If you want to understand how an ecommerce business is really performing, you can’t just look at sessions or revenue. You have to look at flow.
When I start analysing a new site, I almost always begin the same way: mapping the end-to-end customer journey and looking at the number of users progressing from one expected step to the next.
Not events counts. Not specific interactions. But, actual users moving through the journey.
There’s something powerful about seeing that flow laid out clearly. It immediately shows where friction lives – and it’s rarely obvious in standard reporting.
Why sessions can mask reality
Sessions and event counts can look healthy. Traffic is steady. Engagement appears strong. But those metrics don’t tell you how many people are genuinely progressing.
When you focus on user counts at each stage, the picture changes. You see the volume reducing, yes and you see the percentage drop-offs. For me, I see where momentum slows at the user level.
Often, this surfaces something leadership intuitively knows is there, but has never quantified.
The lower-funnel illusion
One of the first things that usually stands out is friction post add to cart.
It might be:
- a sharp drop between cart and begin checkout
- hesitation once shipping is revealed
- abandonment when delivery timelines appear
On higher-value products, unexpected cost or timeframes can quickly cool intent. On lower-value fashion items, add to cart can be almost unconscious – a holding place for consideration rather than commitment.
For health and wellbeing e-commerce websites, the hesitation is often deeper, with consideration around, will this actually solve my problem?
Different sectors, different psychology.
But here’s what I’ve come to realise: lower-funnel friction is often just a symptom.
The friction that starts earlier
When you trace those drop-offs backwards, the pattern becomes clearer.
Product detail pages often lack:
- early clarity on shipping costs or timelines
- reassurance around service
- strong articulation of value
- clear differentiation between options
- enough information to reduce uncertainty
If delivery is £5 and next day, say it clearly on the PDP.
If returns are straightforward, make it obvious before checkout.
If the product requires consideration, address doubts early.
When that information surfaces too late, it creates friction that looks like a checkout issue but is actually a proposition issue.
That’s rarely a technical problem. It’s usually one of clarity.
The e-commerce issue leaders already know about
What’s interesting is that most leadership teams aren’t shocked by this. They’re aware content could be stronger. They even know certain propositions aren’t as rounded as they should be…. and they’ve probably discussed it before and at length.
What’s often missing is quantification.
As long as sales are coming in, it’s easy to assume the experience is “good enough”. Other initiatives take priority. Improvements get parked. Because it’s working… right?
The 3% reality check
This is where grounding the conversation can help: If your ecommerce site converts at 3%, that means 97 in every 100 people choose not to purchase.
That’s far from failure, as three percent is perfectly respectable in many sectors, but it reframes the discussion.
When you look at the journey through that lens, the question changes from:
“Is this working?”
to
“Where are we making it harder than it needs to be for the other 97?”
That shift alone tends to change the tone in the room.
Trends over perfection
At this stage, conversations often drift into data integrity. GA4 doesn’t match Shopify. Shopify doesn’t match Meta and Klaviyo. Attribution models differ and those differences are real.
But once GA4 is well implemented and behaving consistently, it becomes a reliable behavioural compass. Not perfect. Not complete. But directional.
We don’t need precision to see friction, we need patterns and trends, reviewed regularly, tell you where to look next.
What doesn’t make the board pack
Most of this never makes it into a monthly leadership report.
You see revenue.
You see conversion rate.
You see channel performance.
You rarely see:
- user counts flowing between stages
- where hesitation compounds
- where clarity is missing
- where small mid-funnel improvements could create significant impact
Those signals sit quietly between reviews, on the shoulders of ecommerce and marketing teams not knowing what to do next or drowning in a sea of backlog development.
But that’s often where the real opportunity lies.