The average eCommerce conversion rate globally is 3.73%
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Conversion rate statistics
In March, the conversion rate from Food & Beverage was the highest, at 6.37% – this is a 0.3% drop from February. In general, over the past twelve months, Food & Beverage has seen the highest conversion rates, at 6.64%, and Luxury & Jewelry has seen the lowest, at 1.26%.
EMEA has witnessed the strongest conversion rates overall (3.99%), followed by Americas (3.62%), and then APAC (2.64%). And in terms of device type, desktop has been responsible for the most conversions, at 4.79%, with 4.16% from tablet, and 3.28% from mobile.
Major trends noticed:
Beauty & Personal Care — fell by 11.89% in conversion rate, from 4.99% in February to 4.43% in March.
How to calculate a conversion rate
Identify the total number of desired actions that were completed by users over a fixed period of time (i.e. one month) and divide it by the number of users that visited the site during the same period. Multiply this number by 100 to calculate the conversion rate.
The formula is as follows:
For example, if 350 people purchased an item last month and 12,000 users visited the site during that period, the conversion rate would be 2.9%.
What is conversion rate?
In eCommerce, the definition of conversion rate is the measurement of how many site visitors perform a desired action. This could include making a purchase, signing up for an email list, filling out a form, subscribing to a service, or any other desired behavior.
What is a good conversion rate?
The average conversion rate across industries over the past twelve months:
Food & Beverage - 6.64% Consumer Goods - 4.53% Multi-Brand Retail - 4.71% Fashion, Accessories, and Apparel - 3.59% Home & Furniture - 1.85% Luxury & Jewelry - 1.26% Pet Care & Veterinary Services - 3.4% Beauty & Personal Care - 4.92%
How to improve your conversion rate
Referred to as the process of conversion rate optimization (CRO), marketers can leverage analytics, user feedback, A/B testing, and more to improve the overall customer experience and increase engagement.
For example, optimizing landing pages should be the starting point for boosting conversions. From updating copy and messaging to tweaking calls to action (CTAs) and imagery, start by A/B testing all suggested changes and through your testing and optimization, continuously do so over time.
Then, consider deploying a number of proven strategies to boost your conversion rate, like gamifying the site experience, which can drive engagement and user action, a major catalyst for conversions.
Social proof messages can also effectively drive conversions. Using the power of psychology, these create a sense of urgency when visitors browse product detail pages (PDPs) by highlighting demand.
Personalized exit popups and overlays can recover potentially lost sales and turn them into conversions. Try triggering overlays to capture email sign ups or present discount codes when a user idles on the site. Additionally, these can feature personalized product recommendations to better facilitate the discovery process and encourage user action.
And in a similar vein, push notifications can nudge mobile shoppers to capitalize on a sale, notify them when an item is back in stock, or remind users about items left in their cart to revitalize the conversion funnel.
An ongoing effort, yielding long-term, sustainable business results requires a strong CRO plan involving research, planning, experimentation, optimization, and analysis.
Actively track and evaluate your eCommerce conversion rate using the formula above. Low conversion rate benchmarks could be the result of a number of scenarios but are often attributed to poor site experience or lack of incentives for customers.
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