The Nielsen NatRatings report for December 2006 Online Retail Results are in. The top 146 Online Retailers generated more than 140 million visitors and served over 41 million customers with an average order size of $72.30 for the month compared to 124 million visitors and an average order size of just over $74 in December 05.
In December 2006, the top 5 online retailers were:
1 eBay
2 Amazon
3 Wal-Mart Stores
4 JCPenney
5 Overstock.com
eBay recorded more than 69 million visitors in 06 compared to 64 million in 05 almost an 8% increase. Barnes & Noble slipped from number 4 to number 6 in 06 and Overstock moved up from number 6 to number 5 in 06.
An interesting point to note in the December 06 results were the number of new online retailers that showed up on the report that did not appear in previous months. I think that this stat points to the fact that the art of online marketing is still in its infancy and open to new leaders emerging.
Another important stat in the December numbers was the fairly high session conversion rate. In December, the session conversion rate was almost 5%. Online conversion occurs when a website visitor becomes a buyer. A conversion rate of 5% means that 5% of the new visitors to the site have searched the site, found the item or items they want and have made a purchase. Even small changes in conversion rate translate into big revenue dollars. For example, if a site doing $20 million in revenue increases its conversion rate from 3% to 4%, revenue would increase by almost $7 million.
Driving new customers to the site and maximizing the conversion rates are the keys to success in online retailing. How does your organization view its online channel and what are you doing to ascend to the heights and rewards of online retail success?
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