Blog
Dec 05

Black Friday Aftermath: Decode Your Success 

A bunch of graphs under a magnifying glass scattered all over the work desk and laptop symbolize the struggle of eCommerce Magento owners have while analyzing the performance of their Magento store in the days after Black Friday.

As the excitement of the Black Friday shopping frenzy begins to subside, the importance of data gathered gains in importance. The future success of events such as this one (the nearest one being shopping for Christmas gifts while the sales are still on) will show exactly how successful your Black Friday preps and campaigns were.

For Magento eCommerce owners, this post-Black Friday period unveils crucial insights through various analytics reports. Those insights can be a part of a built-in Magento feature or a result of customizing the reports and dashboards to track specific actions or figures that are relevant to particular business or marketing goals. 

Leveraging these analytics will not only help you make informed decisions next time round but will ensure better revenue and sustainable growth of your eCommerce business. Not to mention that with a suitable strategic refinement based on insights gained, you can quickly strengthen customer loyalty and ensure better CLTV and AOV.

In the fast-paced world of e-commerce, data is king, and with the right tools and systems in place, you can gather invaluable information about consumer behavior, product preferences, and overall market trends. So, let’s see exactly what Magento reports provide the most value for this Black Friday Aftermath. 
For easier categorization, I’ve divided the Magento reports into three groups: basic built-in features for revenue and analytics, advanced features, and custom Magento 2 reports

A long and stressful business meeting gets sidetracked because the attendants not being able to analyze the eCommerce sales graphs.

Built-in Features for Revenue and Analytics

  • Dashboard Statistics: Magento 2’s dashboard provides basic sales information, including lifetime sales, average order value, last orders, and recently viewed products. 

In essence, this is a bird’s-eye view of the health of your online store.

Value: This real-time snapshot of your eCommerce performance enables quick and informed decision-making, and provides you with a quick overview of recent sales activities.

  • Sales Reports: The platform includes several built-in sales reports that can be used to track orders, taxes, invoiced sales, shipping fees, refunds, and more. They are customizable based on the time period and provide essential insights into overall sales performance.

Value: These Magento reports represent a detailed breakdown of your revenue streams. By customizing them, you can pinpoint trends, identify top-performing products, and strategize for future sales campaigns. 

  • Customer Reports: Magento 2 offers reports on customer accounts, orders, and segmentations. This includes tracking customer orders, monitoring new accounts, and viewing customers by segment.

Value: Customer Reports will empower you to understand and nurture your customer base. Invaluable insights into buyer behavior and shopping patterns can underpin your targeted marketing efforts and result in improved customer engagement.

  • Product Reports: The platform provides reports on products, such as bestsellers, products viewed, and search terms reports. This helps you understand customer interests and which products are performing well.

Value: If you are looking to optimize your product offerings, these Magento reports are your goldmine. By identifying bestsellers, monitoring customer preferences, and analyzing search terms, you can tailor your inventory so that it meets customer demand perfectly, and, ultimately, boost your overall sales and revenue.

  • Marketing Reports: Magento 2 includes reports relative to your marketing efforts, such as promotions, abandoned carts, and newsletter problem reports. This is useful for evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing strategies.

Value: By carefully analyzing these Magento reports, you’ll gain insights into how much every past marketing initiative contributed to your overall business goals and whether you should invest in similar efforts again. 

  • Review Reports: The Magento admin panel offers a variety of reports on product reviews (product review report, rating summary report, review detailed report, review report by customer or products, etc.) which are helpful for gauging customer feedback.

Value: The best way to understand customer satisfaction levels and address concerns promptly is to monitor product reviews. Leveraging positive feedback and enhancing your brand reputation or customer trust becomes easy when you have direct access to review reports. 

  • Private Sales Reports: If you are using Magento Commerce, you’ll have access to reports on private sales events.

Value: These Magento reports offer insights into the performance of exclusive sales, allowing you to evaluate their success and adjust the strategies for all future campaigns of this type.

  • Inventory Reports: Cover various basic inventory reports such as products in stock and low-stock reports, helping you manage inventory levels.

Value: By keeping track of products in stock and utilizing low-stock reports, you can prevent stockouts, streamline order fulfillment, and ensure a seamless shopping experience for all your customers.

  • Google Analytics Integration: Magento allows integration with Google Analytics for more advanced tracking of user behavior and e-commerce transactions.

Value: This particular integration will provide a comprehensive understanding of user behavior, traffic sources, and conversion paths, which directly enables strategic decision-making and helps you optimize the user experience for increased conversions.

Advanced Features

There are various extensions you can use to supercharge your analytics efforts and boost your Magento eCommerce reporting, but covering them all would be impossible in only one blog, so I opted for the Amasty Advanced Report extension. There are others as well, and if you believe any of them would be a better fit for your eShop, use my Calendly link to book a free consultation. I’ll be happy to elaborate on the pros and cons of those that you may have more interest in.    

  • Comprehensive Dashboard

Enhanced Dashboard: The Amasty Advanced Reports extension provides a comprehensive and customizable dashboard. It displays key performance indicators (KPIs) such as total revenue, average order value, and number of orders in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand format.

  • Detailed Sales Reports

Sales Overview: This feature allows you to analyze sales data in depth, including total sales, number of orders, and average order value over different time periods.

Orders by Hour & Day: With this unique feature, you can identify peak sales hours and days. This is particularly useful for planning marketing campaigns and optimizing operation hours.

  • Customer Behavior Insights

New vs. Returning Customers: This Magento report distinguishes between new and returning customers, helping you understand customer loyalty and the effectiveness of your customer retention strategies.

Sales by Customer Group: Segments sales data based on customer groups and allows you to tailor your marketing and sales strategies to different customer segments.

  • Product Performance Analysis

Bestsellers Report: Identifies which products are your top sellers, providing insights into customer preferences and helping you with inventory planning.

Product Performance: This feature allows you to track how individual products are performing over time, giving you insights into product trends and lifecycle.

  • Geographical Sales Data

Sales by Country: Analyze your sales based on geographical data. This is particularly useful for businesses looking to expand into new markets or optimize international sales strategies.

  • Advanced Data Filters and Customization

Customizable Reports: Amasty Advanced Report allows you to customize reports by adding or removing data columns, applying various filters, and adjusting data presentation to suit the specific needs of your business.

Interactive Charts and Graphs: The extension offers interactive charts and graphs for a more intuitive understanding of data trends.

  • Export and Share Reports

Data Export Options: Offer easy-export Magento reports in various formats like CSV, Excel, or XML that you can later use for further analysis or presentation purposes.

Scheduled Reports: You can schedule Magento reports to be generated and sent to specified email addresses, ensuring timely access to important data. 

A girl decoding Magento 2 sales report before an important eCommerce meeting.

Custom Magento 2 Reports and Analytics Development

Despite the wealth of available tools, there’s always room for customized or uniquely tailored solutions that will bring immense value to your eCommerce business and ensure good ROI. Here are a few custom Magento 2 report ideas that can address the gaps left by the existing tools:

  1. Predictive Sales Trends Report – a custom tool that uses historical data, seasonal patterns, and market analysis to predict future sales trends. This can help you with strategic planning and inventory management.
  1. Customer Lifetime Value Report – focused on calculating and tracking the lifetime value of customers, offering invaluable insights on tailored marketing efforts and customer retention strategies.
  1. Customer Unique Order Report – created with the goal of providing insights into the average number of unique orders per customer over a specific period. This metric is crucial for understanding your customers’ buying habits and their frequency.
  1. Supplier Item Liquidity Report  – aimed at analyzing the liquidity of inventory items associated with each supplier. This Magento report focuses on understanding how quickly products from specific suppliers are converted into sales, impacting overall cash flow.
  1. Inventory Optimization Report – ideal for businesses seeking to optimize stock levels. This Magento report uses sales trend data to recommend ideal inventory levels, reducing overstock and stockouts.

And this is just the beginning, if you have any particular requirements, or you do business in a very specific niche, we can always brainstorm for more creative ways to track different metrics across your Magento store. All you need to do is give me a ping, I love a good conundrum.

A working mother ordering her Christmas gifts online during the Black Friday sales.

In the dynamic landscape of e-commerce, Black Friday Magento analytics goes beyond numbers on a spreadsheet – it shapes the future of your business. Sure, you need to know where to look, what to customize, and how to analyze what you have, but with a reliable Magento partner on your side, many things become a breeze. 

So, eCommerce aficionados, as the Black Friday dust settles, don’t let all that data potential slip away. Embrace the power of Magento and its comprehensive analytics reports to turn post-event data abundance into a one-of-a-kind blueprint for success. Happy analyzing!

About The Author

Milos is the CEO of Lobbster and a proficient Magento Solution Architect.