Study: Repeat customers drive online success

When it comes to generating e-commerce revenue, retailers should focus heavily on customer retention.



According the fourth quarter 2015 E-commerce Quarterly report from online marketing technology provider Monetate, despite making up less than half of all e-commerce sessions (48%), returning visitors spent nearly $5.3 billion online. That figure is almost twice as much money as new visitors spent during the same timeframe ($2.7 billion).



The report analyzes a random sample of more than 7 billion online shopping experiences using "same store" data across each calendar quarter. It also shows that across most digital devices and channels, returning shoppers add an item to their cart 15% of their time, almost double the 8% of new visitors who do so.



A notable exception occurred with mobile phones and social networks, where fewer numbers of both types of online shoppers add shopping cart items. New visitors on mobile phones only added items in about 4% of sessions, compared to 10% of sessions for returning customers. Also, new visitors from social networks only added items 4% of the time, compared to 9% for returning visitors.



On the whole, bounce rate was up slightly compared to the fourth quarter of 2014: 30% compared to 29%. But, unlike add-to-cart rate, the difference in bounce rate between new and returning visitors varied significantly for mobile users. Mobile visitors had a 37% bounce rate, compared to 26% and 28% bounce rates of desktop and tablet shoppers.



As expected, the holiday season contributed to solid conversion rates in the fourth quarter. On the whole, conversion rates averaged 3.5%, slightly higher than the same quarter of 2014, which had an average conversion rate of 3.4%.



The average new visitor conversion rate for the quarter was 2.5%, with desktop visitors the only segment within the new visitor category to break the 3% conversion rate plateau.