One of the most sought after studies in the Online Retail is to get to know the buying pattern of the prospect and what exactly is going on his/her mind at the “Click Cart Happy” moment. Every online retailer would love to know what is the most important factor which made the buyer actually commit on buying the item. Is she an impulsive buyer? And the same question was asked to me by one of our customers. We did a quick study (using Google Analytics) of the average time spent on the site by those who buy. The number was around 2 mins. The customer sells household appliances and average price of the item is around 100 pounds. Taking a decision to buy something that costs 100 pounds is done in 2 mins! That is pretty quick and we had all the reasons to think that the buyer went through a quick “Veni Vidi Vici”… I came , I saw and I conquered (“bought”)… It was a bit difficult to think that it could have been possible that way. We did a quick second level analysis of how many of them were repeat visitors (not necessarily repeat buyers since new household appliances are bought once in a while and not frequently) . It was revealed most of them were repeat visitors or those who came directly from the Shopping Comparison sites. So after a couple of more checks the conclusion we made is this: The online buyers do a good amount of study (atleast in the Household Appliances cateogry) before actually buying. And once they make up the mind then it is like Veni Vidi Vinci and takes hardly a few mins. Note: Be careful that the steps involved in your checkout are secure but as less as possible to avoid dropouts.