Black Friday: Amazon’s, eBay’s Shoppers Behave Similarly

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As the clock ticks toward Black Friday and Cyber Monday, retailers—both online and offline—are putting forth their best efforts to attract buyers. Online shopping has become more and more popular in recent years, with the last five years marking especially significant growth for e-commerce. Unsurprisingly, Amazon is still the undisputed leader in e-commerce, but other retailers aren’t doing too bad online either.

Amazon dominates U.S. e-commerce going into Black Friday

Multi-screen media measurement firm Verto Analytics has just published its eCommerce Index on the top 30 online retailers in the U.S. The firm found that there are now 18 e-commerce companies that have 20 million or more monthly unique users in the U.S. Amazon dominates with 194 million net users per month.

Walmart is in a distant second place at 124 million, while eBay is in third place with 110 million users. According to Verto, these three retailers are the only online retailers that attract at least 100 million monthly users.

Amazon and eBay shoppers are alike

Interestingly, Amazon’s and eBay’s shoppers exhibit similar behavior online, according to Verto. Users of both sites spend about an hour and a half per month browsing and shopping on the sites. Each shopping session lasts an average of five and a half minutes. The firm reports that Amazon shoppers use the website and its apps more often, with 27% of them visiting daily, while 18% of eBay’s shoppers visit daily.

And even though Groupon has been struggling in recent years, Verto found that the website still has a “remarkably high” monthly active user base of 62 million users in the U.S. The firm adds that of those users, 67% of “actively using Groupon and are exposed to its offers on mobile.”

Online-online retailers enjoy more loyalty

Verto also said Amazon also leads in the Verto Stickiness Index with a rating o26.6%. The index is a comparison of daily users to monthly users “to reflect the active, loyal and engaged part of the audience,” the firm says. The higher the rating, the larger the share of daily users compared to monthly users is.

After Amazon, eBay comes in second on the Stickiness Index with a rating of 17.9%. Groupon’s Snap has a rating of 14.1%, and Walmart is in fourth place at 13%. Verto CEO Dr. Hannu Verkasalo, Ph.D. observed that shoppers who frequent online-only retailers like Amazon and eBay tend to be more loyal than those who shop at traditional retailers, as their stickiness rating tends to fall between 5% and 13%.

“This shows that for many traditional retailers, there is a lot of money spent on audience acquisition and spontaneous downloads,” said Dr. Verkasalo. “Trials are perhaps boosting their user numbers, but this has yet to convert into long-term retention and engagement with these platforms among their desktop or mobile users.”

Brick and mortar stores getting in on e-commerce

While Black Friday is traditionally a shopping day to hit up brick and mortar stores, online shopping is becoming a bigger and bigger part. Holiday online shopping is spreading beyond Cyber Monday and bleeding into the Black Friday weekend, much in the same way that traditional Black Friday shopping has bled into Thanksgiving Day.

Interestingly, Verto reports that of the top 20 e-commerce platforms, 15 of them have a “significant” brick and mortar presence. The firm says the retailers that mix e-commerce and physical stores take about 20% of the total market. Dr. Verkasalo called the speed at which brick and mortar retailers are stepping up their online presence “impressive.”

“Unlike Amazon, these players can use their new mobile apps to enhance the shopping experience, play a sophisticated game with contextual coupons and discounts, and optimize the overall user experience by using analytics from indoor location tracking to located-based advertising,” Dr. Verkasalo. “They can also benefit from online-to-offline conversions in addition to online-to-online conversions, which potentially’ gives them a huge opportunity during the next decade in battling for consumers’ purchase power.”

Brick and mortar retailers gain more mobile shoppers

Another trend that’s far less surprising than the statistic about brick and mortar stores moving online is the fact that online retail is going mobile in a big way. According to Verto, traditional retailers pick up “relatively more” mobile users than online retailers.

The firm reports that Walmart’s reach gets a 70% visit from mobile, as it has 73 million PC users and 50 million mobile-only users. Target’s reach is boosted 79%, as it has 42 million PC users and 34 million mobile-only users, while Home Depot gets a huge 122% boost with 21 million PC shoppers and 24 million mobile-only users.

Amazon and eBay, on the other hand, still receive significant boosts from mobile-only shoppers, although their percentages are lower than those of the major brick and mortar retailers. Amazon’s reach is boosted 60% by mobile-only users, while eBay gets a 57% boost. Verto notes that mobile-only shoppers are those who never use desktop PCs to access the shopping sites.

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