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Independent Retailers Score their Share of Ecommerce Business this Holiday Season

Furniture World News Desk on 12/23/2017


Retailer Web Services (RWS) recently announced that for independent retailers of durable home goods, November 2017 posted millions in profits from sales and leads directly attributable to their websites. Retailer Web Services (RWS) began tracking comprehensive November holiday shopping stats on its network of retailer customer websites in 2015.

Last month’s online and mobile holiday shopping sprees included the biggest names in home appliances, furniture and mattresses; nearly 8,000 automated omni-channel promotions ran on the RWS network. Data provided from Google Analytics for a cross section of 1,585 sites by RWS show 6.4 million visits from over 5.4 million unique visitors to these sites during November.

For the third consecutive year, Thanksgiving Day had the highest percentage of site traffic from mobile phones—57 percent from smartphones, compared to this year’s daily average of 35 percent. Also for the third year in a row, Black Friday remained the day of the year with the most web traffic, followed by Cyber Monday and the weekend between the two shopping holidays. Black Friday also earned the highest number of online quotes and orders, followed by Cyber Monday and then Monday, Nov. 20.

“More traffic did, in fact, result in more sales for our independent retailer customers,” said RWS Chief Operating Officer Jennie Gilbert, citing an estimated $79.6 million of business facilitated by the RWS network of websites. The figure is based on the estimated value of online quotes and orders received in November.

To quantify the value of digital leads and conversions, RWS polled retailers earlier this year and found an average profit per sale to be $170.75, and the following average close rates for these lead sources:

  • 87.2 percent for online orders,
  • 50 percent for online quote requests,
  • 75.3 percent for GPS navigations to the store from mobile, and
  • 64.7 percent calls to the store from the site on mobile.

Applying these aggregated averages to the stats recorded across all sites powered by RWS shows estimated profits to these retailers in November of more than $7.4 million from just these leads, which are directly attributable to their WebFronts® web presence.

“These year over year results have continued to climb, reinforcing the need for independent retailers’ sites to delight their local mobile shoppers and convert them into happy customers, and the significant returns earned by those that do,” said Gilbert.

More about Retailer Web Services: Founded in 2006, Retailer Web Services (RWS) is a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based provider of digital marketing automation, e-commerce, web design and intelligent software solutions built exclusively for independent retailers of durable home goods. Named twice to CIO Review’s 20 Most Promising E-Commerce Solution Providers in 2017 and 2016, RWS is an authoritative source on how consumers shop for new furniture, appliances and mattresses. RWS serves more than 2,000 independent durable goods retailers across North America, championing their success and helping them to realize their dreams through the promise of technology. For more information, visit www.retailerwebservices.com.