As the holiday
season approaches many retailers are gearing up to attract customers. As online shopping grows, major retailers
like WalMart and Target are competing against online e-commerce giant
Amazon.com. According to USA Today, for the
first time, Wal-Mart is offering free shipping on what it considers the
season's top 100 hottest gifts, from board games to items related to Disney's
hit film "Frozen", starting Saturday, November 8. The move comes as
rival Target began offering free shipping on all items, a program that started
late October and will last through Dec. 20.
ABC News reports that Wal-Mart
unveiled some of the details of its holiday strategy as it considers matching
online prices from competitors such as Amazon.com, a move that could help grab
more customers but could also hurt profit margins.
So
what role does WalMart’s website play in all of this? Well, during November
2012, comScore Media Metrix showed Walmart.com with
55.8 million unique visitors compared to 58.5 million unique visitors during
November 2011. Walmart was ranked 18th on the top 50 list both years.
Meanwhile, 6th ranked Amazon.com was shown to have 116 million unique visitors
in November 2012 compared to 112.8 in 2011.
It’s
important to note that retail sites had a near-monopoly on the top-gaining
categories chart in November, as the entire category grew 5% to 191 million
visitors – representing 87% of the total U.S. online population. Toys ranked as
the fastest-growing category with a 30% increase compared to October’s to 23.9
million visitors. Toys-R-Us sites led the category with 12.4 million visitors
(up 54%), followed by The LEGO Group with 3.8 million (up 34%), Disney Shopping
with 2 million (up 11%), AmericanGirl.com with 1.9 million (up 60%) and Fisher
Price with 1.3 million (up 28%).
If
WalMart wants to compete in 2014 online, they will need to increase their
unique visitors, or at least stay even with the amount of unique visitors
clicking their way to rival, Amazon.com.
According to 24/7 WallStreet, no matter how many times Wal-Mart Stores
Inc. retools and re-launches its Walmart.com sites, it cannot make up ground on
Amazon.com Inc. The same source also reported that in July (based on comScore
data), Amazon had 95.4 million unique visitors among those who visited the site
on desktops. Walmart’s figure was 34.1 million. (Globally and on portable
devices could make the gulf wider.) While Amazon’s sales are all from
e-commerce activity, Walmart public filings show that less than 5% of its $420
billion in annual sales come from online activity.
The game
changer for all retailers lies in the hands of mobile consumers. Exactly one-third of online visitors to the sites and
apps of the top 10 retailers as gauged by total monthly unique visitors only
use mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) to shop those merchants online,
according to new December 2013 data from web and mobile measurement firm comScore Inc.
Internet Retailer reports that Amazon.com
Inc. is the No. 1 online shopping destination with 178 million monthly
unique visitors—29% of those visitors only shop the e-retailer via mobile
devices, comScore says. Target Corp. is the No. 4 online shopping destination
with 66 million monthly unique visitors—43% of those visitors only shop the
merchant online via mobile devices, comScore says.
Measuring
unique visitors is not only key for retailers to determine if their e-commerce
strategies are working, but it is also a great way to figure out where those
visitors are coming from. When marketers and retailers can optimize the user
experience, it gives consumers a better experience. When they have a better
experience, they usually tend to spend more money (or at least come back).
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