Looking for a starter dashboard: things like order cycle time, fulfillment accuracy, returns rate, labor hours/order, on-time shipping, support first-response/resolution. What targets are realistic in the first 90 days?
Interesting question! Do you already have a dashboard and want to know sensible targets/benchmarks, or looking for a combined dashboard and targets?
I’d suggest something like this for a starter dash:
- The time each order spends in each ‘stage’, like:
- Submitted → Paid
- Paid → Picked
- Picked → Dispatched
- Dispatched → Received by customer
You can aggregate this to get an overall cycle time.
For measuring these kinds of metrics, it’s best to measure a percentile (90th or 95th) instead of the average. That tells you “90% of orders were received by customers in 2 days”, meaning you can focus on resolving the issues for the problematic 10%.
If your business is large, you’ll want to cut the data by various dimensions like the fulfilment location, product categories, and maybe even staff member.
- Order cancellation rate & return rate
Cancellations can be a really good indicator of issues in the warehouse. Return rate is important but mixes in problems on the customer end - could be due to fulfilment inaccuracy but also general dissatisfaction. If you do have data on fulfilment inaccuracy, goods damaged in shipping, etc. that’s great - but generally harder to get!
Also worth tracking restocks if you can - how much can you resell vs dispose of.
- Shipping costs vs Shipping revenue
Make sure you are not losing more money than you expected on shipping. For example, some orders might require a much larger box which can erode your margin
- Rostered hours vs Orders
Track this over longer than a week (monthly or annual even), you want to make sure that you are not overstaffed in quieter periods, and not understaffed in busy periods.
- Support & reviews
Fully agree, and most support/livechat tools should have these kind of metrics available already. Worth tracking your reviews as well. But actually I’d suggest a different dashboard for customer satisfaction/retention
In the first 90 days I wouldn’t worry about hitting “perfect” benchmarks, it’s more about making sure your process is consistent. For order cycle time, getting most orders out within 3–7 days is fine. Fulfillment accuracy should be high from the start — aim for 97–99% — since mistakes are expensive early. Returns will depend on your products, but 2–5% is normal unless you’re in clothing where it’s higher.
Labor hours per order will be heavier at the beginning (half an hour to an hour per order is common) because you’re still figuring things out. On-time shipping should be around 90% or better, and for support, just make sure you’re replying within a business day and resolving most issues inside 48 hours.
The main thing early on is to track these weekly so you see patterns, and only treat something as a real problem if it consistently falls short — one bad week with low volume can throw the numbers off.
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