CLICK-TO-DOOR:

Using data to optimize

the customer journey
and supercharge e-commerce
sales in 2022 and beyond

An e-commerce report by
Postis & InsightOut Analytics Logistics Optimization Partner
 Why does this matter?

The data behind the narrative

We aggregated more than 15 million clicks and half a million orders to get
the data featured in this report.

Three critical aspects drive refusal rates: PPC traffic, cash on delivery orders, and
delivery time.

Higher conversion rates are associated with higher percentages of orders

paid by cash on delivery.

Organic, direct, and email traffic are associated with lower refusal rates.

Email and referral traffic results in higher average order values.

Considering delivery quality in the courier selection process translates into lower
refusal rates, higher on-time rates, and improved customer satisfaction.

A comprehensive, higher-quality recommendation engine is correlated

with more website visitors and 33% more direct traffic.

Removing guesswork from the equation

In the age of data, it comes as no surprise that data-driven, real-time decisions are becoming the
norm across various industries. Companies riding this momentum and learning how to quickly collect, transform,
and analyze their data are driving significant competitive advantage over their peers that are still making decisions
based on gut instinct. Indeed, data is vital to e-commerce, as the market matures and the competition intensifies,
with more and more consumers turning to the internet to search for, compare, choose, and purchase products
that meet their needs.

To this end, Postis and InsightOut Analytics teamed up to create this comprehensive e-commerce
report that looks at both public and proprietary data across the entire customer journey: from the moment
customers first click to search for a product to the final moment of the transaction, when they receive the package
The diversity and scale of the metrics this study covers make it the first of its kind for the
Romanian e-commerce market.
 So how did we do it?

From touchpoints to journeys

To study the complete e-commerce customer journey, we analyzed

end-to-end data covering over 15 million clicks across 35 retailers, which translated into
more than half a million orders during the observed period. Using 64 different metrics, we
uncovered what drives customers to buy more, refuse less, and have overall higher satisfaction
with retailers during e-commerce transactions. Businesses can use the findings in this report to
optimize their retail, marketing, and logistical processes to save money, increase customer
engagement, and boost sales.

This report presents findings across five main themes that show what influences
refusal and conversion rates, what drives the average order value, how customer behavior differs
depending on the origin of web traffic, and the important role a good recommendation engine
plays in driving e-commerce revenue.

How we did it

1 billion datapoints

15 M 500 000
clicks orders
35 retailers

Traffic Conversion Delivery Refusal

origin rate quality rate

64 e-commerce metrics

Our findings uncovered 5 key themes e-commerce retailers need to be cognizant of to win more business
 Table of contents

5 Key Findings & Vital Touchpoints

into the Complete Customer Journey

1 Cash on delivery influences

conversion and refusal rates.

2 Refusal rates differ depending

on where web traffic originates.

3 Optimizing delivery quality lowers

refusal rate, increases on-time rate,
and increases customer satisfaction.

4 Email and referral traffic increase

average order value.

5 The quality of the recommendation

engine is associated with the number
of webpage visits, direct traffic, and
volume of orders.
1
The percentage of orders
with cash on delivery influences
conversion and refusal rates

More than 70% of orders are paid for at the time of delivery for more
than half of the retailers we examined. Even though this percentage has
decreased since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, most people
still prefer to pay when they receive the items. Our study found that
retailers with a high percentage of orders paid at the time of delivery tend
to have higher conversion rates and higher refusal rates.
Over half of the
retailers studied
On one hand, paying at delivery results in more manageable and faster have more than 70%
of their orders with
order placement, which translates into higher conversion rates. By paying cash on delivery
for an item when it’s delivered, customers avoid filling out the payment
fields while also postponing their payment commitment.

Higher cash on delivery

percentage ▬
Cash on delivery

► higher
refusal rates

Higher cash on delivery

percentage ▬ ► higher
conversion rates

Refusal rates
Conversion rates

On the other, orders paid with cash on delivery tend to have higher refusal
due to additional factors that the customer might consider at the time of
delivery (e.g., delivery time, courier handling and communication,
The average refusal
availability, and product type). Since the customer didn’t make a significant
rate among studied
commitment at the time of purchase, it’s easier for them to refuse an order retailers is 3%
at delivery.

When we dig deeper into the data, we can determine which products tend
to have higher cash on delivery rates and whether other interventions
can decrease refusal rates for these orders. For example, when we might
detect a high probability of refusal based on several metrics — e.g., a
certain kind of product, cash on delivery, PPC traffic, or geography — The average
we can contact the customer to reconfirm the order before forwarding it conversion rate
among studied
to the courier, increasing the chances of a successful transaction. retailers is 3.18%
2
Refusal rates differ
depending on the
traffic origin

Traffic origin can also have a big impact on refusal rates.

For example, purchases made by customers arriving on the website
from a pay-per-click (PPC) ad are more impulsive than those that
originate organically. As a result, these orders are more likely to be
refused upon delivery.

More organic, e-mail and direct

traffic ▬
► lower refusal rates
Refusal rates

More PPC traffic

▬
► higher refusal rates

Organic, e-mail and direct traffic

PPC Traffic

On the other hand, lower refusal rates are associated with traffic Organic,
arriving from organic search engine results, through direct links, or direct,
via email marketing. After all, organic traffic is often associated with and PPC
are the 3 main
familiarity; customers repeatedly buying from the same website are sources of website
already familiar with the process and are therefore less likely to refuse traffic
an order.
Social media traffic

More social media traffic

▬► more orders with
cash on delivery

Cash on delivery percentages

Traffic origin analysis also revealed that customers arriving from social
media tend to prefer paying at delivery time. However, since the data
does not show a direct correlation between social media traffic and
increased refusal rates, we hypothesize that retailers should favor
traffic that originates via social media over that which comes from
PPC campaigns.
3
Optimizing for delivery quality
lowers refusal rates, increases
on-time rates, and improves
customer satisfaction

Among the studied retailers, we found that those that pay attention to
delivery quality when choosing couriers have an average of 28% lower
refusal rates and 6% higher on-time delivery rates as opposed to those
that only consider shipping costs.

Optimizing
for delivery +6%
quality -28%

28% smaller refusal rate & 6% higher on-time rate

We define the concept of delivery quality by two key metrics: on-time

rates and refusal rates. For accuracy, we must compute these metrics
in real-time based on several criteria, including:
Sender and recipient locations Weight Delivery type
Order and product type Courier characteristics
Delivery feedback

Higher on-time rate

▬► better customer feedback

Lower refusal rate

▬► better customer feedback

On-time rates Longer delivery

Refusal rates times increase
chances of refusal

To improve delivery quality, retailers must have at least two courier

options available and be willing to choose a more expensive courier in
some cases.

Nevertheless, the overall shipping cost will increase by less than 1%, with
the benefits of a lower refusal rate drastically outweighing these costs.

Moreover, improved delivery quality significantly impacts customer

perception; customers who receive their orders faster are substantially
more likely to give positive feedback on the delivery process.

At the same time, retailers with lower refusal rates also benefit from
improved customer perception around the delivery component of the
purchasing experience.
4
Email and referral
traffic is associated
with higher AOV

According to our data, email traffic increases average order value

(AOV), suggesting that returning customers that are engaged through
email nurture campaigns tend to buy higher-value items. What’s
more, we also found that customers arriving on e-commerce sites
from emails or direct referrals tend to spend more time on the
website.

Similar to organic traffic, familiarity plays an important role in the

purchasing process, with customers preferring to buy high-value
items from websites they’ve interacted with in the past. Even so,
referrals and emails are some of the least common methods
retailers use to attract customers to their websites.

More e-mail and referral traffic

▬
► higher AOV
referral traffic
E-mail and

More e-mail and referral traffic

▬
► longer website visits

Time spent on website

AOV

Referrals and e-mails

are amongst the least
used traffic drivers
5
The quality of the recommendation
engine impacts the number
of webpage visits, direct traffic,
and volume of orders

The better an e-commerce recommendations engine is, the more orders

they can expect to receive. In our study, we found that retailers displaying
both complementary and alternative items on their detail pages register
an average of 78% more conversions than the other retailers who display
only complementary items, only alternative items, or no items at all.
reccomendations
Better product

Better product
recommendation
▬► more orders

Orders

Additionally, the relevance of product recommendations can deliver

significant sales improvement, as highlighted by A/B testing conducted
on specific deployments. When compared head-to-head with basic
category filtering, machine-learning-driven offers increased conversion
rates by 80%.

Further, we also found that recommendations on the product detail page

and the shopping cart page positively correlate with the number of web
page visits, suggesting that customers presented with recommended
products tend to revisit the web page. Our findings also indicate that
customers reviewing web pages after interacting with recommendations
tend to use the retailer’s URL directly for their next visit, as retailers with
shopping cart recommendations observe 33% more direct traffic in these
instances.
Number of product
reccomendations

Product recommendations
on details pages and shopping
cart pages ▬ ► more page visits

+33%

Page visits

Shopping cart
recommendations
result in 33% more
direct traffic
Our methodology

To draw our conclusions, we looked at 35 retailers and 64 distinct metrics,

with about half of them coming from the customer’s interaction with the
retailer’s website (i.e., before purchase) and the other half coming from
the delivery process (i.e., after purchase). The metrics capture user
behavior on e-commerce websites based on more than 15 million clicks
across over half a million orders.

In our study, we considered the most relevant industries dominating the

retail world, including electronics, books, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics,
fashion, home decoration, toys, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG),
and more. In our evaluation, we used metrics such as conversion rates;
traffic origin; website visit duration; recommendation engine quality;
search engine quality; page speed; ease of purchase; ease of delivery;
delivery options; courier characteristics; order value; order geography;
cash on delivery percentages; order weights; delivery duration; refusal
rates; customer feedback; and others.

All presented results are statistically significant with a confidence level

of over 95%.
Logistics Optimization Partner
About Postis
Since 2016, we have disrupted traditional ways of doing things in logistics, retail, and
eCommerce by developing new industry standards to benefit tomorrow's customers
through the power of AI, data science, and machine-learning algorithms.

For us, evolution is more than a trend. It's a state of mind. We gravitate towards our
customers' needs. We accelerate their last-mile digital transformation and improve how
they deliver each day by building unmatchable customers' journeys towards vivid, fruitful
relationships, more than clicks and purchases.

Every day, we connect thousands of retailers, e-commerce actors, and third-party

logistics suppliers with significant distribution and delivery companies across Romania
and Central and Eastern Europe.

With sharp & agile optimization tools fueled by AI and more efficient post-purchase
communication, together, as a community, we unlock tremendous brand power across
omnichannel deliveries.

Your entire last-mile journey,

www.postis.eu
a single platform to rule it all.

About InsightOut Analytics

InsightOut Analytics is a data science, machine learning, and AI company focusing
on the eCommerce, Internet, and Media verticals. InsightOut Analytics develops and
implements complete data-driven business solutions which enable clients to gain
competitive advantages. InsightOut Analytics’ offering includes recommendation
engines, search engines, churn prediction, inventory optimization, promotion
optimization, and ads optimization, as well as data warehousing.

InsightOut Analytics is a Machine Learning Solutions SRL brand headquartered in

Timisoara, Romania, with offices in Osnabrück, Germany, and Bucharest, Romania.

Your data. Our solutions.

www.insightout-analytics.com
Better decisions:

Curious to learn more?

To learn more about how we created this report, start a new partnership, or discover more on
the way we can transform your e-commerce operations, drop us a line today at:
florin.bulgarov@postisgate.com or office@insightout-analytics.com.