Comparisons of Website Visit Behavior between Purchase Outcomes and Product Categories

The online retail business has grown substantially. Given distinctive product categories (e.g. search or experience goods), owners must put an effort in the design of websites so every visit may end with a purchase. Clickstream panel data allowing examination into website visiting behavior (i.e. the number of pages viewed (or pageview) or the visit duration) are increasingly accessible. However, it is unclear whether the differences of the two visiting behavior between purchase outcome or product categories are significant. The present study hopes to fill the void. An analysis of 27,528 visit sessions extracted from ComScore verifies that (1) the difference of page views between purchase outcomes and that between product categories were significant and (2) only the difference of visit duration between the product categories was significant but that between purchase outcomes was insignificant. In addition to theoretical insight into online behavior across purchasing horizons and product categories using clickstream data, online retail practitioners could apply the findings to enhance the possibility of the purchases at their online stores