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What Are People Buying Online?
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WHAT ARE PEOPLE BUYING ONLINE?
by Patrick Tan
http://www.aloha-city.com
Resources for Enterprising People
What are people buying online? The answer to this simple question could give you valuable insights into what are the businesses
that are more likely to succeed in the Internet marketplace. You can then focus your limited time and effort on the few potential winners.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to find accurate figures that give a fair assessment of what is actually happening in the huge and unwieldy
Internet marketplace. Nevertheless, we can still obtain a fairly accurate proxy from the LinkShare Quarterly Report published on September 28, 1999. |
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LinkShare Corporation is the largest manager of affiliate programs in the US. Its LinkShare Network represents more than 350 online
merchants across a diverse range of industries as well as tens of thousands of affiliates who participate in various reseller programs via their own websites.
Every day, millions of consumers click through the Network. This exposure put the company in a unique position to provide fairly
accurate insights into the growth of web traffics and online purchases.
Covering a 15-month period from Q3 '98 to Q3 '99, the first LinkShare Quarterly Report™ revealed that traffic through the LinkShare
Network was soaring, with Q3 '99 volume up 123% from the preceding quarter and more than 14 times higher than the same period last year.
The benefits of this growth are widely shared among various business categories, as evidenced in the table below. The top three
categories are computer & electronics, clothing & accessories and entertainment. Together, they accounted for almost half of the total number of click-through received during the 15-month period. |
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Click-throughs by Product
Categories:
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Computer & Electronics - 22%
Clothing & Accessories - 14%
Entertainment - 13%
Internet & Online - 12%
Other Categories - 14%
Health & Beauty - 8%
Food & Drinks - 8%
Gifts & Flowers - 6%
Financial Services - 4%
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Shoppers are not only visiting the e-commerce sites more often; they are buying more as well. According to the Report, shoppers made
millions of purchases through The LinkShare Network in Q3 '99, with the actual number of purchases more than double that in the preceding quarter. Purchases were up 54 times when compared to the same period last year, giving us a compound quarterly growth rate of 172 % over the 15-month period.
An examination of the purchase-to-click ratio also shows that consumers are becoming more comfortable buying online. For Q3 '98, the
number of purchase per given volume of traffic was 0.55%, which means that it took approximately 180 click-through to generate a single purchase. In Q3 '99, the same ratio rose to 2.03% - roughly one purchase per 50 click-through. |
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This should come across as good news for anyone who is thinking of jumping on the e-commerce bandwagon either by participating in
affiliate programs or setting up his own cyberstore. Whatever, it pays to review what the competitors in the top 3 business categories are doing in the e-commerce arena.
Computer & Electronics Gigabuys by Dell, Cyberian Outpost, GotItDirect.com, Tutorials.com
Clothing & Accessories dELiA*s, PaulFredrick, FragranceNet, Fashionmall, OutletMall, Designer Outlet, New York First, Jewelry
Spotlight, Jewelry Web, Watch Zone, Underneath.com
Entertainment K-Tel, EveryCD, CD Universe, DVD Express
You can participate in all the above affiliate programs simply by submitting a single application to LinkShare Network at
http://www.aloha-city.com/imc/share.html
Alternatively, you can participate in Fort Street Mall's affiliate program and start operating an online cybermall that provides a one-stop
shopping destination to over 72 premier online stores. Click here for more information. - http://www.aloha-city.com/affiliate/ |
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About the author:
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Patrick Tan, a former journalist and entrepreneur, offers a
complete range of e-commerce solutions and free resources to
help you build a successful career online. Visit his site at
http://www.aloha-city.com for more information. He publishes a
free newsletter to share his experience and business know-how.
Subscribe Now! mailto:basics@aloha-city.com
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