Online shoppers more savvy than ever
News from IMRG who brand themselves as ‘the voice of e-tail’ shows that while online shopping continues to rise, the way people shop online is changing. Almost aping the traditional high street shopper, online shoppers take longer onsite, browsing, researching and comparing products far more than they did five years ago. The result of which is online conversion rates in the UK have fallen by 55% over the past five years. In 2006, the average online conversion rate for retailers in the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index was 8.4%, but that figure has dropped to 3.8% now. The trend is being labelled as ‘online purchasing’ compared to ‘online shopping’. With the increase in social shopping expected to contine the ability to convert browsers into buyers is possibly the biggest challenge to online marketeers in the months ahead. While gimmicks, offers and products will bring in would-be customers, online shops will have to think far more about their calls to actions and enticements to buy if they are to convert that traffic. Have your conversion rates fallen? What are you doing to combat this?
Top 50 e-tailers reveal climbers and fallers
The latest Top 50 e-Retailers report from IMRG and Experian Hitwise sees no change in the top 2 (Amazon and Argos leading the way) but there are a few changes in rank and one new entry into the top 10. With the summer upon us it was travel sites who improved most over the last quarter with each of the major travel brands (including Thomson in 10th position) making a rise compared to May 2011 rankings and the sector making up 1 in 5 of the top 50. Yet, while getting away was popular so was just getting out. Both Odeon (37th) and Vue (44th) returned to the top 50 after a short stint outside. Interestingly, home entertainment-type retailers (other than Amazon) were amongst the hardest hit by the season, with sites like Play.com, HMV and Game all dropping in the rankings. So the figures perhaps reflect more seasonal changes than specific trends in online buying but of note are some new names making big impressions on the e-commerce sector. The online offering from fashion-retailer Next overtook Tesco in this last quarter and in July alone accounted for 1 in ever 11 visits for online fashion. In the same sector Matalan is making massive inroads too, having quadrupled traffic to its site over the past three years to record levels last month that lifted it to 40th spot. Year on year the biggest risers have been House of Fraser (up 20 places), Sainsbury’s and Ikea (both up 12 spots). Interestingly,in the multi-channel era, online only offerings such as Amazon UK (1st), Play.com (6th), Expedia (14th) and ASOS (19th) continue to compete strongly alongside big high-street brands who have moved online. Thinking of starting your own online offering? Our eshop range come with options for every size of venture and with a drag and drop interface are easy to get to grips with and get online with. Compare the range here.
We all love a bargain
Your mum may have done it, your nan may still be doing it but the chances are, if you are in the 25-34 age group you are doing it more than most. Yes, traditional coupon collectors were seen with scissors in hand cutting cereal boxes and pages from magazines to grab their money-off vouchers, but the modern ‘couponer’ uses a mouse to cut and paste their discounts. A YouGov survey of over 2,000 online British adults, commissioned by CouponCoupon.co.uk, reveals that women, those aged between 25-34 years and those living in Wales, are making the biggest savings by tapping into the benefits of coupon, discount and voucher codes. There’s money to be saved too. the respondents reported on average a saving of over £300 per year thanks to coupons, discount and voucher codes. Coupons have a big effect on spending habits too: 28% of women said they are more likely to shop with a retailer they have a coupon for than one they don’t, (a figure slightly lower at 22% for the male respondents). Are your shopping habits influenced by coupon codes?