Many online retailers monitor visitor traffic as a measure of their stores' success.
But two Wharton researchers explain why high traffic streams to a Web site need not necessarily mean an increase in business, in a study that they assert is one of the first in-depth analyses of online visiting behavior using Internet clickstream data. A leading online bookstore and a popular online CD store from 1998 over an eight-month period. They came up with a unique model of consumer behavior at the individual level, which they say yields a new wellspring of knowledge to help e-businesses manage and market their Web stores more successfully. But if you look at it on the level of the individual customer, that's not the case. As they visit repeatedly, the behavior of site users starts to change.