DoubleClick release: DoubleClick Releases Q3 2004 E-Commerce Site Trend Report

DoubleClick reports in a tracking study that conversion rates for e-commerce firms are improving steadily, even as shopping cart abandonment continues to plague online retailing. 57 percent of shoppers abandoned a cart, up from 53 percent last year. And as e-commerce site search functions become more useful to buyers, they're using them more and more, with about one in eleven purchased items having been found via site search - a 50 percent gain. The bottom line numbers proved positive, with check out process conversion growing from 59 percent in 2003 to 63 percent this year.

Shoppers are viewing more and more pages on retailing sites, but spending less time, flipping through them as they would a catalog, providing very little time in which retailers can grab their attention. Shoppers spent only about half a minute per page in 2004, down from about three quarters of a minute last year. But they also viewed about a third more pages per visit.