Coremetrics Benchmark™
Holiday Benchmark Reports

Free Shipping Monday: Online Traffic Flat, but Shopping is Way Up

While overall online traffic for the retail sector as measured by Coremetrics Benchmark was largely flat on Free Shipping Monday (the last Monday of the season where retailers offer free shipping and guarantee Christmas delivery), shopping sessions were resoundingly up: the percentage of sessions in which visitors completed their purchases grew by 4.5 percent compared to Cyber Monday and also grew by almost 20 percent compared to Black Friday. Another key measure, shopping cart conversion rate—the percentage of items placed in carts and subsequently purchased—went up by 10 percent and 24 percent compared to Cyber Monday and Black Friday respectively.

Not surprisingly, the percentage of sessions in which people browsed through pages was down nearly 2 percent compared to Cyber Monday and nearly 3 percent compared to Black Friday. These numbers reflect “surgical shopping” behavior, with buyers having done their research well before the last free shipping day of the holiday season. This trend is further evidenced by the decrease in average time on site, as well as by the decrease in average items per order (down 2.5 percent from Cyber Monday, and 2 percent from Black Friday).

Strong Retail Categories: Office Supplies and Electronics Retailers

The biggest gainers on Free Shipping Day were office supplies and electronics retailers, with the majority of their ecommerce metrics trending up. Retailers in this category appeared to have done an especially good job of having the right mix of products and pricing to meet the needs of their unique visitors:

Compared to Cyber Monday:

• 10 percent increase in average items per order
• 10 percent increase in shopping cart conversion rate
• 18 percent increase in average order value

Compared to Black Friday:

• 117 percent increase in average items per order
• 40 percent increase in shopping cart conversion
• 58 percent increase in average order value

• Download the Full Free Shipping Monday Data

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Cyber Monday 2008 sees increases in online conversions

More people who visited websites actually completed their purchases online this Cyber Monday compared to the same period in 2007. However, people are buying fewer items and spending less money on average.

• Web sessions where people placed an item in a shopping cart increased by 12 percent.
• The number of sessions where people went on to complete their purchases also increased by 12 percent.

But online retailers failed to keep shoppers on their sites looking at products.

• People’s product views per session dropped by 7.5 percent.
• The average time they spent on a web site fell by 14.5 percent.
• These numbers suggest that shoppers were extremely focused in their buying.

Similarly, retailers were unable to encourage those who did buy to buy more products.

• The average number of items per order fell by 17 percent.
• Average order value dropped by 10 percent.

Notable retail categories:

Department stores increased their shopping cart sessions and order sessions by 20 percent and 16 percent respectively.

• Unlike the retail category as a whole, department stores successfully increased the average number of items per order by 11 percent.
• The number of new visitors who completed a purchase also rose by 18 percent.

Gifts retailers also fared well with 4 percent and 5 percent increases in average number of items per order and average order value respectively.

Health and Beauty retailers did a phenomenal job of getting people to put products in their shopping carts (up nearly 57 percent).

• The number of sessions where people went on to complete their purchases also increased by 70 percent.
• However, the average order value was down 8.8 percent.

When analyzing the percentage of orders across five groups of different average order values (< $25, $25-$50, $51-$75, $76-$100 and > $100), we see that most orders were concentrated around $76-$100. This follows a similar distribution that we saw in the Black Friday data. The apparel, intimate apparel and office supplies/electronics sub-verticals saw the bulk of their orders coming in, on average, at $100 or more.

• Download the Full Cyber Monday Report

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Black Friday 2008 sees sharp decreases in e-commerce activities

Most of the key performance indicators that make up the Coremetrics Benchmark registered drops in ecommerce activities in the U.S. Retail vertical between Black Friday of 2008 and Black Friday of 2007. The exceptions were shopping cart sessions (up by 0.5 percent), average items per order (up 2.5 percent) and onsite search sessions (up 5 percent).

At the sub-vertical level there were a few bright spots. The big winners were the Department Stores and the Gifts sub-verticals. The Department Store sub-vertical saw a 12 percent increase in order sessions, 30 percent increase in average items per order, and 10 percent increases in average order value and in shopping cart conversion rate.

The Gifts sub-vertical registered an increase in the percentage of shopping cart and order sessions, as well as an up tick in transaction measurements. The average number of items per order, average order value, and new visitor conversion rate went up between 1 percent and 6 percent.

Also, the Health and Beauty sub-vertical saw an increase in the percentage of browser and shopping cart sessions (6 percent and 10 percent respectively), as well as in average order value (10 percent). The Jewelry sub-vertical saw a large increase in shopping cart (80 percent) and order sessions (36 percent). When analyzing the percentage of orders across five groups of different average order values (< $25, $25-$50, $51-$75, $76-$100 and > $100), we see that most orders were concentrated around $76-$100. The same downward trend was noticed with 2008 Thanksgiving Saturday data.

Again, most key performing indicators were down across retail, with department stores showing strength in traffic and transaction-related measures.

• Download the Full Black Friday Report

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