According to online advertising firm DoubleClick ,
online shopping is growing, but plenty of shoppers are abandoning their goods in their
virtual carts, never to return again.
DoubleClick’s second quarter 2004 E-commerce Site
Trend Report illustrates that on a year-over-year basis, carting
frequency has risen from 8.3 percent to 9.4 percent. But merely putting an item in a
cart is not enough to complete the transaction and make a sale, which is what
ultimately will make or break the online retailer.
Abandoned carts have increased by 24 percent on a year-over-year basis
to 57 percent of all carts, up from 45.9 percent a year
ago. What’s more, online shoppers who abandon their carts are not returning to
them with the same frequency that they
have in the past. Last year, shoppers who did return to
complete a purchase comprised 35.6 percent of sales. This
year that number dropped to 26.5 percent.
According to DoubleClick, abandoned
carts represent a significant amount of lost revenue. The firm estimates that for every dollar spent there is
$4.51 that is left in a cart.
Despite the high rate of cart abandonment, DoubleClick found that
overall conversion, or order transaction, rates and
average order value have increased in the
last year. A total of 4.9 percent of e-commerce visits
now result in a conversion, which is an increase of 14 percent over last year.
The average online order value increased by 15 percent
over last year and now sits at $134.01.
The DoubleClick report also illustrates the importance of on-site search to the e-commerce process.
Sales that originated from an on-site search query
reported an increase of 47 percent, which translates
into an average order value of $110.62. Overall the
value of search-initiated sales as a percentage of
overall sales is up to 8.4 percent, an 17 percent increase over last year.
The report also found the
use of onsite search functionality rose 26
percent.
DoubleClick also reported that users seem to
be spending less time on the pages they visit, although the number of pages they’re viewing is up.
The average number of pages per session is up by 12 percent to 11
pages. But they’re now spending only 29 seconds
per page (down from 32.5 last year) while overall
session length has remained “relatively flat” at 4.82
minutes up from 4.78 minutes in 2003.
In DoubleClick’s view, the report findings suggest that
e-commerce consumers are now more active in the shopping
process, which means marketers have even less time than
before to capture attention.
“Consumers are looking at more pages, carting more
products and converting more often — so the
opportunity is there. said Eric Kirby, vice president
of Strategic Services at DoubleClick, in a statement.
“Now, it’s up to marketers to not only make the
shopping experience as engaging as possible, but also to
introduce new strategies, such as remarketing to lost
prospects.”
The results of the report were compiled
using data based on “hundreds of millions of unique
visitors, tens of millions of online shopping carts and
over $1 billion in total e-commerce sales.”
