At first, eCommerce was something that could only exist on a computer screen while a buyer was sitting at their desk. Online shopping and payment goes back to the beginnings of the internet, and things have improved greatly since then. To nobody’s surprise, however, the bulk of eCommerce still takes place on a computer screen, but now Mac has taken the top spot. Through the years, though, as new technology arose, eCommerce has veered away from computers a bit, giving the iPhone second place in order value. Monetate provides a Quarterly data report each quarter based on shopping trends, and the report of Q2 of 2012 shows that, with the exception of Mac users, people are starting to do most of their shopping on other devices.
To explain better, Monetate has broken down the average order value by device for Q2 into three categories; traditional computers, smartphones, and tablets. For traditional computers, Mac has a huge lead over Windows and Linux with $102.83. Widows has an average order value of $88.75, and Linux is as $84.91. Now, the real news is that every smarphone and tablet brand listed exceeds the average order values of Windows and Linux, besides the Kindle Fire. Behind Mac computers, iPhone brings in the most eCommerce with an average value of $97.49, followed by Android with $97.16, and the iPad with $96.80. Needless to say, Apple Inc. has been incredibly triumphant in the line of eCommerce for Q2.
In the world of eCommerce, though, the device that people access an e-store on does not really matter, unless catering to a demographic based on the device they use. What does matter, however, is the success rate of the platform shoppers use to arrive at the store to begin with. As we know, there are three major platforms for all things marketing on the web; email, search, and social.
Social media referral traffic lags far behind email and search, with the Average Order Value (AOV) of social traffic $26.21 less than search traffic and nearly $20 less than email referral traffic
Conversion rates from social referral traffic in Q2 were .59% when compared with 4.25% for email and 2.49% for search
What Monetate is saying is that, even though social platforms have provided a lot of success to marketers in the way of advertising, they don’t perform quite as successfully in the line of driving traffic to e-stores or getting those stores the conversions they are looking for. Monetate, of course, has provided some numbers proving that point. In a graph of conversion rates by traffic source, email leads the way with a rate of 4.25%. Search comes in second with 2.49%, and social media shows that it is not the choice for driving traffic with a conversion rate of .59%. Though social media conversion rates are incredibly low compared to other sources, it will always remain a reliable source for branding, and getting your name out there is the reason behind a lot of online traffic anyway.
