SimplePart November Update Part 1

Welcome to our News and Update wrap-up for November 2013.

During November we peaked at 10 million (-4.8%) daily page requests and saw a total of 1,851,817 (-6.9%) unique human visitors. These visitors placed 9,253 orders (-9.8%) for a total of $1,221,372 (-5.3%) in sales. Average order value last month was actually up 6% over October, yielding a milder than expected drop in sales dollars. 

A drop in visitors and order volume is typical going into the Holiday season, and will continue through mid-January or early February. In 2012 the number of orders dropped by 9.2% from October into November, and the average order value was flat – November performance, due to an improved average order value, was much better this year. Many of our clients are running seasonal promotions, which are encouraging larger orders and helping to offset the traditional seasonal downward dollar trend. That said, we typically see an 8% drop in dollars in December.

Online sales surges around Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday tend to favor retail apparel and electronics – less so auto parts. That said, our clients are working hard to earn orders and those efforts are paying off. Year over year their websites are seeing dramatically better performance over the holiday shopping period. I have included same-website YOY highlights below:

	Same Website YOY Dollars	Same Website YOY Orders
Wednesday	+125%	+84%
Thanksgiving Day	+165%	+113%
Black Friday	+167%	+99%
Saturday	+168%	+123%
Sunday	+228%	+102%

As of 3pm on Cyber Monday, our clients were already up 33% in YOY dollars and 11% in YOY orders over the entire Cyber Monday in 2012 (same-website).

Part 2 of the November update to follow.