Hi, I was wondering if there are any tools to check users browsing patterns (eg. are they reaching the check out page etc). Can I do this on GA? And if so then how? Also how do I set up GA to track sales? I searched for this online but got a little confused along the way.
GA is something that I'd recommend. Inorder to track visitor browsing, you'd first need to set the paths/pages of your website (if it's an eCommerce site). In the funnel view you should be able to understand the usability of your visitors. Another awesome extension that comes alongwith it is the inpage analytics, you should be able to get a good idea about the behaviour of users over your website.
It can be done without using cookie-based systems though. I've just built a footprint system for a website that tracks the user using the users' session instead of using GA. I literally only needed to track what categories and what item within the category the user reached so I set the session ID to be the date/time the user signed in and added the pageID and date/time they hit the page giving me realtime information of the users browsing sessions.
That sounds interesting! We tried using an open source tool to understand the usage patterns at our website, but unfortunately, the server on which it was installed faced a lot of load due to the large volume of requests. Hence ultimately we decided to carry on with using GA. Though our R'n'D team is still working on something on those lines, but are still to deliver a final copy of it.