2. Key Findings:
Flash sale retailers dominate traditional online retailers when it comes to
growing customer lifetime value in a customer’s first year. On average, flash sale
businesses capture an additional 385% of a buyer’s first month’s spending
by the end of their first year (compared to just 94% for traditional internet
retailers).
Customers of group buying, daily deal, and flash sale businesses purchase
nearly twice as frequently on average as customers of traditional online
retailers.
Despite waiting longer between purchases, buyers at traditional retailers spend
more per purchase. On average, purchases made at traditional online
retailers are over 50% larger than those made from group buying, daily deal,
and flash sale retailers.
When it comes to generating high-value customers, Facebook Ads perform
surprisingly well up against competitors. The average customer acquired via
Facebook Ads spends 30% more in their lifetime than the average customer
acquired via Groupon and 8% more than the average customer acquired via
Google Ads.
“Next Generation” Retailers
In this report, we use the term “next generation” or “next-gen” to refer to online retailers who
have a group buying, flash sale, or daily deal business model. Daily Deal companies offer a
single deal each day. Flash Sale businesses offer deals with limited inventory which can exist
over multiple days. Group Buying companies offer deals in which multiple members must
commit to a deal in order to activate it.
This is in contrast to traditional internet retailers who offer a largely static inventory of
merchandise via a publicly-available online storefront.
Methodology
RJMetrics collected anonymous, aggregated sales data from 48 online retailers in the areas of
traditional retail, flash sales, daily deals, and group buying sites. This information included
metrics such as lifetime spending, repeat purchase rates, and time between purchases.
When possible, these metrics were also segmented by business model, customer referral
source, and other dimensions. When segmenting by referral source, only data sets with at
least one hundred customers per referral source were included.
3. Customers of “Next Generation” retailers took
less time to return to make a purchase
Daily Deals 48 Days
Flash Sales 49 Days
Group Buying 52 Days
Traditional Online Retail 89 Days
An analysis of the median time between purchases across different types of online retailers
showed a marked difference between “next generation” retailers and traditional internet
retailers.
Also noteworthy is that there was no significant difference in the time between purchases for
companies categorized as daily deal, flash sale, or group buying sites. When customers
returned to make repeat purchases from those next-gen retailers, they did so with very
similar frequencies.
Average order sizes for next-gen retailers are
lower than those for traditional online
retailers.
$105 The relatively larger average order value of
traditional retail is to be expected when you
consider that most next-gen retailers frequently
$82 focus on selling a single product or promotion at
a time, driving down AOV.
$61 $61
For traditional Internet retailers, we also observed
a positive correlation between the average time
between orders and the average purchase
amount. This is consistent with the observation
that buyers at traditional retail sites tend to
group more items into single orders, potentially
Daily Deals Flash Sales Group Buying Traditional Online
Retail
to save on shipping costs.
4. Customer Lifetime Value Growth
94% 143% 150% 385%
Daily Deals
Flash Sales
Traditional
Online Retail Group Buying
With traditional retailers driving larger purchases but next-generation providers generating
more frequent purchases, we needed a more comprehensive statistic to compare the relative
performance of these two groups.
By studying the growth of average customer spending over time (a popular way of
representing customer lifetime value), we were able to better understand the pace at which
customers delivered value to their retailers.
The chart above shows us the rate at which the average customer’s lifetime spending
increases from the 30-day mark to the 365-day mark. In other words, this is the rate at which
their spending grows in their first year as a customer.
The numbers here are higher than we had expected across the board, with traditional
retailers capturing an additional 94% of what a customer spends in their first 30 days during
the remainder of their first year as a customer.
However, the performance of next-gen retailers in comparison with traditional retailers is
quite strong. Daily deal and group buying retailers capture an additional 150% of value from
customers in their first year, and flash sale retailers capture an incredible 385%. The
extremely strong relative performance of flash sale sites, even among their next-gen peers, is
remarkable.
Studying the top 10% of performers for this metric reveals that some retailers have a
tremendously strong ability to drive repeat purchases. Top-decile retailers have customers
who come back to spend over 600% of their first purchase amount in their first year as
customers.
5. Customer Lifetime Value is slightly higher for
customers originating from Facebook than
Google
We were able study the relative long-term spending behaviors of customers acquired
through Facebook and Google ad campaigns.
$148 $159
Despite controversy in the press over the efficacy of Facebook’s advertising platform, we
found that customers who were acquired via Facebook ads performed comparably to
those acquired via Google ads. In fact, the average customer from Facebook spent 8%
more in their lifetime than peers acquired via Google.
It should be noted that this analysis does not consider conversion rates or the cost of
acquisition, so the relative cost-effectiveness of these campaigns may still vary substantially.
However, for those who convert into buyers, the ultimate value of the customer acquired was
comparable in the population we studied.
How do you stack up?
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