The Average Website Conversion Rate by Industry (Updated 2023)

Khalid Saleh

Khalid Saleh

Khalid Saleh is CEO and co-founder of Invesp. He is the co-author of Amazon.com bestselling book: "Conversion Optimization: The Art and Science of Converting Visitors into Customers." Khalid is an in-demand speaker who has presented at such industry events as SMX, SES, PubCon, Emetrics, ACCM and DMA, among others.
Reading Time: 10 minutes

The latest survey and studies in 2023 show that the global average website conversion rate is 3.68%. 

The average conversion rate in the e-commerce market decreased by 0.91% from 1.65% to 1.64% in February 2023 compared to February 2022.

e-commerce conversion rate data

     source

Conversion rate information is one of the most protected data on the web. You should expect such secrecy. Website owners do not jump on the idea of sharing their website’s performance with competitors. While many tools available can estimate the number of visitors a website receives, limited software options may determine any website conversion rate.

The question now is: what is a good conversion rate?

The answer: it varies. What’s great for one industry might be below par for another.

One multi-billion-dollar company I once worked with had conversion rates of 41% for first-time visitors. And they still wanted more.

The key is to understand the average e-commerce conversion rate and benchmark your performance against it. Once you know whether you are meeting the average for your industry, you can work to improve conversion rates until you’re in the top 10 percentile of performers.

If your website converts at around the average mark, you are underperforming.

This article has been updated for 2022 to include new data for the average conversion rate across ecommerce industries, countries, etc.

 What Is An eCommerce Conversion Rate?

An ecommerce conversion rate is defined as the number of people who placed an order with your store compared to the number of traffic that came in.

It is expressed by this formula;

eCommerce conversion rate = orders/number of visits X 100%

Consider this scenario;

Your store gets 1500 visits and 75 places an order. Using the formula above, this will be;

75/1500 = 5%.

Depending on your analytics, this metric is called different names. In Google Analytics, it’s called eCommerce conversion rate; in Shopify Analytics, it’s called online store conversion rate; and other analytics tools may refer to it as transaction rate or order rate.

Here’s an example of eCommerce conversion rate in Google Analytics;

ecommerce conversion rate in Google Analytics

Understanding Average Conversion Rates

The first thing you should understand is that the conversion rate is highly contextual. A store selling high-end electronics isn’t going to have the same conversion rate as one selling $10 t-shirts. Similarly, a store with a loyal email list of 100,000 hungry buyers will see far better conversions than one buying cold traffic off Facebook.

Some of the variables that impact conversion rate include:

  • Product Type
  • Product cost or average order value
  • Traffic source
  • Device (mobile, tablet, or PC)
  • Platform (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, etc.)
  • Location

Furthermore, the term “conversion rate” is generally used to signify the % of visitors that turn into customers. You might have different goals you are trying to optimize for (say, % of visitors who add a product to cart, download a lookbook or fill a contact form, etc.).

The term “average conversion rate,” thus, can be a bit misleading.

Why is eCommerce Conversion Rate Important?

The eCommerce conversion rate measures how well your online store is converting.

Success for an eCommerce business isn’t in the monthly traffic it gets but in the number of orders placed from that traffic. This is what defines conversion rate.

Now, if you’re driving a ton of traffic with little to no conversions to your site, it’ll become clear to you that it’s not a traffic issue on your site but a conversion problem that now requires a deep dive into your site, looking for possible areas of improvement.

How do you know you need to investigate your site’s conversion rate?

1. Low orders.

2. High cart and checkout abandonment rates.

3. Product stock always in store, etc.

Now, you don’t go ahead and begin implementing changes all of a sudden to your site; there are better ways to go about this.

1. Set up exit pop-ups asking clients about their experience and why they didn’t purchase from you.

2. Conduct JTBD interviews with recent customers to find out their difficulties and how they overcame them. You can also ask them what they use your product for; the answer might surprise you.

3. Analyze heatmaps and session recordings, see how users engage and drop off on your site, and mark those areas for further investigation through survey questions and interviews.

4. Conduct user and usability tests to get more feedback from respondents.

All these actions aim to look for common patterns and complaints. Then you prioritize them based on which impacts the bottom line more, create a hypothesis for the bigger issue, and then proceed to A/B tests.

This is how you tackle conversion rate issues. You don’t just make changes to your site; you need to hear from your site visitors about their experience and how you can improve.

Where does our data on the average website conversion rate come from?

The data we present in this article comes from a variety of sources, including Invesp’s internal metrics on over 300 websites we track. We also use publicly available data from several analytics and personalization software companies.

In this section, we have data provided that has been tracked from 2021 into 2022, bringing you up-to-date and then data from 2022 into 2023.

eCommerce Conversion Rate Benchmarks By Industry (2022)

There’s no universal conversion rate. This has been established.

A good conversion rate isn’t driven by an amazing customer experience or because of your perfect messaging /offer.

There are three factors that influence a site’s conversion rate.

1. Traffic sources – traffic from ads to new visitors, traffic from blogs, or affiliate sites won’t boost your conversion rate because these are first impressions. The traffic that impacts conversion rates is the hone from previous purchasers, i.e., site visitors already familiar with your brand.

2. Price point – the more expensive your products, the lower your conversion rate. This is because the more expensive an item, the more consideration is put into the purchase. The less expensive an item, the less thought is put into the purchase.

3. Purchase type – subscription businesses are likely to have lower conversion rates than stores that encourage one-off purchases. The reasons are that customers who buy from subscription businesses need more time to think about the long-term commitment factor, and also, many subscription businesses have lower returning customers.

It’s still good practice to have a conversion rate benchmark to judge your store’s performance against competitors.

According to Statista, the online conversion rate in the second quarter of 2022 in selected verticals is outlined below.

Online conversion rate for different industries

eCommerce Conversion Rate By Channel

Ecommerce Traffic Channel Data

This data is courtesy of IRPCommerce.

In October 2022, the sales breakdown in the ecommerce market by Traffic Channel was Paid Search Marketing at 53.8%, Direct at 23.9%, Affiliate Marketing at 11.7%, Email Marketing at 9.5%, and Paid Social Media Marketing at 1.1%.

Conversion Rate Of Shoppers by Country Worldwide.

This detail is gotten from Statista.

Conversion rate of shoppers worldwide

Moving on to newer data covering more verticals

Average Conversion Rate Of eCommerce Industries

In Q4 of 2022, these were the conversion rates across several ecommerce industries. This looks similar to the previous graph shared, but this is the data from Q4 of 2022.

Average Conversion Rate Of eCommerce Industries

Before diving into specifics, there have been some major trends noticed across several eCommerce industries in 2023 (spanning January and February)

Beauty & Personal Care — fell by 47.88% in conversion rate, from 4.09% in January to 2.51% in February.

Food & Beverage — fell by 68.47% in conversion rate, from 5.45% in January to 2.67% in February.

Fashion, Accessories, and Apparel — fell by 15.54% in conversion rate, from 3.12% in January to 2.67% in February.

Home & Furniture — fell by 138.71% in conversion rate, from 6.3% in January to 1.14% in February.

Consumer Goods — fell by 78.71% in conversion rate, from 4.55% in January to 1.98% in February.

Luxury & Jewelry — rose by 32.53% in conversion rate, from 1.21% in January to 1.68% in February.

Here’s the specific across these industries across a 12-month span

Beauty and personal care average conversion rate (March 2022 – February 2023)

Beauty and personal care average conversion rate (March 2022 – February 2023)

Food and beverage average conversion rate (March 2022 – February 2023)

food and beverage conversion rate

Fashion Accessories average conversion rate (March 2022 – February 2023)

fashion, accessories and apparel conversion rate

Home and Furniture average conversion rate (March 2022 – February 2023)

home and furniture conversion rates

Consumer Goods average conversion rate (March 2022 – February 2023)

consumer goods conversion rates

Luxury and Jewel average conversion rate (March 2022 – February 2023)

Luxury and jewels conversion rates

Average ecommerce conversion rate per device.

The average conversion rate over the past 12 months, desktop has been responsible for the most conversions, at 4.91%, with 4.57% from tablet, and 3.07% from mobile.

Desktop conversion rate over the past 12 months ( March 2022 – February 2023)

desktop conversion rates

Tablet conversion rate over the past 12 months ( March 2022 – February 2023)

tablet conversion rates

Mobile conversion rate over the past 12 months ( March 2022 – February 2023)

Mobile conversion rates

Average conversion rates by platform

If your ecommerce product is on the tech scene, paying attention to these stats is very crucial.

  • Windows: 4.94%
  • Macintosh: 3.78% 
  • Chrome OS: 2.9%
  • iOS: 1.88%
  • Android: 1.8%
  • Windows Phone: 0.5%
  • Linux: 0.02%

Average conversion rate by region

In the last 12 months, conversion rates have fluctuated across different regions of the world, but EMEA has witnessed the strongest conversion rates overall (4.22%), followed by Americas (3.5%), and then APAC (1.67%).

Diving into the Specifics.

EMEA average conversion rate over the past 12 months ( March 2022 – February 2023)

EMEA region conversion rate

Americas average conversion rate over the past 12 months ( March 2022 – February 2023)

Americas region conversion rate

APAC’s average conversion rate over the past 12 months ( March 2022 – February 2023)

APAC region conversion rate

The next section covers how to improve your website’s conversion rate.

Ecommerce Conversion Rate Optimization

You can implement certain steps today to improve user experience on your website, which will reflect in increased conversion.

Outlined below are some of the strategies that you can implement right away. The list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, just a pointer.

1. Use clearer images.

Have you tried zooming into images to get clearer details and yet couldn’t? 

Did you end up making the purchase? Most likely, no.

The same thing happens on your website. When there’s no ability to zoom in to see smaller details, and your image resolution is poor, users will end up not buying.

The solution is to use images with higher resolution, 360-degree function, and zooming ability.

2. Use More Social Proof.

  1. ‘This product was good.’

2. ‘I enjoy using this product.’

3. ‘I couldn’t sleep well at night for years until I came across the Aquapedia mattress; now I need to set the alarm to wake up; if not, I’m not sure I’ll ever wake up. This experience is so good, I don’t want it to end.’

Which of these reviews do you prefer?

Which of these reviews do you think will motivate potential customers to buy from you?

If your guess is as good as mine, the third review.

Use more social proof with stellar reviews on your money pages to increase conversions.

3. Tweak Your Checkout Process.

Many checkout stages have unnecessary steps that make the shopping experience unpleasant.

It’s simple to improve this in 4 steps.

  • Remove every unnecessary field/form.
  • Allow guest checkout.
  • Show a progress bar.
  • Show security seals.

4. Focus on top-converting traffic channels

From the above charts, it is clear that social converts fairly poorly as compared to search and email, both of which underperform against direct traffic.

If improving conversion rates is your priority, focusing on better converting channels will yield better results. Dig into your analytics report to see where most of your traffic comes from. If your top channel is social and you have very little direct traffic, it might be a good idea to divert marketing resources to PPC or invest in an email campaign.

Similarly, email yields better conversion rates than social and search. Consider investing in an email marketing campaign to push up your store’s overall conversions.

5. Promote best-converting products/categories

Different product pages and product categories will have different conversion rates. Dig through your analytics to see what pages convert best. These should be the top priority in your marketing campaigns.

For example, if your t-shirts convert better than your shoes, make sure to promote the former on your site and your marketing.

At the same time, also consider what products contribute the most to your bottom line. A $1,000 product that converts at 2% is better for your store than a $10 product that converts to 10%.

Finding a product with a reasonably high order value and strong conversion rates can do wonders for your store.

6. Go deeper with your A/B tests

When split testing, it is easy to fall into the trap of making small changes (such as changing a button color) and expecting big returns.

Such an approach will rarely, if ever, yield unicorn-level conversion rates of 5-10% or higher. To get to that level, you have to look beyond cosmetic changes.

Try the following with your tests:

  • Overhaul page design. Experiment with minimalist pages, busy pages, etc. Be prepared to try out 10 or more radically different designs to see what truly works.
  • Experiment with different offers. Instead of selling products conventionally, try to run a time-limited sale (like Groupon).
  • Change up traffic sources. Use the same landing page on different channels (Facebook, Twitter, AdWords, etc.). Try a remarketing campaign with top top-performing channel to push conversion rates even further.

7. Invest in a mobile shopping app

ecommerce-smartphone-traffic

Smartphone traffic to e-commerce sites has steadily grown from 16.6% of all traffic in Q2 2014 to 22.9% of traffic in Q2 2015.

Smartphone traffic conversion rates, however, are significantly lower than both desktops and tablets.

Improving the mobile shopping experience can be a big boost to your bottom line. One way to do this is to invest in a mobile app. While the upfront costs will be high, a mobile app offers several advantages over a mobile website:

  • Personalization: By using location data and tracking user engagement, a mobile app can offer a more personalized experience to your customers.
  • Notifications: You can use mobile notifications to alert customers about sales and deals – something that’s not possible (so far) with mobile websites.
  • Design and Performance: A mobile app gives your designers more room to create innovative shopping experiences. Apps also perform better than websites since they can tap into the full power of the smartphone.

This is one reason why some retailers are ditching mobile websites altogether and going ‘app only’.

Even if you don’t invest in a mobile app, make sure to optimize your site for mobile users. According to Criteo, mobile-optimized sites convert more than 100% higher than non-optimized sites.

Resources You’ll Love

1. How To Calculate Your Website Or Campaign Conversion Rate

2. What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) and Why Is It Important?

3. How to Create a Robust Conversion Optimization Plan?

4. Google Analytics Metrics That Impact Conversion Rate Optimization

5. The Conversion Framework: 7 Principles to Increase Conversion Rates

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Khalid Saleh

Khalid Saleh

Khalid Saleh is CEO and co-founder of Invesp. He is the co-author of Amazon.com bestselling book: "Conversion Optimization: The Art and Science of Converting Visitors into Customers." Khalid is an in-demand speaker who has presented at such industry events as SMX, SES, PubCon, Emetrics, ACCM and DMA, among others.

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