In the five years that followed the worldwide financial slump in 2008, online sales have increased by 23 per cent. Clearly, this increase has been at the expense of going to traditional shops.

It would be easy to draw the conclusion that the rise of online sales is inexorable and that this sounds the death knell for traditional shopping. If you are a shop owner, before you convince yourself that there is a spiral of decline in your prospects, it is important that you

Some websites are used to make sales. Others are used for communication and marketing (e.g. to sign up for a free newsletter in order to occasionally make sales offers by mail, email or a specific website landing page.)

No matter which category your website falls into, it is vital that you learn how to look at your website statistics so that you can improve your success rate.