• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 25, 2022

Ecommerce teams must be doing something wrong with their follow-up emails. A shocking 70% of online shoppers buy only once from ecommerce sites, and never return, according to FACES 2022, a study released Friday by growth marketing agency NetElixir.

Despite this challenge, consumers easily spent money during the recent holiday season — especially high-value buyers. And in some product areas, they have speeded up their purchasing.   

NetElixir analyzed more than 2 million customer paths to purchase across ten retail categories. In general, high-value online shoppers now make more than 60% of website purchases across all major categories.  

Latency — the time it takes for a shopper to make a purchase after the first website visit — declined from 6.17 days pre-holiday to 3.08 days for women buying fashion and jewelry, the most dramatic falloff seen in any category. And. the average order in this sector went from $115.09 pre-holiday to $190.87 during the holiday season. 

Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in this vertical, as well as in the baby-care and beauty and cosmetic categories. 

Pre-holiday, fashion buyers conducted 67% of their first site visits via mobile, and 71% during the holiday season. And 65% of their purchases were made via mobile pre-holiday, rising to 69% during the season height. 

Some categories saw only slight differences in some metrics from pre-holiday to holiday. Take women age 25-34 buying baby products — their latency fell from 3.29 days to 2.83.  

Then there were men buying tactical gear (presumably not for anyone but themselves), whose number of visits fell from 7.2 to 6.1 from pre-holiday to holiday. Latency dropped modestly from 2.92 days to 2.54 days in that same period, and the average order rose from $300.95 to $323.81.

Email teams note the differences in latency among buyer groups, and fashion-triggered programs for those groups to help move them to a purchase.

Here are a few other findings: 

• High-value customers were most likely to make their holiday purchases on a Monday. Prior to the holidays, they were most likely to purchase on a Friday or Sunday.
• Pre-holiday B2B, latency was 2.25 days, with an average order value of $430.88.
• Latency for men ages 35-44 totaled 1.5 days during the holiday period, with an average order value of $498.87.