How is everyone shopping, anyway?

25 Pages·2016·3.27 MB·English

How is everyone shopping, anyway?
Ecommerce Quaterly Report
1 About the EQ
2 Introduction
1 3 How long it takes to make a purchase
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4 What devices buyers are using to start—and finish—shopping
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6 When browsing and shopping hit their peaks
Table of Contents
7 One retailer’s quest to meet consumers’ cross-device shopping preferences
9 Conclusion
10 Benchmark reports
Q1 2106 HOW IS EVERYONE SHOPPING, ANYWAY?
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About the EQ
As retail brands learn to grow revenue in a digital world, they’re searching In this EQ, we explore the growing need for cross-device reconciliation,
for ways to engage their customers online. They’re collecting—and using— a practice of merging a customer’s multiple IDs into a single profile. The
more data than ever to do that. practice helps retailers better understand how and when customers are
interacting with their brand, and delivers a richer data set off of which to
The Monetate Ecommerce Quarterly (EQ), published every quarter since create more personalized, relevant experiences.
Q1 2012, aims to explore that constantly evolving process and to provide
insight on the strategies, tactics, and data sources that have been proven To develop these unique data, Monetate analyzed more than seven billion
to create better customer experiences and generate more revenue. Past online shopping sessions that took place during Q1 2016. We’ll show you
editions of the EQ have been featured in The Washington Post, Business why cross-device reconciliation is an important opportunity and offer a
Insider, Digiday, and AdWeek. practical example where a popular retailer put these type of data to work
for themselves and got tremendous results.
Usually, that means bringing a better understanding to the role personalization
plays, as both a strategy and a tactic, in reaching customers and how retailers As always, it’s our goal to give you interesting insights that help you think
use a variety of data sources to better target those customers. strategically about how you do your job. Enjoy.
1 | Monetate Ecommerce Quarterly Report
Q1 2106 HOW IS EVERYONE SHOPPING, ANYWAY?
Introduction
Any time we hear a conversation about personalization, our ears perk Here’s why: Only 42% of purchases that happened in Q1 2016 occurred
up. It is, after all, what we’re all about. within the first hour of a shopper’s browsing session. We probably don’t
need to spell out the importance of that for you, but we will anyway.
While nearly everyone in ecommerce now understands the importance
of creating a rich, dynamic profile of their customers, it seems that More than half your shoppers spend a lot of time, in a lot of different
discussions around customer data rarely get further than browsing places, on a lot of different devices before they come back and buy
behavior, device type, and predefined segments. what first caught their eye.
To us, that’s only the start of the conversation. That’s when you start Wouldn’t it be cool if you could make sure those shopping experiences
to hit on the good stuff. pick up where they left off, no matter what? We sure think so.
That’s when you can start talking about stringing together all of an
individual customer’s interactions with your brand, no matter the
device they used, by reconciling all of their devices, all of their cookies,
and all of their customer IDs.
It might sound like a bear to manage, but it should also sound like an
effective opportunity to increase conversions.
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Q1 2106 HOW IS EVERYONE SHOPPING, ANYWAY?
How long it takes to make a purchase
Before we even get to the question of devices, let’s spend some time
on when purchases happen. After all, if only 42% of purchases happen
within the first hour of a shopper’s browsing session, the majority Purchases by hour (excluding first 60 minutes)
5%
happen later.
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Here, then, is a breakdown of major timeframes* for purchase, Purc 4%
according to data we collected during Q1 2016: verall 3%
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of
• First 60 minutes. 42% of all purchases happen in the first 60 cent 1%
minutes following a shopper’s first visit to a website. Per
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• Hours 1–7. An additional 9% of all purchases happen in the six 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Hours Since First Visit
hours immediately following those first 60 minutes.
• Hours 19–25. 16% of all purchases happen roughly one day after
a shopper first visited a site.
• Hours 42–48. 5% of all purchases happen nearly two days after
a shopper first visited a site.
*For a continuous 48-hour view of purchases, head to our Benchmarks section.
Having purchase-time data for your customers can help inform your retargeting and re-engagement strategies. It might also
Key Takeaway:
help serve as a guide when you’re deciding when and where to place your ads, send emails, or push mobile notifications. And
that can all help increase the likelihood of customer engagement.
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Q1 2106 HOW IS EVERYONE SHOPPING, ANYWAY?
What devices buyers are using to start—and finish—shopping
To understand how customers used devices to complete purchases, Those bookend numbers for desktop would make it seem like
we created a lookback window for more than 6 million purchases made everything, then, happens on desktop.
during Q1 2016.
That’s not the case.
What we found: The desktop still dominates.
Though 75% of all page views during the lookback period occurred on
Of those customers included in the lookback window, 90% used a desktop, the height of the desktop’s popularity came squarely during
a desktop to begin shopping online. What’s more, 91% of them work hours (8am–4pm). During that time frame, desktop’s share of
completed their purchase on a desktop computer. page views never drops below 75% and peaks at 84% (at about 2pm).
Device type: page views by hour
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Tablet Mobile Phone Desktop
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Q1 2106 HOW IS EVERYONE SHOPPING, ANYWAY?
Outside those hours, desktop remains strong, but mobile devices Here’s the breakdown:
and tablets account for roughly 40–45% of page view shares during
commuting hours, early mornings, and late nights. Mobile hits its peak • When browsing starts on desktop, 99% of those purchases
occur on desktop.
popularity in the early morning hours and tablet in the late evening
hours. (Mobile always maintains more traffic share than tablet, • When browsing starts on mobile, 64% of those purchases occur
however.) on mobile.
• When browsing starts on a tablet, 84% of those purchases occur
There’s a good reason to pay attention to these device figures,
on a tablet.
especially the first device used in a purchase process. That’s because
the first device used is, more often than not, also the device that gets
used to complete the purchase.
The big news here is how differently customers behave when using more than one device to complete a purchase. According
to our benchmark data, which factors in more than seven billion online shopping sessions that took place in Q1 2016 (and
Key Takeaway: not just the subset of customers who made a purchase after using more than one device), desktop’s share of page views
is closer to 57%. Knowing this, and knowing that desktop’s page views per session are 33% higher than mobile and that
desktop AOV is 46% higher than mobile, you’re probably better off pushing your mobile browsers to desktop while trying
to keep your desktop browsers where they are.
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Q1 2106 HOW IS EVERYONE SHOPPING, ANYWAY?
When browsing and shopping hit their peaks
This really supports the hypothesis that the biggest workplace For purchases, that chart looks different:
distraction is shopping.
Notice how pageviews and product views dip in the afternoon, but
Take a look for yourself: purchases go up?
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Shopper engagement peaks between 8am–3pm.
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One of the keys here is knowing that those workday website visits
PageP aVgieew Vsiews ProdPurcotd Vuicetw Vsiews HourHour
doesn’t necessarily translate to immediate revenue.
Like we mentioned earlier, only 42% of purchases that happened in Q1
2016 occurred within the firsTt hhaotu arf otef ran oshoonp ppeeark’s obnro pwusricnhga.ses means you’ll have had the opportunity collect rich browsing history on your shopper,
Key Takeaway:
even if it’s a first-time visitor, and can shape that second browsing experience—whether on desktop, mobile, or tablet—to
guide them back to the products that interested them in the first place.
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Q1 2106 HOW IS EVERYONE SHOPPING, ANYWAY?
One retailer’s quest to meet consumers’ cross-device shopping preferences
Retail has changed a lot since 1850, the year Johnston & Murphy was In one campaign, they used past customer purchases (in-store and
founded. The ecommerce revolution was over 120 years away. online) to deliver targeted cross-sell promotions.
But a lot hasn’t changed. Sophisticated women and men still purchase For example, if a customer was big on Johnston & Murphy footwear but
premium footwear and apparel from Johnston & Murphy face-to-face has never purchased apparel, that customer would see a lightbox and
with friendly sales associates. They also make those purchases face- a special offer when they visit the website. That’s an early example of
to-screen, via johnstonmurphy.com. how easily the brand was able to cross-promote products in a relevant,
dynamic way, that just wasn’t possible before.
The marketers at Johnston & Murphy knew they wanted to capitalize
on these different touch points and in order to better understand how And they’ve kept going.
customers are shopping offline, online, and everywhere in between,
they partnered with Customer Portfolios and Monetate. They built an Since reconciling its offline customer data with its customer’s online
in-depth understanding that has since has turned into action. profiles, Johnston & Murphy has been able to create personalized
content for female visitors by replacing normal homepage hero images
Since beginning efforts to use offline customer data, such as in-store with a hero image featuring women’s shoes. This subtle change
purchases, to create better customer experiences online, Johnston & increased the average order value for that set of customers by 56%.
Murphy has become a leader in personalizing customer experiences
no matter where they are or what device they’re using. They’ve also worked to improve cart abandon rates for male customers
by putting gender-specific products in front of them earlier in the
shopping process, something that’s reduced cart abandon rates for
men by 3%, which equates to considerable revenue.
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One retailer’s quest to meet consumers’ cross-device shopping preferences
Johnston & Murphy has also used lightboxes to offer free, two-day Johnston & Murphy has embraced the opportunity that is presented
shipping as a perk to their VIP customers, who were identified through to them by their customer base that engages with them across
in-store and online data. It’s a tactic that’s worked so nice they’ve used multiple platforms. Their customer insights power strategic uses of
it twice. personalization to drive sales and improve the shopping experience
for their customers. By using the online and offline data available to
When Johnston & Murphy ran the campaign on mobile, bounce rate them, they’re able to intelligently cross-promote products, reward
for their VIP segment of website visitors improved by 19% and add- their most loyal customers, and serve content that is most relevant
to-cart rate improved by 19%. The campaign had similarly positive to their interests.
improvements when Johnston & Murphy ran it on desktop, improving
bounce rate by 46% and add-to-cart rate by 6%.
On desktop, Johnston & Murphy also saw a 25% lift in conversions with
members of the VIP segment who hadn’t previously shopped online.
Personalization is important because we want to make sure the customer has a
relevant experience on the website. We want them to come back to the website often,
find what they came for easily, and make sure we’re providing the most relevant
information—whether they’re a retail-only, online shopper, or a combination of the
two. With Monetate, we’ve been able to lower bounce rate, increase add-to-cart
rate, and ultimately increase conversion.
— Heather Marsh, VP of Ecommerce, Johnston & Murphy
8 | Monetate Ecommerce Quarterly Report