Canadian Retailer - Summer 2013 - 25

THE QUEST FOR
ONLINE CUSTOMERS
HOW DO YOU RATE?
A COMPARISON OF CONVERSION RATES
Global Conversion/Cart Abandonment Rate: 3.5%/70.6%
Fashion & Apparel: 2.9%/74.6%
Catalogue: 3.8%/71.8%
Specialty: 7.7%/59.1%
Outdoor & Sports: 2.6%/73.5%
Software: 3.3%/75.4%

By Rob Stocks, President, ideaLEVER.com
Powerful eCommerce solutions since 1996.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
GLOBAL LEADERS IN CONVERSION RATES
1. Schwan’s (Food): 41.7%
2. ProFlowers (Flowers & Gifts): 26.5%
3. Vitacost.com (Health & Nutrition): 24.0%
4. Woman Within (Catalog/Clothing): 22.4%
5. Blair (Catalog/Clothing): 20.5%
6. Lands' End (Catalog/Clothing): 19.5%
7. Doctors Foster and Smith (Pet Supplies): 18.6%
8. Office Depot (Office): 18.4%
9. Roaman's (Catalog/Clothing): 18.4%
10. QVC (Jewelry): 18.3%
Amazon (For Comparison): 16.5%

Source: The Nielson Company 2010 and Fireclick.com Infographic: ideaLEVER.com and Scope Media ©iStockphoto.com/akindo

observations will allow you to objectively
evaluate the design of your website and make
improvements based on your findings.
5. Segmentation 

By understanding the main demographics
within your customer base you can more effectively market and cater to their needs. Some
of the key ways in which you can define your
customers may be by the following:
• Geography
• Behavior
• Gender
• Transaction history
• Channel (eg. Mobile)
• Hobbies
To take full advantage of segmenting your
customers, think of how you might create a
more powerful experience with them through
your digital assets by showing the right content
to the right person at the right time. Some key
channels in which successful companies are
delivering segmented content include: eMail
and drip campaigns, customer analysis (analyzing buying habits of key demographics), search
marketing, offline follow up (direct marketing,
call-centre) and website personalization.
Online entrepreneurs are often focused
on generating more revenue by getting more
www.retailcouncil.org/training/retailersguides

visitors through website-marketing programs.
While this activity is important, an equal
amount of resources should be devoted toward
increasing conversion rates.
Let us assume your website is getting 2,000
visitors a month and you’re converting two per
cent of those visitors to paid visitors for $5,000
in revenue. By increasing the conversion rate
to three per cent, you would be increasing your
gross revenues by 50 per cent to $7,500. Or it
would be the equivalent of adding 1,000 additional visitors to your website.
At the end of the day, there are two ways to
increase your sales. Drive more people to your
site, and increase the conversion rate of your
current visitors. If you can do both, you will
see dramatic growth for your business and ecommerce performance.
CReaTINg STRONgeR CONNeCTIONS
WITh YOUR CUSTOMeRS

Once you’ve started to optimize your e-commerce site and have conducted the necessary
testing to ensure the continued success of your
online initiative, it’s time to create and deliver
marketing messages that will drive traffic to
your website and bring repeat business to your
store. This can be done by automating your
marketing to your customers for seamless and
effective communication.
www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer | summer 2013 | canadian retailer |

http://www.ideaLEVER.com http://www.Vitacost.com http://www.Fireclick.com http://www.ideaLEVER.com http://www.iStockphoto.com/akindo http://www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer http://www.retailcouncil.org/training/retailersguides

Canadian Retailer - Summer 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Canadian Retailer - Summer 2013