Retailers Struggle with Conversation Rates as Online Shopping Rides the Mobile Wave
The online shopping industry has experienced a tremendous amount of growth in recent years, but retailers are not taking full advantage of this increased demand. These were the findings of IBM’s sixth annual Online Retail Holiday Readiness Report, a 22-page paper detailing the latest trends and best practices in the e-commerce space.
The 500 retailers IBM surveyed as part of the study reported an average online sales increase of 13.9 percent in November and a 15.5 percent surge in December. Mobile as a percentage of site traffic rose to 24 percent on Black Friday, up 68 percent from the year before, while sales of smartphones and tablets leapt to more than 12 percent.
IBM forecasts that online spending in the U.S. will advance 60 percent to $327 billion by 2017. In Asia, the e-commerce sector is expected to triple in size to $523 billion over the next three years.
Predictably, both the number of items per order and average order value hit record highs this year. The former peaked at 10.5 in March, almost double the September 2012 average. IBM credits this growth to the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets, which accounted for 17.7 percent of online retail transactions as of March this year.
Unlike mobile, the social channel and overall conversation rates remained all but flat compared to previous years. On the flip side, cart abandonment hit a record low of 30.4 percent, down 39.2 percent from February 2013. IBM believes that this drop reflects the increased effectiveness of mobile ads and pay search in particular.
Big Blue recommends that retailers prepare for the 2013 holiday season by optimizing their mobile sites and embracing analytical tools that can provide them with deeper insights into consumer behavior.
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