Coremetrics, a provider of digital marketing solutions, recently revealed that Australian and New Zealand online consumers are slowing spending and preferring to shop on home-grown sites, as the local dollar plunged during the quarter ending December 2008.
The conversion rate for online sales in Australia and New Zealand has dropped to just 2.9 and 2.5 orders per 100 online sessions respectively, compared with 4.4 and four respectively between the months of April and June 2008.
Kevin Mackin, general manager for Coremetrics, ANZ, believes this change in behaviour is a clear indication that online consumers are feeling the pinch of the exchange rate when considering buying online from overseas websites.
“ANZ online consumers are definitely more cautious in their spending at the moment and are looking for bargains closer to home. That said, both countries are experiencing the next highest conversion rates behind the US.”
ANZ consumers may be purchasing less frequently than when the dollar was strong, but they’re still significantly ahead of their UK and Singapore counterparts. The conversion rate for Singapore is 0.9 orders per 100 online sessions and 1.4 for the UK, both well below the world average of 3.2 orders.
“I think this data shows that Aussies and Kiwis are consistently relying on the net for shopping alternatives even during tough times,” said Mackin.
“While we might be spending slightly less time browsing and viewing less pages, the survey results show that ecommerce is a vital sales channel for many businesses today. Even when the chips are down service providers and retailers need to constantly look for ways to engage customers and close sales online.”
The recent study undertaken by Coremetrics looked at the trends of ecommerce users across the UK, US, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. Consumer activity was collated and analysed from more than 80 million web sessions and 750 million page views, which included 2.7 million orders collectively valued at more than US$200 million.