robust analytics features without installing third-party apps.
• Access to real-time data. You can get real-time data and reporting from BigCommerce, giving instant insights into your online store’s performance. Live data is critical for making informed business decisions quickly. According to survey data, 58% of business leaders say they’ve seen significant increases in customer retention because of real-time data analytics.
• Scalability. BigCommerce offers a scalable ecommerce platform, making it easy to adjust your operations and adapt to your business’s changing needs based on key data insights.
• Mobile-friendly analytics. Another BigCommerce plus is its user-friendly mobile interface that allows you to access your analytics on the go. It lets you track and respond to data insights and trends promptly.

When it comes to ecommerce analytics, remember this quote from MoviePass CEO and Netflix Co-founder Mitch Lowe…

“Use analytics to make decisions. I always thought you needed a clear answer before you made a decision and the thing that he taught me was [that] you’ve got to use analytics directionally.”

Use Polymer to get more out of BigCommerce analytics

While BigCommerce analytics offers reliable reports and basic visualizations, you can take your ecommerce data analysis to the next level with Polymer.

Polymer is one of the top 12 ecommerce analytics tools in 2024—its Business Intelligence (BI) software lets you generate reports, visualizations, and dashboards in seconds.

Connect your BigCommerce account via Polymer’s built-in data connector and import your dataset with a few clicks. Also, if you analyze data in Excel, you can upload the XLS file and visualize the dataset with Polymer.

You can connect other data sources such as Facebook ads and Google Analytics 4. Read this Google Analytics 4 Ultimate Guide to learn more.

Instantly generate graphs, tables, maps, plots, and more from your BigCommerce data by choosing from Polymer’s recommended visualizations.

You can edit and customize charts and other dashboard elements in each Block through the Setup option.

Another feature that makes Polymer one of the best AI tools to analyze data is its PolyAI feature.  

The feature can analyze your data and provide auto-suggested charts for quick and easy Block customization and dashboard building.

In a battle between Polymer vs. Juice Analytics, Polymer takes the cake.

The software lets you build a complete, interactive ecommerce dashboard in minutes—and you can accomplish this without a complex setup, technical skills, or coding anything.

Polymer is one of the perfect exploratory data analysis tools to supercharge your ecommerce analytics needs.

Skyrocket your ecommerce business now BigCommerce

Harnessing the power of BigCommerce analytics can be the key to driving business success and growth.

Leverage BigCommerce analytics to equip yourself with the insights and information you need to optimize your online business strategies, boost your store’s performance, and make informed decisions.

Also, level up your business data analytics with Polymer’s easy-to-use yet advanced BI functionalities.

With Polymer, you can create stunning, easy-to-understand, and insightful reports in a matter of seconds.

Start a Polymer account for free to experience the software’s powerful BI and data visualization features.