A Direct Marketing Agency - Helping Brands Acquire and Retain Customers

For quite some time, companies have erroneously thought those customers who abandon their online shopping carts are lost causes. Recently, I ran across a fascinating case study on www.coremetrics.com regarding work they've done for OfficeMax which shows, to the contrary, that a full one-fifth of these abandoners are actually vibrant, valuable retail customers.

According to Coremetrics:

“The survey proved what OfficeMax, like many other retailers, had suspected for years: The Web site has a strong influence on store sales. Twenty percent of people abandoning the site said they were leaving to buy at a store, which translates into a substantial amount of revenue and represents a 4.7 percent increase in the conversion rate.

The survey also revealed the abandoners’ primary motivations for visiting the site were research, purchase and comparison. Interestingly, 90 percent of respondents said they research online and 82 percent said they purchase in a store.”

Clearly, this is simply more evidence to "rubber stamp" the effectiveness of multi-channel marketing (as if any more evidence is really needed).