Here, the IndieCommerce [6] team shares an important look at current trends in the world of e-commerce.

The e-commerce conversion rate (the number of online customers who complete an online purchase) this week dropped another 3.93 percent. If you recall last week’s report, we reported a 3.53 percent drop in the conversion rate. So, for the week indicated in the graph below (blue graph) we had an e-commerce conversion rate of 5.36 percent.

Customer traffic (users) visiting IndieCommerce and IndieLite websites dropped 3.05 percent this past week. This is less than the 4.08 percent drop that we reported the previous week and may indicate that traffic is leveling off.

The decreases in both the e-commerce conversion rate and customers traffic visiting IndieCommerce and IndieLite websites continued this week. Contributing factors likely include seasonal shopping patterns, consumer economic concerns, and bookstore customers becoming more comfortable with shopping offline.

Keep in mind that even with these recent declines, online traffic this past week was still 91.15 percent higher than this week last year, and online sales this past week were 790.38 percent higher than they were for the same week last year. 

We’ll continue to update these numbers in the coming weeks.