MyBuys Messenger - Fall 2009
Measuring U.S. E-Commerce Wellness
To highlight and share key trends among our clients and across the online retail industry, MyBuys has introduced the MyBuys E-commerce Wellness Index™. The index aggregates total sales, non-promoted sales, discounted sales performance, depth of discounts, AOV and consumer impulse response from over 100 live MyBuys clients.
A measure of the overall health of U.S. e-commerce, the index reports that for the month of August, year-over-year total revenue was up 13%, and e-commerce wellness is up 3%. Sales of discounted items were up over 100% from the previous year and the depth of discounts also increased. Despite the heavy promotion-based sales increases, online retailers saw only marginal gains in revenue from non-promoted items.
"The index shows that in these challenging economic times, consumers are looking for deals. However, a key statistic to note is that non-promoted sales are starting to turn up and the overall health of the sector is up three percent," said Bob Cell, MyBuys CEO. "With much easier comparisons in the remaining months of the year from a difficult Q4 in 2008, we expect Q4 2009 revenues and other key metrics to be much stronger this year. We have seen savvy retailers increase non-promoted sales through the use of personalized recommendations to highlight higher-margin items after attracting consumers to their sites with promotions. E-tailers that are executing well in merchandising are protecting their bottom lines by suggesting full-price items of relevance to their consumers."
Personalized product recommendations continue to drive sales and profits for MyBuys clients. Analysis shows that when recommendations are placed above the fold, they are four times more likely to convert. In addition, having the star rating score as part of a recommendation motivates 26% of shoppers to buy more. When applying personalization to email, online retailers are experiencing four times revenue per email when compared to batch and blast emails. These results demonstrate that relevance is fundamental to turning e-commerce health around—and MyBuys clients continue to present their shoppers with the most relevant recommendations possible.