Seller's Labour Pain - Shopping Cart Abondand

The third quarter 2004 "E-Commerce Site Trend Report" from DoubleClick reports that online shoppers look at 33.8 percent more pages (10.3 pages in 2004, vs.7.7 in 2003) this year than last.

That's the good news. The not-so-good news that is that while they may be looking at more, they're spending a bit less time on e-commerce sites (0.5 minutes, a 10 percent decline), averaging only 4.4 minutes per session. This decline represents a 14=second (32.6 percent) decline in time spent per individual page, from 43 seconds last year to 29 seconds in 2004. One potential reason for the drop, according to the report, is the increase in broadband users, which has risen to over half the U.S. online population.

Shopping Cart abandonment continues to be a problem for online retailers, but it appears to be leveling off. In Q3 2004, 57 percent of shoppers abandoned carts without purchasing, a 7 percent increase over the same period last year. From a lost revenue perspective, cart abandonment grew 7.9 percent this calendar year. This translates into $4.10 left in abandoned carts for every dollar actually spent on an e-commerce transaction. That figure is on the way down from a Q4 2003 high of $6.30. Users who returned to abandoned carts represented 26 percent of all sales, which DoubleClick notes is a decline from Q2 2003, when it was 36 percent.

For more details, please visit E-commerce Guide 's Latest posting by Sean Michel Kerner