What percentage of visitors to an online shop would normally be expected to make a purchase?

Just looking for 'accepted statistics' really, for a business plan. It would be interesting also to know if there is a difference between different types of shop (ie a specialist product site as opposed to a general gift site. If no actual stats are available, anecdotal figures from members who run online shops would be great.





Thanks

What percentage of visitors to an online shop would normally be expected to make a purchase?
It would be an online retailer's dream to get conversion rate of 6 buys for every 8 visit as the first poster said. Alas, the reality is not as rosy





According to the Internet Retailer Magazine http://www.internetretailer.com/article.... “conversion rates generally average in the 2.5% range, but rates that reach 8% are not uncommon and some sites report conversion rates of 18% and higher.”





According to the Top 500 Guide http://www.internetretailer.com/top500/ here are the conversion rates of some of the top retailers





Amazon.com = 3.2%


Office Depot = 8.60%


Overstock.com = 2.0%


Avon Products = 9.7%


Blue Nile = 2.71%


Foot Locker = 3.90%
Reply:you would be looking at 1% of every thousand, obviously this would change due to the content of what you are selling, promotions you would be running, and the type of site
Reply:i would usually have thought about 5 visits for 1 purchase, this is for a specialist shop. for other online shops i would say something like 8 visits for 6 buys