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Date:06 June 2012

Continuing Rise in Visitor Bounce Rates Underscores Challenge for Retailers

The bounce rates* on retail sites have continued to rise as consumers become ever more demanding, both in terms of finding the right products and the actual experience that the site provides.

According to the IMRG Capgemini Quarterly Benchmarking Index, Q1 of 2012 saw bounce rates hit 27%, the highest yet recorded in the two years the Index has been tracking this data. Throughout this period there has been a consistent increase, starting at 21% in Q1 2010 and rising to 23% in Q1 2011.

At the same time, sales through a mobile device (including tablets) have been rocketing. When the Quarterly Index was launched in Q1 2010, the percentage of sales via mobile devices was recorded as 0.4% of e-retail sales. In Q1 2012 this hit 8.2%, a growth rate of 2,000% over the 2-year period.

Visits via a mobile device are currently double that of the sales figure, at 16.4% of total site visits in Q1 2012. The increasing popularity of internet access through mobile devices is most likely having an effect on the bounce rate, due to the context in which the access may occur and also that some sites may display more engagingly on a tablet than others.

Tina Spooner, Chief Information Officer at IMRG, said: “The competition and choice available to online shoppers has always provided a fundamental challenge for retailers, as a hard-to-please visitor can easily become disinterested at the initial contact with a brand. These figures show that consumers are becoming ever more demanding when finding the online experience that suits them. Retailers need to ensure that the site is as engaging as possible for their customer demographic, looking at usability, social elements and performance through key channels and browsers. For online consumers, it would appear that first impressions really matter.”

There are also some interesting findings for marketers in the Quarterly Index results. The average ROI per pound spent for online marketing has consistently been higher than the ROI for affiliate and PPC marketing. In Q1 2012, while the average for PPC and affiliate declined year-on-year, the average ROI for online marketing reached £19.57, 37% higher than the £14.22 figure seen in the same quarter last year.

Chris Webster, Head of Retail and Technology at Capgemini, said: “The potential importance of mobile as a channel had been established and we are now seeing this translate into site visits and sales.  We have yet to appreciate fully the impact of the mobile device in all its glory; location based marketing, mobile payments, near-field communication for customer identification; integration with social media.  Mobile is the expression of your personality and customers are now more concerned never to be without their mobile phone that their wallet.”

* Visitor bounce rate is defined for the Index as being “the percentage of visitors who enter the site and leave the site rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site - single page visitors, irrespective of which page (not unique)”.


Notes to Editors

About the IMRG Capgemini Quarter Benchmarking Index
The IMRG Capgemini Quarter Benchmarking Index is an additional reporting tool that is open to all participants in the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. The Quarterly Index tracks over 40 key performance indicators across 7 categories, leading to unique insights into the performance of the UK e-retail sector.

These categories/KPIs are:

Website Performance:	visitor bounce rate
	basket abandonment rate
	checkout abandonment rate
Customer Acquisition & Retention:	active customer retention rate
	percentage of new customers
Commercial:	average selling price per item
	average order value
Channel:	percentage of sales via mobile
	percentage of visits via mobile
	percentage of click & collect sales
Marketing:	PPC ROI
	affiliate ROI
	online marketing ROI
	revenue split by marketing method – paid, affiliate, email, natural, direct, social, display & other
	visits split by marketing method - paid, affiliate, email, natural, direct, social, display & other
	orders split by marketing method – paid, affiliate, email, natural, direct, social, display & other
Order Fulfilment:	percentage of total orders cancelled due to fraud
	percentage of units returned
	no. of items / products per order
Geographical Split:	percentage of sales within the UK
	percentage of sales within the EU 27 (excluding the UK)
	percentage of sales rest of the world (excluding the UK and EU27)

Around 20 retailers are currently participating in the IMRG Capgemini Quarterly Benchmarking Index: Bank, Blacks, Clarks, Co-operative Travel, Crocus, Debenhams, Freeman Grattan Holdings, Home & Cook, JD Sports, John Lewis, Lyco, M and M Direct, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Milletts, New Look, Schuh, Scott  & Size.

The quarters run as follows:

• Quarter 1    -    February to April
• Quarter 2    -    May to July
• Quarter 3    -     August to October
• Quarter 4    -    November to January

Contact:
Tina Spooner
Chief Information Officer, IMRG
Telephone: 0207 716 5604
Email:  tina.spooner@imrg.org