E-commerce conversion ratios and returned goods

I know that there has been some discussion in the past about e-commerce sales conversion ratios, however can anybody point me towards any current research or data in this area.

My client is a well-established brand (£50m T/O) business selling a range of consumer related products through 22 retail outlets in the UK. I believe that it should be achieving in the region of a 4% conversion ratio for its web sales given its brand strength and existing customer base and loyalty.

Fireclick for example is currently showing a suggested global conversion ratio of 2.5% and is suggesting 3.9% for catalog sites.

Another figure I'd be interested in getting some feedback on is the percentage of sales returns with online sales. The extent of sales returns is another measure of the effectiveness of the online buying experience. Zero or very small returns, would suggest that the website is doing its job for the business and the customer.

This site currently has a goods return rate 6.58% which appears relatively high, however many of these returns are clothing items that the purchaser subsequently doesn't like when they receive the goods or possibly the goods are the wrong size.

Thanks in advance for any help or direction.

Alistair

Hello,

good data, but where did you get this data? did anyone researched on this? can you please provide any reference on it.

many thanks

On 09:34:29 26 February 2008 IanMitchell1 wrote:

 

I can definately give you some data on conversion ratio's. Typically in the retail industry people are converting at about 3-5% on their web sites, although some people are regularly converting at 7-10%.

This is for a combination of reasons often based around getting 3 core elements spot on, namely

• TRUST
• CLARITY
• SPEED

We have written a white paper on this, you can pick it up for free: http://www.drltd.com/online-retail-checkout-challenges-and-market-opportunities.aspx

A simple but very affective way of increasing conversion rates and returns is to proactively engage browsers if they trigger certain browser distress, confusion, shopping cart abandonment rules. There are a number of companies who can provide this. You can also get a good overview if you look at this url http://www.drltd.com/e-contact-proactive-web-chat.aspx

I hope this helps.

 

On 08:40:39 26 February 2008 AlistairCampbell wrote:

 

I know that there has been some discussion in the past about e-commerce sales conversion ratios, however can anybody point me towards any current research or data in this area.

My client is a well-established brand (£50m T/O) business selling a range of consumer related products through 22 retail outlets in the UK. I believe that it should be achieving in the region of a 4% conversion ratio for its web sales given its brand strength and existing customer base and loyalty.

Fireclick for example is currently showing a suggested global conversion ratio of 2.5% and is suggesting 3.9% for catalog sites.

Another figure I'd be interested in getting some feedback on is the percentage of sales returns with online sales. The extent of sales returns is another measure of the effectiveness of the online buying experience. Zero or very small returns, would suggest that the website is doing its job for the business and the customer.

This site currently has a goods return rate 6.58% which appears relatively high, however many of these returns are clothing items that the purchaser subsequently doesn't like when they receive the goods or possibly the goods are the wrong size.

Thanks in advance for any help or direction.

Alistair