Analytics app offers real-time window into e-commerce activity

Small and midsize businesses trying to get a better grip on the interests of visitors to their e-commerce or e-tail sites might want to check out a new analytics service that a real-time view into shopping activity.

The service, called Lexity Live, provides a dashboard that lets SMBs get a better sense of buying trends or their merchandise interest. It might also offer a way of determining what works -- and what does -- as far as the way an online product catalog is organized. The service was developed by Lexity, a company previously known as Vurve. Lexity is actually in the business of online advertising. It is offering Lexity Live for free (probably as a means of helping SMBs find out more about its other services).

Lexity Live works with most major shopping cart software include Shopify, eBay ProStores and Magento.

One early user of the dashboard is EarthLED, an online store that sells light emitting diode (LED) bulbs. In the materials about the new service, EarthLED managing director Mark Costigliola said he monitors his store using the app several times per day.

"Being an e-commerce business, if you can't see what's going on in your store and measure it, at any given time, you really don't know what's going on," Costigliola said in the Lexity Live press release. "Have I gotten a little obsessive in how much I watch my store? Maybe, but then again since using Lexity Live, I have been able to switch my marketing and promotions and have increased my business."

If you check out the demo, you can see that Lexity Live offers insight into who is hanging out on your site at a given moment. Sometimes a little poke might coax a hesitant into a sale, but if you don't know what is going on in real time, it is difficult to take action.