Polish e-commerce: Average Poles shop for clothes and accessories, spending PLN 250

The average Pole is shopping for clothes, shoes and accessories and spends PLN 250 for one online transaction, according to a Gemius study that also mentions that two-thirds of visits end up in abandoning the cart. The data comes from the first comparative analysis of the Polish e-commerce on the fashion business made by Gemius.

According to Gemius, the value of an order placed in clothes e-stores is of PLN 253.81, while the the average price of a product on offer is PLN 145.95. Among the internet users who actually do drop things to their virtual shopping cart, most leave the store without ever completing the transaction (67%), and every third user buys items they selected (33%).

Mateusz Gordon, e-commerce expert Gemius, said the high rate of cart abandonment is the one that draws attention.

This may be indicative of the e-user’s insecurity about his/her right to return the goods. Only some websites communicate the consumer rights in this respect clearly, and even less frequent is the practice of prolonging the statutory return deadline. Another reason could be the delivery costs, which often take the buyer at surprise when they take to finalize the purchase, or perhaps the limited trust that a shop evokes due to lack of opinions, certificates or scarce payment options provided on the website

Mateusz Gordon

The research also suggests that the average amount of time spent on an e-store website is only about seven minutes (6 min. 56 s.). One average visit comprises 7 page views. The bounce rate, showing the percentage of customers who leave a website generating only one page view, i.e. enter the site only to leave it immediately, is 39 per cent.

The relatively low bounce rate means that the large, widely recognised brands dominate the market: this is the stores users enter directly after typing the company’s name in the search engine (…) Most of the e-shops visitors are returning clients. Moreover, the low bounce rate may suggest how effective the retargeting activities were (i.e. recurrent messages displayed to users who have visited an e-store but abandoned their cart or did not finalize the purchase otherwise). Well-personalised websites of the biggest players, characterised by good navigational qualities, are successful in keeping the user on the site for longer periods

Mateusz Gordon.

The average customers of fashion e-shops buy only two items at a visit.

The data was gathered during a pilot research programme conducted in January 2014. GemiusShopMonitor is a globally unique analytical solution dedicated to e-commerce. The platform was launched in mid-November 2013. It enables one to compare his/her results against competition. With the use of this tool, e-commerce businesses can correlate their websites’ performance with aggregated market data. Enrolled in the research were 300 polish stores throughout all sectors.