We’re often asked about ‘who the best is’ when it comes to web conversion and abandonment rates. Nielsen regularly publish rankings of the top US retailers by conversion rate. Here’s the latest list:

 

1. Schwan’s 42.10%

 

2. ProFlowers 36.50%

 

3. Quixtar 33.20%

 

4. Vitacost.com 28.90%

 

5. Woman Within 24.20%

 

6. LL Bean.com 20.40%

 

7. Office Depot 20.30%

 

8. Tickets.com 20.20%

 

9. 1800Flowers 17.30%

 

10. QVC 17.10%

 

What’s interesting about the list of course is that many of these sites are destinations for people on a mission. Both 1800 flowers and ProFlowers are there, and FTD.com was in the January list. When it’s my mother’s birthday, I might well go to one of these sites, and the chances are that I would make a purchase. I have a mission which needs fixing.
 

 

 

Schwan’s, a home delivery food company, is in at number one (as it was in Jan 09 as well). This is interesting – go take a look at the site – because it forces you to fill in a 20 field registration page before you can place an order.

 

This demonstrates that visitors will register:

 

(a) If they believe that you need the information to deliver a service

 

(b) If they trust you not to abuse their trust

 

(c) If they believe that the registration will deliver value to them

 

Well done to Schwan’s for getting a 42% conversion rate, despite a clunky registration process. But before you rush to beat youself up over your own conversion rate, you need to factor in the repeat nature of Schwan’s business. Returning customers already have an account, and therefore a long registration process is not a factor for them. And home delivery of food clearly needs your address and other details for the service to work.

 

It makes the point that if I’m shopping for flowers for a birthday, or for meals to feed the family for the week, then ‘normal’ conversion rates don’t apply. I’ve blogged before about not getting hung up on comparing conversion rates or abandonment rates with industry benchmarks, and this reinforces the point. Changes in your own abandonment or conversion rates are much more important than comparisons with benchmarks, and need to be understood.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 4:22 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.