01
Nov
Marketing Ideas By The Numbers: Holiday Ecommerce Statistics
63% of US shoppers plan to do a majority of their Christmas shopping online this year, according to a new study by LivePerson. And another study by eConsuatancy found eCommerce to be more popular than high street shopping. But how can you ensure your store converts as many as these eager shoppers as possible?
Studies show there are factors that set merchants apart and have proven success in converting more users.
Marketing Ideas By The Numbers:
Offer Free Returns:
- 60% of UK consumers will not even consider making a fashion purchase online unless they can return unwanted items without being charged.
- 41% buy several sizes of the same piece of clothing online to check the fit, and then send the others back.
- Other reasons given for returning items included item not fitting (43%), the feel of the material (25%) and style (15%).
- 12% say they never buy online due to concerns about finding the right size, while 61% are often deterred for this reason.
- 60% say they won’t consider buying online unless returns are free.
Offer Free Shipping
- 55% of online shoppers expect free shipping on every order
- 85% of ecommerce sites will offer free shipping promotions specific for the upcoming holiday season
- 30% of retailers said they would offer free shipping earlier than they did during the 2011 holiday shopping season.
- 20% of consumers say free shipping is the most important factor in where they shop online in 2012. 19% of consumers say they’ll pay full price, if retailers offer free shipping.
Use Social To Connect:
- 70% of shoppers using Twitter to get product reviews
- 75% turning to Facebook to look for discounts
- 73% using Pinterest to research ideas.
Update Product Photos:
- 67% of consumers saying that the quality of a product image is very important in selecting and purchasing a product
- 60% of consumers are more likely to consider or contact a business that has an image show up in local search results
- 53% of customers value the quality of a product image more than ratings or reviews
Use Email Marketing Strategically
- Targeted subject lines improve open rates – 53% said they opened an email because of a showcased offer
- Men over ag 55 are more likely than their younger counterparts to have made a purchase because of an email message
- 87% of those receiving retailer emails open the messages
- 80% of online shoppers and 71% of in-store shoppers say email offers influence them to buy
Make Checkout Easy
- 84% of ecommerce sites support express checkout
- 66% of ecommerce sites offer guest checkout (34% DON’T!)
- Only 9% of checkouts are 3-step vs 54% 4-step and 33% 5-step
05
Sep
Driving Conversions With Email Marketing
Email still ranks as the most effective inbound marketing channel, converting higher than both search and social. Monetate’s infographic, featured below, depicts just how much more effective email is than its inbound brethren - ranking highest in both average add-to-cart-rates per session and average conversion rates per session.
Even though, email marketing is extremely effective, studies have shown that consumers open just 20% of email messages. So how do you get your emails to stand-out in your customers already-bombarded inboxes?
Here’s some tips on how you can increase open rates and tap into email conversion power today:
1) Segment, Segment, Segment – As the infographic puts it “Don’t Batch and Blast.” Using email segmentation, allows you to make messages more relevant to the user and typically results in 30% more open rates and 50% more click-through rates.
One great example laid out in the infographic is segmenting active vs inactive customers and including a promotion code for the inactive customers. This example can be translated to ecommerce by segmenting abandoned carts vs customers – for customers include a ‘loyalty coupon code’ and for users who have abandoned their cart include a ‘first purchase coupon code.’
2) Consistency -The infographic points out that your email campaigns should lead to a relavent landing page with wording, offers and images consistent with your email message. In addition, make sure your emails reflect your store’s look and feel. Email is another way of presenting your brand to the consumer and thus the design should match up with all of your other channels.
3) Make it mobile friendly – Studies have shown that almost 27% of emails are opened on mobile devices and Monetate points out that there has been a 74% increase in email views on iPads and a 34% increase on smart phones just within the last few months. When you designing both your email campaign and your landing page, you need to keep your mobile audience in mind.
View more interesting statistics and figures on the full infographic:
08
Jun
mCommerce is on the rise!
Having a mobile friendly e-Commerce store is more important now than ever before! Data in a recent infographic from Statista, a leading German Internet statistics company, shows that there are close to 120 million smartphone users in the U.S. right now! The number of tablet users isn’t too far behind either (around 60 million). This wave of smartphone & tablet users have quadrupled mobile e-Commerce sales over the past two years, proving to shop owners the importance of having a mobile friendly store.
24
Jan
Who Is The Connected Consumer? She’s Awesome!
The leader of your book club shops online. Your 13-year old middle-schooler shops online (hopefully with your consent). Your grandmother shops online. Online shopping isn’t just for the tech savvy anymore, but just WHO is the new mobile shopper? Just HOW connected are they?
A new infographic by Zmags sets out to answer just that and there are some important take-aways.
She’s a soccer mom. 52% of ‘connected consumers’ are women with an average age of 40. Yep, despite generational stereotypes the connect consumer is NOT a millennial!
02
Dec
tCommerce: Tablet eCommerce
As the tablet market continues to grow so does its affect on eCommerce. Mobile commerce or mCommerce is increasingly becoming a bigger part of eCommerce and tablets are primed so soon become the leader in mCommerce.
Some surprising facts:
- 20% of all mobile eCommerce sales come from tablets.
- 60% of tablet owners have purchased online using their tablet.
- Tablet users spend an average of one hour and 35 minutes on their devices.
- Owners typically spend 10-20% more on purchases than shoppers without tablets.
- Mobile commerce is expected to increase to $31 billion in the U.S. by by 2016. Quite a jump from only $3 billion in 2010.
If you’re interesting in even more interesting tablet commerce ( Tcommerce?) check out the infographic below!
Infographic by Vertic