Repeat Visitors 8 Times More Likely To Make Online
San Diego, CA, May 15, 2006--When it comes to making a purchase online, repeat visitors are eight times more likely to click the order button than new visitors, according to new data from WebSideStory, Inc.
During the first three months of 2006, repeat visitors to business-to-consumer e-commerce sites had a conversion rate of 12.61 percent, compared to just 1.55 percent for new visitors, according to the WebSideStory Index, a statistical barometer that features techno-graphic trends culled from the millions of daily Internet users that visit web sites using the company's award-winning web analytics solution, HBX Analytics.
“While it has long been known that repeat visitors make better customers than new visitors, this data shows exactly how much better,” said Ali Behnam, senior digital marketing consultant for WebSideStory. “For marketers of e-commerce sites, this data further drives home the importance of building customer loyalty online.”
Customer loyalty is particularly important in the computers and electronics category, where repeat visitors were nearly 16 times more likely to make a purchase than new visitors with conversion rates of 23.12 percent and 1.49 percent respectively. By comparison, visitor loyalty was less important for shoppers at apparel sites, where the conversion rate for repeat visitors (7.56 percent) outranked the conversion rate for new visitors (1.37 percent) by less than 6 times. “This makes perfect sense as consumers are more apt to buy clothing on the spur of the moment than a big-ticket item like a computer or television, which requires much more research,” Behnam said.
