Conversion Rates

[brain357]

I'm curious what conversion rates others have with their stores. Mine seems pretty low from what I have read and hovers around .8-.9. I sell a variety of items with prices ranging from $1 to $1500. I sell medieval type replicas like clothing, jewelry, armor... So I sell collectible stuff and I guess some of my visitors could be searching historical reference types sites rather than shopping so maybe that could be why it seems low. I'm pretty sure my success lies in increasing my conversion rate.

Also curious if anyone has some success stories of increasing conversion rates. I'm pretty sure I have done most the often suggested things like good pictures and copy. My pricing should be pretty competitive with other online stores. Originally I thought maybe my shipping charge was too high, but I don't get that many abandoned carts each week that would have a high shipping charge vs total price for order. I also have been getting quite a few positive review on my products.

[KCMDigitalMarketing]

Conversion rates differ from product to product and service to service. It also depends on how much they spend on advertising and how they are marketing their products.

There are so many factors to consider and I wouldn't rely on just one metric.

Post a link of your site on here and see if we can review it and get an idea.

One thing you could do is check the visitor behavior flow on Google Analytics to see which pages they are exiting out of. And again, this is just one thing out many to look at.

[nduncan]

Conversion will vary depending upon whether the store is quite niche or whether it is more mainstream. Given that yours is quite niche I would expect around 2-3%. It may also depend on where the traffic is coming from, ie is it organic, PPC, FB etc.

As you say, getting your conversion right is key to making a success of an online store (or any online venture I guess). Maybe you should try some A/B testing to see if there are areas that can be improved. I have had some good results at tweaking things and getting conversion increases.

[Harold Mansfield]

I'm curious what conversion rates others have with their stores. Mine seems pretty low from what I have read and hovers around .8-.9. I sell a variety of items with prices ranging from $1 to $1500. I sell medieval type replicas like clothing, jewelry, armor... So I sell collectible stuff and I guess some of my visitors could be searching historical reference types sites rather than shopping so maybe that could be why it seems low. I'm pretty sure my success lies in increasing my conversion rate.

Also curious if anyone has some success stories of increasing conversion rates. I'm pretty sure I have done most the often suggested things like good pictures and copy. My pricing should be pretty competitive with other online stores. Originally I thought maybe my shipping charge was too high, but I don't get that many abandoned carts each week that would have a high shipping charge vs total price for order. I also have been getting quite a few positive review on my products.

Conversion rates of what?
Ads vs. sales?
Website traffic vs. sales?
Foot traffic?
Abandoned carts?
Newsletters?
Social media?

Conversion rate is a very general term that could measure a lot of different things. It's not a universal measurement that can be applied to every business and situation equally. Can you tell us exactly what you're measuring?

[brain357]

Conversion will vary depending upon whether the store is quite niche or whether it is more mainstream. Given that yours is quite niche I would expect around 2-3%. It may also depend on where the traffic is coming from, ie is it organic, PPC, FB etc.

As you say, getting your conversion right is key to making a success of an online store (or any online venture I guess). Maybe you should try some A/B testing to see if there are areas that can be improved. I have had some good results at tweaking things and getting conversion increases.

From what I have read I was thinking 2-3% was more where I should be. The good news is I have a lot of room for improvment/increased sales I guess.

I don't do any PPC. Because I sell things that can be considered weapons, Google won't let me do Adwords. Funny because Gander Mountain and other big places that sell guns are still on adwords. I did a little bit of Bing ads, but didn't seem to have much success. Most my traffic is google/organic (60-65%), about 13% direct, bing/yahoo are about 6%, my restocking notification app get me about 5%, Facebook and newsletters are about 3-4%. I've been trying to get more traction on facebook lately without much luck.

[brain357]

Conversion rates of what?
Ads vs. sales?
Website traffic vs. sales?
Foot traffic?
Abandoned carts?
Newsletters?
Social media?

Conversion rate is a very general term that could measure a lot of different things. It's not a universal measurement that can be applied to every business and situation equally. Can you tell us exactly what you're measuring?


Sorry, all traffic vs total sales.

[Fulcrum]

Why not give us a link so our web gurus can have a look? Without them being able to at least have a glance at your site, any recommendations are just a shot in the dark.

[Harold Mansfield]

Sorry, all traffic vs total sales.

That's a broad metric. First you have to look at all traffic.
Where is it coming from?
What were they searching for to have gotten there? (that's the big question)
What is your bounce rate? (also very important)
How much time do people spend on the site?
Most popular pages?
Least popular pages?
Where do they leave from?
How many carts are abandoned?

To understand your conversions in any real way in order to make improvements, you first have to determine that you are in fact attracting the right traffic.

From what little detail you've given, you're just looking at raw traffic numbers, comparing it sales and calling that your conversions. That's shooting yourself in the foot because it's not really an honest look. There is no way to improve on that because you haven't confirmed that you are targeting correctly in the first place. Given those parameters anyone can luck up on 2% in sales.

[Brian Altenhofel]

Sorry, all traffic vs total sales.

That's way too broad.

First, you need to eliminate bot traffic. In my experience, usually more than half of the reported traffic to a site is bots. You don't care about the bots, so you need to exclude them from your stats.

You need to make sure that you can track the entire conversion process, from first touch to final order submission. You need to know where you are losing potential conversions and why.

How many visits does a user make before they take their first action? How many times (and how long) does a user look at a product before adding it to their cart? Do they read certain information first, like reviews?

What search terms do they use to get to your site? What search terms do they use when they are on your site? Do they use filters when searching for products? How many filters do they use? Do they clear filters while looking for an item?

How long does it take for them to add another item to their cart? How long does it take to start the checkout process from adding their first item? Are they being overwhelmed by forms during the checkout process?

Are abandoned carts really abandoned? Perhaps they are just price shopping at this time and planning for later, or awaiting approval, or maybe they had to move on to another task. Does your software have a way to remind them about the cart they left, perhaps through email (if you have their address at that point) or remarketing ads?

By tracking that data, not only can you figure out what you need to do to improve conversions, but you can also start surfacing products that a potential customer wants to buy before they actively seek those products out.

[brain357]

That's way too broad.

First, you need to eliminate bot traffic. In my experience, usually more than half of the reported traffic to a site is bots. You don't care about the bots, so you need to exclude them from your stats.

You need to make sure that you can track the entire conversion process, from first touch to final order submission. You need to know where you are losing potential conversions and why.

How many visits does a user make before they take their first action? How many times (and how long) does a user look at a product before adding it to their cart? Do they read certain information first, like reviews?

What search terms do they use to get to your site? What search terms do they use when they are on your site? Do they use filters when searching for products? How many filters do they use? Do they clear filters while looking for an item?

How long does it take for them to add another item to their cart? How long does it take to start the checkout process from adding their first item? Are they being overwhelmed by forms during the checkout process?

Are abandoned carts really abandoned? Perhaps they are just price shopping at this time and planning for later, or awaiting approval, or maybe they had to move on to another task. Does your software have a way to remind them about the cart they left, perhaps through email (if you have their address at that point) or remarketing ads?

By tracking that data, not only can you figure out what you need to do to improve conversions, but you can also start surfacing products that a potential customer wants to buy before they actively seek those products out.

Great points, thanks.

Will clicking bot filtering in my google analytics help?

[brain357]

I'm still taking in all the great points made so far but have what I think is a related question.

Today has been a great sales day. My conversion rate for all traffic and all sales is 2.0% today and sales are like triple the average day. This happens every now and then and it leaves me wondering if it is just a coincidence or if there is some reason for such a great day. What things should I try to analyze to review this?

[Harold Mansfield]

I'm still taking in all the great points made so far but have what I think is a related question.

Today has been a great sales day. My conversion rate for all traffic and all sales is 2.0% today and sales are like triple the average day. This happens every now and then and it leaves me wondering if it is just a coincidence or if there is some reason for such a great day. What things should I try to analyze to review this?


Do you have Google analytics installed?

[brain357]

That's way too broad.

First, you need to eliminate bot traffic. In my experience, usually more than half of the reported traffic to a site is bots. You don't care about the bots, so you need to exclude them from your stats.

You need to make sure that you can track the entire conversion process, from first touch to final order submission. You need to know where you are losing potential conversions and why.

How many visits does a user make before they take their first action? How many times (and how long) does a user look at a product before adding it to their cart? Do they read certain information first, like reviews?

What search terms do they use to get to your site? What search terms do they use when they are on your site? Do they use filters when searching for products? How many filters do they use? Do they clear filters while looking for an item?

How long does it take for them to add another item to their cart? How long does it take to start the checkout process from adding their first item? Are they being overwhelmed by forms during the checkout process?

Are abandoned carts really abandoned? Perhaps they are just price shopping at this time and planning for later, or awaiting approval, or maybe they had to move on to another task. Does your software have a way to remind them about the cart they left, perhaps through email (if you have their address at that point) or remarketing ads?

By tracking that data, not only can you figure out what you need to do to improve conversions, but you can also start surfacing products that a potential customer wants to buy before they actively seek those products out.


Do you have Google analytics installed?

Yes I do. That is where I get my info.

[Brian Altenhofel]

Great points, thanks.

Will clicking bot filtering in my google analytics help?

Yes, to a certain extent. My experience has been that the bot filtering in Google Analytics catches anywhere from 60%-80% of bot traffic. It really depends on what bots are crawling your site. It only filters out traffic that comes from bots that are known to Google. The e-commerce sites I've worked on tend to fall into the higher end of that range, while the social sites I've worked on tend to fall in the lower end. A good web application firewall that also tracks behavior to determine whether to classify a "visitor" as a bot will get rid of 90% or more, but that's probably not something that's on your radar at the moment.


I'm still taking in all the great points made so far but have what I think is a related question.

Today has been a great sales day. My conversion rate for all traffic and all sales is 2.0% today and sales are like triple the average day. This happens every now and then and it leaves me wondering if it is just a coincidence or if there is some reason for such a great day. What things should I try to analyze to review this?

A quick start would be to use the period comparison feature. Compare that day to a relatively normal day, the same day of the month (as in first Wednesday vs first Wednesday), another day with a similar spike, etc. If it's the same products that are selling, then it will be easier to see what might have been unique about that day. If the products are different, you'll need to dig deeper. Perhaps someone found a good deal on your site and shared it on a forum. Maybe your product got reviewed by a blog or on YouTube (the latter will probably show up as a large organic search spike). Maybe an ad campaign had some unique success with a certain demographic. Maybe there was a certain news event that prompted people to seek out your product. The stars may have just aligned perfectly that day.

Depending on your volume of sales, it could also just be a random spike. Unless you're tracking things well enough that you can tie triggering events to user actions, a day-by-day (and even week-by-week) view may be too granular. Zoom out and look at monthly and quarterly trends. Compare them to the same period a year ago.

By the way, you can add annotations to days in Google Analytics. If you run an ad offline that can't be easily tracked online, add an annotation for the start and end days. If you encounter a spike and you discover what the cause was (perhaps a news event even), add an annotation. Add an annotation if you change the checkout process, product page layout, implement and abandoned cart recovery feature, etc. Basically, annotations are a way to keep notes of what was done or what happened that day so that you can go back and say "oh, this is the day where we were interviewed on a local radio show and sales or conversions went up for the next couple of weeks - we need to arrange an interview again."

[Harold Mansfield]

Yes I do. That is where I get my info.

GA is huge and there is a ton of information and filters that you can set up. I can't begin to even know where to start to teach you how to analyze your analytics, because I have no idea what you have set up, or anything about your site, it's SEO, marketing, referrer traffic, ad campaigns and so on and so on. Not do I have access to your account.

But I do know that there are all kinds of videos that cover this exact subject. GA itself has an entire channel of videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/googleanalytics

Google also offers a free course on using and understanding analytics.
https://analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com/