Fulfilment KPIs every ecommerce brand should track

Ecommerce is a true representation of the world we live in today; it’s moving fast! With rising customer expectations, increasing competition and a desired upwards trajectory, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) must be measured to enable you to grow your business.

Tracking the right ecommerce KPIs empowers you to make smarter decisions across revenue, conversions, marketing and customer service. While metrics like conversion rate, site traffic and cart abandonment are essential, they’re only part of the picture.

A broad range of KPIs can help drive meaningful growth for your online store. This article breaks down the key ecommerce metrics every brand should monitor to support its strategic goals. Whether you’re analysing data yourself, pressed for time, or simply want to focus on the metrics that matter most, you’re in the right place.

What is an ecommerce KPI?

KPIs, or key performance indicators, are actionable, measurable metrics that provide valuable insight to evaluate the progress your ecommerce brand is making towards its vision of success.

These metrics are quantifiable and objective, helping you gauge the performance of your specific goals and determine the areas where you need to improve. Because KPIs are measurable quantifiers, they eliminate the guesswork from your strategies and help ensure they are data-driven.

Top 5 fulfilment KPIs for ecommerce companies

Although there are a lot of elements to consider before you implement KPIs, we still believe that these KPIs should be adhered to for all ecommerce businesses when it comes to their fulfilment journey.

1. Order accuracy – Order accuracy is the percentage of all ecommerce orders that are fulfilled and shipped to their final destination without error. Errors in the picking process cause shipping mistakes, returns, and frustrated customers. Even a small improvement of 1% or 2% here can end up saving a business thousands of pounds in return shipping and restocking.
2. Inventory accuracy – Inventory accuracy is calculated by dividing the number of correctly counted stock lines by the total number of stock lines and multiplying by 100. If your inventory records don’t match what’s on the shelf, fulfilment suffers. A robust WMS and real-time tracking are vital tools here to keep this KPI above 97%.
3. Return rate – This represents how many products are returned after customer purchases. You can lower your return rate by providing clear and accurate product descriptions, setting a well-defined return window, performing regular product quality checks, and monitoring patterns in frequently returned items.
4. OTIF (On time, in full) – The OTIF metric is a crucial KPI for fulfilment. Measuring the percentage of orders that are delivered to the correct location, with the exact items and quantity requested, and by the agreed-upon time. OTIF is an important KPI because it directly impacts customer satisfaction and trust in supply chain partnerships.
5. Lead time – Order fulfilment lead time is a critical performance indicator that measures the time taken from order placement to delivery. As consumers increasingly move online to shop, it’s more important than ever to get fulfilment processes in order. Tracking lead time helps businesses evaluate efficiency, improve customer satisfaction and manage costs.

Improve your ecommerce KPIs by outsourcing fulfilment

Here at e2b fulfilment, our experts set and help you work towards your ecommerce KPIs with our range of fulfilment services – designed to help your business grow.

We are always looking to continuously help and improve our clients’ ecommerce fulfilment services and processes to help you hit your KPIs.

To find out how we can help you, get in touch via our online contact form or give us a call on 03303830400.