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Stickiness refers to a website that is so easy to use, meaningful, and personalized to individual users' preferences that it encourages them to visit often and complete transactions.

Try asking for a definition of stickiness and you are guaranteed to get numerous and varied answers. For some, stickiness is about the duration of a single visit - the longer the visit, the more "sticky" the site. To others, it is not only how long a visit may be, but also how deep the user gets within the site. And to others, stickiness refers to a site that enjoys repeat visits. Any or all of these aspects are common in today's stickiness equations.

Stickiness definitions vary because of evolving and differing business models that exist within the online space. But, even if one accepts the notion that stickiness is about getting users to visit often, stay longer, and explore more, should stickiness be an important goal for all websites? Arguably, for a content-based site that generates revenue from advertising, stickiness is a vital metric. The longer a visitor stays at a site, the more advertising he/she can be exposed to. However, what about e-commerce sites where the ultimate objective is to get a consumer to transact and then return to transact again? Is stickiness an important concept in an online retail environment? If so, how should it be defined?

Simply stated, stickiness does matter. However, it is important to understand what "stickiness" really means.

 

As already discussed, stickiness is currently defined multiple ways. Media Metrix, the leading digital media measurement company, measures stickiness solely on the average time spent at a site per usage month. Other industry professionals believe:

"Sticky, in Web parlance, is the ability to get your visitors to stick around your site, and then return to it later." Bankrate.com "Stickiness refers to a company's ability to retain users and drive them further into a site." Wired News "The stickiness of a website is the ability of a website to attract repeat visitors to that site and to keep visitors on that site." About.com

For e-commerce sites, many elements of these traditional definitions are problematic. For example, relating stickiness to the length of a visit at a site could actually mean that a customer is lost in the "store,” unable to accomplish the task of completing a sale. The same can be said about the depth of a visit. Traditional definitions dictate that the deeper a user gets within a site, the stickier the site. But depth can also mean a user is surfing aimlessly because he or she cannot figure out how to finish a purchase due to poor site design. The point is that for e-commerce sites, the rules and metrics for success are different.
 

In support of this definition, consider the following:
 
 
Conversion rates for e-commerce sites range somewhere between one percent and three percent as compared with 48 percent offline. (The conversion rate measures the number of visitors who come to a particular site within a particular period divided into the number of visitors who make a purchase.).
     
 
 
McKinsey & Company published an attraction, conversion, and retention funnel that shows only 1.3 percent of all website visitors turn into repeat visitors.

          • 1,811,000 visitors
          • 127,000 customers (7per cent)
          • 24,000 repeat customers (1.3per cent).
     
 
 
In the first quarter of 1999, 52 percent of shoppers bought at least twice from the same Net retailer in the previous six months. But by the first quarter of 2000, only 35 percent of buyers made a second purchase from the same Net retailer over the same period.
     
 
 
According to a report published by Boston Consulting Group, 65 percent of online consumers abandon their cart without making a purchase, while Forrester Research reports that 27 percent of all web transactions are abandoned at the payment screen.
     
  Then consider:
 
 
According to Datamonitor, 7.8 percent of abandoned online shopping carts could be salvaged with better customer service. That accounted for a loss of $6.1 billion last year. .
     
 
 
Tower records saw its conversion rates jump from 2.5 percent to 7.5 percent after simply improving its search functionality.
     
 
 
In a recent survey, 90 percent of the buyers indicated that personalization would increase their likelihood to purchase from a site again.
     
 
 
Filtering technology is one reason sites like Amazon.com and Drugstore.com had purchase conversion rates of 8.3 percent and 7.9 percent in August, whereas sites like Reel.com and J.Crew lagged with conversion rates of 3.5 percent and 3.4 percent.
     
 
 
REI credits its substantial amount of outdoor information and content for its 10 percent conversion rate. "Content is clearly one of our competitive advantages."
     

These facts prove that a great number of e-commerce sites can overcome their difficulties of converting visitors into customers, not to mention encouraging repeat customers, by better understanding the three components of stickiness; usability, personalization, and content.

 
There are three main areas of focus that work together to help a site achieve stickiness. These include:
  • Usability
  • Personalization
  • Content

All three elements must work in unison in order for a site to achieve a sufficient degree of stickiness required to facilitate first time and repeat transactions.

 
 
Usability : Explains the process of designing an e-commerce Website and compares it to designing a store in the offline world. It states that companies need to have a deep understanding of their consumers; how they shop, browse, and purchase.
     
 
 
Personalization : States that a site that is personalized recognizes repeat visitors, offers them a unique set of alternatives based on their past behavior or stated preferences, and continues to learn from the users' interactions so as to remain relevant and tailored to meet their individual needs and wants. Further explains the advantages and disadvantages of different types of personalization.
     
 
 
Content : This section contends that the main reason for building an e-commerce website is to sell products and/or services over the Internet. Thus, the content for the website has to be relevant to this business objective. In other words, online content for any e-commerce website should help, in one way or another, to increase the likelihood of a web surfer making a purchase on that website.
 
 

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