What is a Good E-commerce Conversion Rate?

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One of the most common questions regarding businesses in E-commerce is, “What is a good E-commerce conversion rate?” Because the definition of “conversion” can vary, the answer can vary as well. For example, if your business deals exclusively in high-ticket items, you would most likely have much lower overall conversion rates than a business that sells inexpensive items.
You should also be asking what conversions you are measuring. Are you measuring an add to cart action or a completed purchase? Full reviews or social media interaction? Orders or Newsletter signups? New customers or repeat customers?
These are important questions to ask because conversion rate optimization goes beyond simply increasing online store sales. While sales are the primary conversion goal, there are many other conversion goals that can assist in making a sale.
Here we will discuss the most common eCommerce store conversion rate types, their averages, and how your business can improve its rates.

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Add to Cart Conversion Rate

The add-to-cart conversion rate shows the percentage of total visitors that have added an item to their shopping cart. This counts even if the visitor did not complete the purchase. This number will almost always be higher than your purchase conversion rate. It’s helpful because it shows an intent to buy from your business.
If this conversion rate is high, it shows you are doing well with call-to-action and have good product pages. On average you will see a rate of about 9%, however if your brand is in a niche market, or you sell products that are trending, it’s possible to see conversion rates of 20% or higher.
There are a few simple things that can help with increasing conversions:

  • Ensure the add-to-cart button stands out, above the scroll line
  • Improve the overall design, functionality, and navigation of your site. If you notice that you have a high rate of customers that only view one page, then it’s a safe bet that this area needs improvement.
  • Make sure your product pages are compelling and distraction-free
  • Use icons or call-outs to show items that are exclusive or have limited stock

Keurig’s site is a great example of high-converting product pages. Keurig includes any coupon details right on the product page, and shows if a product ships free right by the “Add to Cart” button.

Their checkout process is simple and clean, and doesn’t require going through multiple pages to complete a purchase. You will also notice that the email offer signup option is automatically selected.

If you’re losing customers in the checkout process be sure to check your checkout behavior in Google Analytics. This will show you your average e-commerce commerce conversion rate. You can also see a step-by-step breakdown of the checkout flow to see which step drops the most customers.

Conversion Rates for Purchases

Purchase conversion rates show not only the percentage of visitors that make a purchase on a website, but also the percentage of abandoned carts. Conversion rates vary, but the average ecommerce conversion rate tends to be around 1-3 percent. Top-performing businesses with higher conversion rates on purchases report upwards of 6%.
If you find customers are abandoning their carts too often, check out our primer on “What you need to know about your eCommerce Cart Page“.

Email Signup Conversion Rates

Capturing email signups is the second best conversion to get because it connects your business with customers who already have shown intent to purchase. If your website utilizes a popup or scroll box, you can expect to have a 2% conversion rate on average. A high website conversion rate for this action is around 5%. To improve your conversion rates with this action, focus on:

  • Offering value to your subscribers such as discounts, being the first to hear about new products, or other exclusive product news
  • You should be monitoring the time spent on the page and scrolling to determine when this call-to-action appears.

J Crew uses a popup that incentivizes users to sign up by rewarding them with an extra discount for their purchase, as well as rewards points, and exclusive offers.

Other Actions You Can Take

While Facebook and Instagram followers are not as beneficial as email subscribers, most users will keep the default settings active for accounts they are following. This means that your followers will automatically see your accounts’ post in their news feeds.
Other actions that can potentially improve your E-commerce conversion rate by impacting sales, and help buyers in their purchase journeys are things like an easily accessible live chat, PDF downloads, giving buyers an option to sign up for a phone call, and social media sharing.
It’s important to step back and consider every visitor action that could lead to sales, and then tracking those actions. This will allow you to improve in ways you may not have considered in the past. And be aware there is always room for improvement.
Online shopping is ever-evolving, and we are always here to help! Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns. We would love to speak with you.

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