The Ecommerce Playbook
Online revenue only moves five ways. This is the short version of how each one breaks — and where to look when it does.
One customer, five places to lose them
Follow a single order from first search to repeat purchase. Each step is a lever, and each lever has plays behind it.
They have to find you
Someone starts searching. If your pages aren’t eligible, aren’t indexed, or you’re paying for clicks you’d have got free, the story ends before it starts.
4 plays · Traffic →They have to finish
They arrive, search, land on a product. Whether they buy comes down to three answers above the fold and how little the checkout asks of them.
4 plays · Conversion →The basket has to be worth it
One item at the cheapest price is a sale you barely wanted. Thresholds, bundles and default sort quietly decide what ends up in the cart.
3 plays · Order value →They have to come back
The second order is the one that decides whether you own a customer or rent one. Most retention effort is aimed at the wrong point in the curve.
3 plays · Repeat rate →You have to keep what you booked
Cancellations, returns, delivery cost and wasted spend take back revenue after it’s been counted. This is where growth stops being profit.
4 plays · Leakage →Find the constraint first
Most wasted effort is a good play run against the wrong lever. Two symptoms, as an example — the full triage table lives in the playbook.
The rest of the shelf
A personal reference kept in the open. Plays are added when they’ve been run, and removed when they stop holding up. Nothing here is a service offer or a guarantee of outcome.