Saturday, November 04, 2006

Abacus: 25% of home shopping now online

The latest Abacus trend report shows that the percentage of home shopping sales via websites has gone up from 20% in 2004 to 25% in 2005. Average order size is once again slightly higher online than on the telephone.

I don't think Amazon or eBay are Abacus clients so the 25% figure probably under-represents total online sales. Some long established catalogue merchants have reported up to 55% of orders taken online; if the average is 25% then many merchants must have underperforming websites.

Action: Find a way to measure or estimate cross-channel effects. For example, unless you know how many customers read your catalogue before ordering online you won't be able to assess the profitability of your catalogue.

Read the Executive Summary of the Abacus Report

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