eCommerce is so hot right now.
You might think driving eCommerce sales and conversations would be easy.
But as a matter of fact, it is quite the contrary. The average conversion rate for eCommerce sites across sectors ranges from about 2% to 4%, even after websites getting traffic of over millions of visitors a day.
Improving eCommerce conversions is crucial for a brand. Both in terms of profitability and building a loyal customer base.
Let us take a closer look at what eCommerce conversion rates are, how they are calculated and how one can boost them for a business.
What are eCommerce conversion rates?
E-commerce conversion rates refer to the percentage of users who take action and (ideally) become a customer when interacting with a business online. Therefore, it focuses on the number of transactions made over website visits.
A purchase would be the ultimate form of conversion, but that doesn't mean eCommerce conversions are limited to just that. There are different types of conversions that take place and tell you about your shoppers’ behaviour on your website.
These are when a customer:
- Completes a lead generation form
- Contacts customer service
- Subscribes to the newsletter
- Downloads a document or asset
- Covers any KPI your company deems valuable
What is a good conversation rate?
Conversion rates are one of the most valuable tools for eCommerce organisations and plays an essential role in calculating and measuring the ROI (return of investment).
As a matter of fact, a survey by Statista suggests that in both the UK and the US, 90% of personalisation efforts put for conversation rates result in a positive ROI.
But in order to understand any of that, we must first understand what can be considered as a good conversation rate.
According to a survey conducted, where databox got 70 marketers to state their average conversion rates. 64% of the marketers reported that a good eCommerce conversion rate would be anything above 3-5%.
So even though the conversion rate of a store may vary depending on factors like Industry, target audience demographics and price points, etc, anything above 3-5% conversion rate can be a good benchmark to set for your online store.
How do you calculate eCommerce conversion rate?
The formula to calculate eCommerce conversion rates is :
(Total no. of conversions / total visitors on website) x 100 = e-commerce conversion rate
That is, if you have 3000 total visitors and 30 conversations in that particular period of time, your store's conversion rate would be 3%.
In most cases, calculating conversion rates is as simple as that. Just divide the number of conversions by the total number of visitors, and there you have it.
A report from Unbounce stated that eCommerce conversion rates averaged 5.2 percent in the year 2021 across all online sectors.
Additional metrics used to help measure eCommerce conversions
When talking about conversion, a few more indicators are important besides how effectively your store converts.
Generally speaking, increasing these metrics in the right way will increase your store's overall conversion rate.
1. Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors who leave after reading just one page is known as the bounce rate.
A high bounce rate is undesirable since it shows visitors aren't finding what they're looking for on your website and are leaving right away.
2. Exit Rate
The percentage of users who depart after reading a page is known as the exit rate, which is frequently mistaken for bounce rate. The final page users view before leaving is shown by your departure rate.
One metric you may seek to reduce with landing page optimisation is an extremely high exit rate on a particular page, which might be a warning sign.
3. Click-Through Rate(CTR)
The amount of people that click a link to your website from an ad or email is known as the "click-through rate."
The goal of optimisation for AdWords or email marketing campaigns is frequently to increase the number of users who visit your website, take action, or interact with it via social media.
4. Average Session Duration
A measurement of engagement called average session time can help you understand how long visitors spend on your website.
If a visitor doesn't stay on a website for a sufficient amount of time to convert, there is a high bounce rate.
5. Average Page per Session(Google analytics)
Page per session is a measure for measuring engagement, it lets you know how many pages a potential customer visited before departing. The number of total page views during a session is stipulated by this indicator. Take note that if there are no conversions, more page views may indicate increased engagement or a lack of clarity in your conversion funnel.
How to increase eCommerce conversion rate?
Make your site easy to navigate.
According to a Retail Systems Research survey, 52% of consumers admit to getting frustrated with slow-loading eCommerce sites. Over 90% of these users end up leaving the website and switching to other similar e-stores, only to never return.
It is important to make your website as easy to navigate as possible. Set up a carousel to showcase all your top products and highlight other complimentary products. The goal is to make sure that all your products are easy to find and that the user experience on your website is as convenient and comfortable as possible.
Optimise your mobile site.
Practising good digital commerce is important on all channels and platforms, especially when it comes to mobile phones. In fact, mobile commerce is going rapidly, with about 80% of smartphone users admitting to having made a purchase using their mobile device in the latter half of 2022. It is also important to remember that about 40% of users will shift to a competitor site on receiving a bad mobile experience. Therefore it is extremely vital to optimise your mobile site, for the best time to convert customers is when they are bored and scrolling through their phone to find something that interests them. About 40-80% of online purchases are impulse purchases, so if you become that something that grabs their interest, you will easily be able to increase quality conversion rates.
Simplify your checkout process.
Keep your checkout as simple as possible. The more steps you add, the more complicated it gets. At the end of the day, customers shop online for convenience and expect a user-friendly interface. In fact, 87% of shoppers say that they would abandon a shopping cart if the shopping process is too complicated. Hence, offering your customers a simple checkout process can do wonders for your conversions.
Conduct A/B tests.
By conducting A/B tests, you can experiment and compare multiple versions of your website by changing different elements and seeing what performs best.
By testing out headlines, page layouts, colors, descriptions, CTAs and whatnot, you can feel out what your customers react to and resonate with the most.
This way, you can unravel what works best for your website and make changes based on results that will help increase your conversation rates.
Build trust with customer testimonials.
Actions speak louder than words. Show your prospects what you're capable of. Users need to know that your business is dependable and trustworthy, and you are not capable of building that sense of assurance alone. Take reviews and testimonials from your existing (ideally recurring) customers about their experience and add them to your website along with proof of media.
This will help your brand build trust amongst customers and prove your worth using proof instead of words.
Provide discount offers.
Discount offers make customers feel like they scored a good deal. And honestly, who doesn't love a good old discount coupon? Give your customers free shipping or create personalised limited-time offers to attract new and recurring users. Build a sense of loyalty in your customers by incentivising them with promotional codes and discount coupons. You can also opt for chatbots, as they provide customers with personalised offerers based on 1) their preferences in products and 2) their relationship with your brand(new or loyal).
Increase user-generated content
Shoppers that engage with user-generated content (UGC) are more likely to convert. Shoppers usually consult with online reviews before purchasing a product, so much so that 40% shoppers claim that they wouldn't purchase something if the product's page didn't feature a UGC. This is because learning how to use a product from a fellow user and seeing how the product performs in the real world increases the authenticity of your product and brand.
Improve customer service.
Customer service is one of the biggest aspects that can help you increase your conversion rates. It deals the most directly with a customer's experience. In fact, meta for business states that 52% of users switch brands due to poor customer service.
There is a lot you can do to improve your customer service, you can reach out and respond to feedback, handle customer queries on time, create a personalised support experience for your customers on all channels and let them know that you care.
With Engati, you opt to completely automate your customer service, right from your website to your socials. This way, your conversational chatbot can always be available to tend to your customers 24/7 and automatically help connect customers to a live agent when one is required and available to elevate customer service experience to the maximum. A good brand experience can increase customer loyalty and in turn, conversion rates like nothing else.
Add good-quality Images & Videos.
Since customers cannot experience your product personally by touching or feeling it, it becomes very crucial to provide them with high-quality images and videos. This helps keep their user experience elevated and maintains a sense of personalisation, as the customer can visualise the product better. It also builds on the trust factor because from a customer's perspective, the amount of effort you put into your website and product images speaks for how much effort you would put into your product. Therefore adding good-quality media to your site plays leads to an increase in conversion rates.
Support your customers preferred payment methods.
By now, we have understood that customers like simple things. But simple here means variety. It is very important to support all of your customers' preferred payment methods. Ensure to include net banking, card, cash and UPI so your customers do not have a reason to withdraw from the purchase. The easier the purchasing process, the faster the conversions for your business.
Use WhatsApp Commerce
WhatsApp supports conversational commerce now and allows you to integrate your Facebook marketplace or Shopify store directly with your WhatsApp business API account. This way, customers can go through your product catalogue on WhatsApp itself, converse with your brand, and make purchases on the channel itself. You can also use a WhatsApp Chatbot to elevate your WhatsApp marketing and sales experience send sms broadcast and impress your customers with some exceptional, state-of-the-art service. Adding another legitimate channel to your website and socials will definitely help you increase your conversion rates like never before.
Leverage eCommerce automation.
Finally, the one thing that we cannot go without saying. Invest in automation.
E-commerce is completely digital, and most digital commerce sites like Amazon, Flipcart and many others depend on automation to optimise their services.
With automation, you can send abandoned cart and follow-up emails, automate lead generation and customer support, use a chatbot to instantly interact with your customers and keep track of all your process with proper analytics. Know what's in your stock and instantly reorder items that are sold out, interact with customers as a brand and store all your data for research and reference.
There are so many processes that automation can aid to help you increase your conversion rates.
You can check out this article about "eCommerce Automation" to gain more insights.
Register with us to leverage all the cool things automation has to offer and experience your conversion rates truly boost up.
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