January E-Commerce Shows Some Bright Spots

Order dollar value up

January was a month of casual browsing, with limited purchases at online retailers, according to a report from marketing firm Coremetrics.

The number of online sessions in which consumers browsed a Web site, viewing at least one product page, stayed largely flat compared to December 2008. The number of sessions in which consumers actually completed an order was down 21 percent.

The only categories that saw increases were intimate apparel (up 5.5%) and office supplies retailers (up 8%). Specialty retailers reported a 56 percent drop in online orders, the largest decrease in any retail category tracked by Coremetrics.

"Our data suggest that consumers are very nervous about the economy and that an economic recovery fueled in large part by online consumer spending has not happened yet," said John Squire, chief strategy officer for Coremetrics. (pictured on right)

"It isn't all doom and gloom, however. Some categories are actually doing a good job of attracting consumers. And when we look at the average number of items per online order, we see that those consumers who actually decided to buy online bought more items for a higher total dollar amount."

Compared to December 2008, the average number of items that consumers purchased per order increased 23 percent in the online retail category as a whole. The average dollar value of those orders also rose by 8 percent.

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