Latest Release of the Monetate Ecommerce Quarterly Sheds Light on Shipping Offer Effectiveness and Holiday Shopping Behaviors

Monetate, a leading technology solution that allows online marketers to leverage Big Data to create personalized online customer experiences, announced today the latest release of the Ecommerce Quarterly, (EQ4 2012).

In addition to benchmarks and consumer online behavior insights, the report includes commentary from Evan LaPointe , a user experience and analytics expert.

(Download a free copy of the Monetate EQ4 2012 here)

While most, if not all, holiday ecommerce reporting ends after Cyber Monday, EQ4 2012 examines trends through Christmas Eve, including an analysis of key performance indicators such as conversion rates and average order values by device and inbound referrer. Among the report’s key insights:

• Ecommerce window closes on Free Shipping Day. During the last holiday season, ecommerce conversion rates plummeted after “Free Shipping Day” (Dec. 17) even as retailers continued free shipping promotions beyond the date. A consumer “doubt gap” on shipping has emerged, presenting an opportunity for retailers to prove to consumers they can deliver the goods in a shorter window, extending shopping opportunities.
• The soaring rate of mobile. On Christmas Day 2012, almost one-third of all ecommerce traffic came from smartphones (16%) and tablets (15.6%). Just a year earlier, less than half of that amount of traffic (14.5%) came from smartphones (6.4%) and tablets (8%). This development presents a true reflection of consumer preferences;  online business which doesn’t tailor its web experience for smartphones and tablets runs the risk of alienating (or losing) customers.
• Smartphone conversions remain low, but does it matter? Conversion rates on smartphone devices remain low (1.2% compared with 4% for tablets), yet smartphone traffic hovered over 10%.  These numbers point to consumers using smartphones primarily as “retailer prompted research” tools;  this sets the stage for retailers to get more creative in driving the smartphone experience through to conversion.

“One of the most telling insights from the EQ4 2012 is the Christmas Day device data,” said Kurt Heinemann , CMO, Monetate. “On Dec. 25th, 15 percent of all ecommerce traffic came from tablets, whereas the average tablet traffic percentage in December was about 10 percent. This reveals the mobile is increasingly the device of choice. When consumers have leisure time and any device at their disposal, they reach for the tablet or smartphone. Ecommerce had better be paying attention to this trend.”

Methodology

The Ecommerce Quarterly is a trend report that provides retailers with a snapshot of the changing shopping habits of the American consumer. The EQ analyzes a random sample of more than 100 million online shopping experiences using “same store” data across each calendar quarter. Averages throughout the EQ are calculated across the entire sample. Key performance indicators such as average order value and conversion rate will vary by industry/market type. These averages are published only to support the analysis in each release of the EQ and are not intended to be benchmarks for any ecommerce business.

About Monetate

Monetate empowers marketers to leverage Big Data to create more personalized and engaging online customer experiences. By providing more relevant web interactions, leading brands are able to anticipate and react to consumer preferences to generate stronger customer relationships and significantly increase profits.

Monetate drives billions of dollars of revenue every year for some of the best-known brands in the world, including Best Buy, Frontier Airlines, Aeropostale, The Sports Authority, and PETCO. The company’s comprehensive product suite and conversion expertise enable marketers to deliver a more relevant customer experience with unprecedented agility.

Leading marketers rely on Monetate’s cloud-based browser solutions to achieve a new level of speed and control, allowing them to run 16 times  more optimization campaigns compared to industry averages. Monetate solutions include advanced products for testing, merchandising, targeting and cross-channel consistency, providing an opportunity to bypass IT restraints and react in real time to customer demands. Monetate also helps marketers implement best practices and drive online revenue through its expert strategic services and content publishing teams.