eCommerce has survived 12 years on the Web, evolving considerably over that time. One of the biggest challenges and opportunities is the growing importance of search.
Anecdotal evidence shows that sites using both search engine optimization of organic listings and paid search strategies increase conversion rates because traffic goes up dramatically with links in multiple positions. Users choose to click more frequently on an organic listing when they also see a sponsored listing.
"The Role of Search in Consumer Buying," a study by comScore (sponsored by Google) found that 63 percent of search-related purchases occur in offline retail stores. The results also indicate that 25 percent of searchers purchased an item directly related to their search query--of those buyers, just 37 percent completed their purchase online. The study examined the search behavior of 83 million Americans, conducting over 552 million searches within 11 product categories using one or more of 24 search engines.
The comScore study analyzed the search behavior during the 2005 holiday season. The 8.6 million who subsequently purchased items online were found to be intense users of search engines across all product categories. They performed nearly ten times as many searches as non-buyers.
Paid search spending has increased faster than any other online marketing channel. Search marketing revenues in North America totaled $5.75 billion in 2005 and are projected to reach $11 billion in 2010 (SEMPO).
The Department of Commerce estimated total eCommerce sales for 2005 at 86.3 billion, an increase of 24.6 percent over 2004. Total retail sales in 2005 increased 7.2 percent over 2004, with eCommerce sales accounting for 2.3 percent of total sales. eCommerce sales projections from eMarketer predict $139 billion by 2008.
Source: WWW.WEBSITESERVICES.COM, May 2006