Average visits to order

How do you track this?

[fom2001uk]

I'd like to know, on average, how many visits it takes before a customer makes an order. Is this stuff in the logfiles?

Does anyone get this kind of data from their log software?

[dingman]

The closest thing I can think of to that information in the logs would require assuming a one to one correspondence between IPs and people. Unfortunately, that's not a very good assumption. If you want a run-down of why, ask me and I'll post one.

One way to reduce the problem might be to cookie visitors with a unique ID and log that when they return, but that has problems as well. Amongst them, many people surf from both home and work, which results in using at least two different browsers with different cookie files.