Shop Direct Group talk tablet conversion rates

Recognising that customers use tablets very differently

from mobile devices is vitally important to Shop Direct Group as it has found customer behaviour very different on the two channels.

Speaking at a recent event in London, Jonathan Wall, group e-commerce director at Shop Direct Group, told delegates: “We originally said, ‘let’s put tablets in with mobiles’ but over the last six to nine months we’ve found it to be a different device – in terms of user journeys and times of day used – so we’ve separated tablets from mobiles.”

The company also found a big difference in the level of conversions. Whereas mobile is two-thirds of that of desktops, the conversion rates on tablets is the same as on desktops. The average order value is even higher than on desktops so tablets are proving a very fruitful new channel for Shop Direct.

However, as Wall says Shop Direct has been “looking to get under the skin of the different behaviours on the different devices” he has found it vitally important to understand “device attribution”.

“We were attributing value to the devices as a marketing channel but now the key is to see device attribution. The conversion rate on a single device is not important it’s the conversion rate for the overall journey so it is vital we measure how our customers are going across channels,” he explains.

The upside is potentially huge as research shows customers shopping across channels (regardless of the channel they ultimately buy from) are significantly more valuable than those who use only a single channel.