Survey: Online sales up in Nov., industry health down 0.9%

Redwood City, Calif. Total e-commerce revenue in November rose 4.4%, fueled by sales of promoted goods, according to MyBuys’ E-commerce Wellness Index, which measures the overall health of U.S. e-commerce and tracks key trends among retailers. MyBuys is a provider of personalized recommendations for retailers.

Within the month, total revenues from products sold at list price decreased by 3.4%, while total revenues from promoted items increased by 120%. The depth of discounts also increased slightly to just over 26% in November 2009, up from a discount level of 24% last year.

Taking these factors into account, the overall industry health as measured by the MyBuys E-commerce Wellness Index was down 0.9%.

“Based on the trends we’re seeing, retailers will be challenged to maintain top line growth if they wean themselves too quickly from the discount-driven strategies that were prevalent in 2009,” said Robert Cell, CEO MyBuys. “To counter this, retailers must shift their focus to strategies that encourage full price purchasing, such as targeting newly released products at relevant shoppers with a high propensity to buy.”

While the average order value was down 1% across all sales in November, MyBuys retail customers saw an 18% increase in the order value when orders contained recommended products.