Report Gives Insight for the 2011 Holiday Season
A new study gives insight into possible shopping habits for the 2011 holiday season.
The Online Consumer Report by RichRelevance analyzed customer viewing and shopping behavior on major U.S. retail sites. The study monitored more than 200 million shopping sessions and uncovered information about how many Americans are browsing and shopping online.
Since the National Retail Federation (NRF) reports that more than 37 percent of shoppers will do some holiday shopping before Halloween, these findings will give retailers insight about how consumer behavior may pan out this year.
Key findings from the report include a relatively unchanged online conversion rate between 2010 (2.1) and 2011 (2.13), a drop in overall online average order value - from $128.27 to $116.58, as well as different shopping behaviors based on how consumers arrive at retail sites.
Social Network Key Findings:
- Traffic from Facebook and Twitter to retail sites has grown, however these shoppers make up less than one percent of retail site traffic.
- Facebook has the most growth of any channel as a source of retail shopping, by increasing its contribution by 92 percent between August 2010 and August 2011.
- Shoppers that come to retail sites from Facebook and Twitter are less likely to make purchases, with conversion rates at 1.2 percent for Facebook and 0.5 percent for Twitter.
- Shoppers coming from social media sites that make purchases spend more per order than shoppers that come from Google ($100.16). Facebook shoppers average $102.59 and Twitter shoppers have the highest average at $121.33.
Search Engine Findings:
- Organic search engine traffic continues to be a primary traffic source. It drove 18 percent of traffic in August 2011.
- Google accounts for most of organic search traffic for major retailers, with 80.62 percent coming from Google firehose.
- Yahoo accounts for 9.67 percent of traffic for retailers; it has a conversion rate of 2.6 percent and has an average order value of $105.13.
- Bing accounts for 7.45 percent of traffic for retailers; it has a conversion rate of 2.4 percent and has an average order value of $104.62.
- AOL accounts for fewer than 2 percent of traffic for retailers; however it has the highest conversion rate at 2.9 percent and an average order value of $105.27.
