What is a reasonable E-Commerce Conversion Rate?

Want to learn more about utilizing effective E-commerce conversion rates? If so, you’re in luck. We’re going to be taking a look at some examples of effective E-commerce conversion rates and how you can benefit from implementing them within your own business schemes.

What is a Conversion Rate

Before we go into the analytics surrounding website conversion rates, it’s important to understand what conversion rates are and how they can impact your business.

A website’s conversion rate illustrates how a brand is able to use its online presence to transform traffic into dollar figures for their business. When a conversion rate isn’t high, it means that a business may be losing out on essential leads and prospective customers.

Conversion is a key element in your search strategy. If you are not turning the lookers into buyers at a profitable rate, your advertising may be to blame.

This can be a difficult situation for marketers because it entails that an e-commerce site simply isn’t performing as well as it should. However, a low conversion rate can easily be fixed, and the solution can be simple to uncover.

Conversion Rates on E-Commerce Sites

Let’s start with a refresher on conversion rates as it pertains to E-Commerce websites. A conversion is any desired action that a visitor takes when visiting your website.

Examples include signing up for a newsletter, downloading information guides, or buying a product or service.

The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who perform one of these many actions. For e-commerce sites, the most accurate conversions usually involve signing up for a new account, putting items into your cart, adding items to your wishlist, and authorizing a transaction.

The conversion rate is very resourceful because it will let you know how successful your website is at guiding visitors in and out of the sales funnel.

A high conversion rate is an indicator that your website is effectively convincing visitors to become leads or customers, while a low rate indicates that there are things that need to be fine-tuned in order to perform better.

When you have mastered the art of conversion rates, the practice of fine-tuning a website to garner the highest amount of leads or purchase transactions is known as conversion rate optimization.

Conversion Rates in Different Sectors

Conversion rates on e-commerce sites can vary widely across many different sectors. This is due to the nature of this booming industry, the re-establishment of purchase requirements, and the merit of transactions.

Low conversion rates: Home Furnishings (0.4) and Home & Garden (0.6)

When consumers make decisions about products for their home, they tend to spend a substantial amount of time researching and comparing products from different sellers. This is common when purchasing high ticket items.

Research shows that people are more likely to buy from brick and mortar stores when shopping for home and garden products. Consumers also tend to like to see what they are going to buy before making a commitment.

Low conversion rates: Travel (0.7) and Tourist Destinations (0.7)

Travel and tourism website conversion rates are low due to consumer behavior within the industry. In the sector, extensive research is typical. It’s very rare that a consumer will make a booking on their first visit to a travel website.

Most travelers will conduct price comparisons, check offers from a selection of different companies, and reach the final stage of planning without completing the booking process.

If you’ve been discouraged don’t worry, there are sectors that have well-performing conversion rates as well!

Good conversion rates: Personal Finance (2.9) and Finance (2.5)

E-Commerce sites within the finance section are as following: banks, building societies, and insurance providers. Insurance providers in particular usually receive a large number of visits from people who have been referred by price comparison sites.

Good conversion rates: Food and Drink (2.4%) and Food (2.1)

Research shows that 75% of consumers stay with the fits retailer they order from and don’t tend to stray from it. This would explain the high conversion rate for food and drink sites.

Another factor to take into account is the current pandemic. People are more likely to order take out food online to avoid any contact with the virus. This is a great thing for the industry and consumers.

Unlike high-ticket items that have a long lifespan such as furniture, food, and drink decisions are a low financial risk which makes it more desirable for the buyer.

So now that you know the average conversion rate across different sections let’s talk about how to improve them.

Improving Conversion Rates for E-commerce

One of the most important aspects of improving conversion rates is optimizing your eCommerce site to prompt desired actions from visitors. There are several ways to go about doing this.

You should take a second look and make sure you are tailoring your site to your ideal customer. This may seem like an obvious step. However, your lower conversion rate could be explained by a lack of website appeal. You always want to keep your target audience in mind when designing your website.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Is your website easy to navigate?
• Does it have a visual appeal and wow factor to catch your audience’s eyes?
• Is the checkout process simple and straightforward?

Sometimes simple tweaks to your website can make a huge impact on your site’s ability to convert visitors into loyal customers.

You could also create a virtual showroom if you have the resources. If you are selling physical products, a few low-quality photos aren’t going to impress your customers let alone convince them to purchase your product.

You should aim for high-quality images and videos with descriptions that provide persuasive information. A great eCommerce website should always showcase its products professionally. Technology like VR and 360 video can be useful here.

Don’t get discouraged by all the steps, with a few small changes your e-commerce site can rapidly improve its performance.