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Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: December 2008
Here are the top 10 converting websites for December 2008*. These are based on Nielson Panel data and are calculated by toolbar user to final conversion. Conversion-rate data is based on visitor conversion rates, not session conversion rates: i.e., No. of unique customers/No. of unique visitors.
1. ProFlowers 31.1%
2. LL Bean 25.7%
3. Amazon 23.7%
4. VitaCost 23.0%
5. Coldwater Creek 22.4%
6. QVC 21.1%
7. Roamans 20.4%
8. Office Depot 20.2%
9. LandsEnd 19.3%
10. Victoria’s Secret 19.2%
*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts
Additional December Retail Benchmarks:
According to Coremetrics Benchmark, the percentage of website visits that ended up with product orders increased by 23% from November to December and fell by 2.4% compared to December, 2007. The average number of items per order and average order value fell by 19% and 11% compared to November and by 2% and 3% compared to last year.
Page Views Per Session 12.01
Product Page Views Per Session 2.99
Average Time on Site (in seconds) 503.01
Average Items/Order 4.76
Average Order Value $124.48
Shopping Cart Conversion Rate 38.16%
Shopping Cart Abandonment 61.84%
New Visitor Conversion Rate 2.69%
On-site Search Session 18.97%
* Source: Coremetrics LIVEmark Benchmarks US (PDF) – UK benchmarks PDF available.
Coremetrics LIVEmark leverages aggregate performance data across more than 300 participating brands to deliver over 35 benchmark metrics addressing performance indicators such as campaign and channel effectiveness, site stickiness and conversion rates.
About the author
Bryan Eisenberg is the co-author of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling books Call to Action, Waiting For Your Cat to Bark and Always Be Testing. Bryan is available as a professional speaker. You can friend him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter (@TheGrok).
More articles from Bryan Eisenberg
- Nobody wants to read your sh**!September 21st, 2009
- Redesign? Ask The Right Questions!September 18th, 2009
- Cross-post: How to Improve a Product Page, Part 1September 15th, 2009
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January 28th, 2009
7:01 pm
[...] Not really. Online retailers do much better. Check out Futurenow’s posting on “the top 10 converting websites for December 2008“. [...]
January 29th, 2009
4:34 pm
Thanks for this info. Any breakdown on conversion rate top 10 in the specific apparel/accessories sector? Cheers!
January 29th, 2009
9:05 pm
Erica there is a breakdown by sector in the PDF.
February 2nd, 2009
12:28 pm
Thank you, great post! Very insightful to watch the top dogs’ tricks. Beware: typo in second H2 header.
February 2nd, 2009
1:10 pm
Bryan,
Thanks for sharing this data. Powerful stuff! Are there fluctuations by category? Most of the people I work with are musicians and they would be interested in knowing what the conversion ratios might be with Amazon selling physical CDs vs digital downloads. Any ideas on where to get those details?
Thanks again,
-pjc
February 2nd, 2009
1:55 pm
Am I reading this right. That these conversion rates are for # of uniques customers to # of uniques visitors to the shopping cart.
February 2nd, 2009
3:31 pm
Bob,
These conversion rates are till final sale not just adding the item to cart.
Bryan
February 2nd, 2009
4:05 pm
I have been checking the conversion rates that you have been posting here for a long time.
To be honest, I don`t think these conversion rates reflect the reality. Some of them may be (just maybe) correct, but most of them are not. 31.1% conversion rate for ProFlowers? I don`t think so.
Of course, this is my opinion and I don`t know the actual conversion rates. Nobody can except for the companies in question.
I have worked for different e-commerce companies and I have tested so many different things and I can confidently tell you that reaching 25% conversion rate for a website that gets more than 500,000 unique visitors is almost impossible.
Having said that, you can even hit 40%-50% conversion rates from a specific traffic source and this is fine. But, when you receive millions of visitors, one must not expect to reach over 20% conversion rate. Maybe 10 years from now, but not now.
Just my 2 cents.
February 3rd, 2009
1:53 pm
these are fantastic results and congratulations to them all.
one thing these sites have in common is they are well known brands/sites.
it would be interesting to take a look at how the lesser known brand sites do it. do you have the next best 11 – 50 websites?
February 3rd, 2009
5:48 pm
[...] of conversion. To give you an idea of what is possible see these published conversion rates for December 2008. It is worth studying the layout and checkout process of these sites to see what you can apply to [...]
February 5th, 2009
9:19 am
[...] average” is – a lot – for a ton of online metrics. Here’s a great article from Bryan Eisenberg’s FutureNow and some data he pulled from Coremetrics December Benchmark Study. This report is US centric. [...]
February 7th, 2009
7:46 am
[...] Take a look at this story, posted on grokdotcom.com, about the BEST online retailers and their conversion rates. What you’ll quickly see is that the very BEST online retailers, like Amazon, LL Bean and [...]
February 7th, 2009
9:27 am
Just think – if well over half of the buyers are abandoning their shopping carts, recapturing even a small percentage of those abandoning could catapult your conversions to the moon (or at least a percentage or two).
February 8th, 2009
2:17 pm
Hi,
If the average order is $ 124.48, is there a way to determine frequency of orders. How often would an order like take place. That leads to the question are there stats available for annual purchases for person? Thanks for the great information.
February 20th, 2009
1:04 am
[...] Bryan Eisenberg, “Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: December 2008,” FutureNow,… Share and [...]
March 19th, 2009
9:48 pm
[...] Mais no FutureNow: Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: December 2008. [...]
March 27th, 2009
5:53 pm
[...] no FutureNow: Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: December 2008. Compartilhe este post: Share this post with the [...]
April 7th, 2009
6:12 am
Mr.Eisenberg i`m a postgraduate student and my thesis subject is about the impact of financial crisis on eCommerce.I want to compare some eRetailer websites so i need data for example conversion rate,no. of unique visitors,no. of orders and etc. could you please help? I spent a lot of time on the web but i couldnt find them free of charge:(
April 9th, 2009
11:17 pm
Wow… this is the first time I have seen a website with over 30% conversion rate, that is so amazing, As a website designer I am looking forward to my website do 40% conversion rate this year!
Yahoo!
- Daniel Chege
April 22nd, 2009
11:21 am
I would like to know if conversion is based on daily, weekly or monthly unique visitors?
June 28th, 2009
1:58 pm
What is the difference between success and failure as an on line retailer?
August 12th, 2009
12:42 am
This list varies so much every quarter, it’s somewhat staggering!
November 11th, 2009
12:46 am
@ Peter, that’s a broad question with a lot of answers. Try reading more articles here at Grokdotcom to get some answers.