Quick Tips Before you Finalize your E-Commerce Budget

A look at online holiday success to help guide your budget

It’s that time of year that every finance geek loves and the rest of us loathe: budget time!  As you’re wrapping up your final budget plans for the year, check out where ChannelAdvisor customers found success during some of the busiest shopping days of the year to help guide your financial plans.

1. Keep Google Shopping Top of Mind

Google Shopping has thrown a lot of retailers for a loop this holiday season; however, our retailers experienced a strong showing on Cyber Monday with Comparison Shopping same-store sales trending at 20% year-over-year growth. 

Evidence of Google Shopping’s success is also supported by the Paid Search SSS numbers, which were essentially flat for the Cyber Five.  We’ve attributed this to the broad coverage and high placement and click-through rate of Google Shopping. 

Use this handy calculation to estimate your costs:

Traffic:  Clicks x Average Cost Per Click

GMV:  GMV/ROAS

For further tips download our Top 12 Tips for Google Shopping Success one pager.

2. Amazon isn’t just the biggest river in the world...

Amazon continues to be a behemoth, growing at 2X the rate of overall-commerce (according to comScore predictions that e-commerce will grow at 17% this holiday). This year Amazon came in at 37.7% SSS growth for the Cyber Five, and 42.4% for Cyber Monday.  

We conducted a spot check of top-selling items in most categories throughout the Cyber Five (using www.nowinstock.net) and found that Amazon was out of stock for many, thus suggesting an increase in third-party sales as backfill for an out-of-stock Amazon.

Make sure that you have budget next year to ensure your products are found by Amazon shoppers--download this tip document that outlines how to sell more on Amazon.

3. Make Mobile a Priority

According to data aggregated from a group of ChannelAdvisor customers, mobile accounted for 30.7% of Cyber Five sales! A dramatic nearly 80% jump over last year’s 17.2%.  Tablets exactly doubled from a 7.2% share to 14.4% and smartphone share grew from 10% to 16.3%. 

We found the highest percentage of consumers shopping via mobile devices on Thanksgiving Day, slowly declining over the course of the weekend as more brick-and-mortar shops opened their doors. 

As you are plotting ways to earn your share of this mobile traffic, check out our Retailer's Guide to Mobile for some quick tips of the trade.

4.  Don’t Count Out eBay

We’ve documented many aspects of eBay’s turnaround on our eBay Strategies blog, most recently The New eBay: Serendipity+faster transactions=win for sellers.  It seems, however, that eBay has lived into its claims, at least from a Cyber Five (the five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday) perspective.  Coming in at an impressive 38.3% year-over-year same-store sales (SSS) growth for the total Cyber Five, eBay experienced 5X growth on Cyber Monday over last year. 

If you aren’t selling on eBay, or if you are and want a refresher, check out our Unlocking the Power of eBay eBook, debunking all the common misconceptions about selling on eBay. 

While there is rarely enough budget to do everything you want to do, invest in these four areas and you’ll start 2013 on the right foot and be well prepared for Cyber Five 2013.