Online shoppers are looking at fewer product pages per shopping session but purchasing more items per order than they were in 2008, according to IBM Coremetrics. The researchers believe this trend toward “surgical shopping” reflects mobile and social media cutting into time that was once spent on retail websites; it’s also likely that shoppers’ use of mobile for pre-shopping has streamlined the buying process at traditional retail websites.
The average value of an online order placed in April 2011 was $208.58, up 70% from $120 in June 2008. Online shoppers are also buying more items per order: an average of 8.26 products in March 2011, up from 4.8 in December 2008. At the same time, the average time spent on retail websites declined 30% between April 2008 and December 2010.
While still accounting for a small proportion of overall online sales, mobile is growing quickly — 6.5% of all online purchases in April 2011 were made via mobile web, and mobile accounted for 7.6% of all website traffic to online retailers.
Mobile visitors to retail sites view fewer pages on average per visit and spend less time on the sites than overall site visitors. More than six in 10 visitors (63%) to retail sites who arrive from social networks and 45% of mobile visitors look at only one page before leaving, compared to 35% of visitors overall. [For in-depth analysis of U.S. consumers’ mobile shopping habits, see also “How Mobile Devices Are Changing The Way Americans Shop,” a new report by the Editors of Research Alert. Call 212-941-0099 or visit www.epmcom.com/mobile]
Source: “IBM Coremetrics 4th Annual Online Retail Holiday Readiness Report,” June 2011, Coremetrics (div. of IBM), John Squire, Chief Strategy Officer, 1840 Gateway Dr., San Mateo, CA 94404; 866-493-2673; cminfo@us.ibm.com; coremetrics.com. Price: Available online at no charge.
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