Today I had to wash my mouse pad.
Even though it looked fine, it was causing too much friction with my mouse that it was grating on my nerves.
Friction is good in same cases but not with computer mice or ecommerce.
Friction is what causes visitors to leave your store.
Friction is what causes abandoned carts.
Friction is an overarching problem that hurts many things.
Whenever you hear about store optimizations, conversion rate improvements, or any other optimization, many times that change was successful because it reduced or eliminated friction.
You can spot these sort of things too.
Every now and then take a few minutes to look at your store through the eyes of your customer. Note down anything that gets in the way of their research and purchasing.
You might decide to keep some things that cause friction (e.g. an opt-in popup) but seriously consider removing everything else you can.
Friction might also be causing customers to not come back and buy again.
This is noticeable in your metrics when you see a low Repeat Purchase Rate after the first order.
If you haven't installed Repeat Customer Insights yet, it'll calculate and track that for you as part of the Customer Purchase Latency reports.
Eric Davis
Discover where your best customers come from
Going beyond simple attribution, Repeat Customer Insights lets you analyze and segment your customers by who first sent that customer your way.
This will let you find the best sources of long-term customers, not just anyone who orders.