Unknown date Khalid Saleh

The Average Website Conversion Rate by

Industry (Updated by 2020)

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The latest survey and studies in 2020 show that the average conversion
rate of e-commerce websites is 2.86%. The average eCommerce
website conversion rate in the US stands at 2.63% as compared to the
global website conversion rate of 4.31%.

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 web site’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 rst-time visitors. And they still wanted more.

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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 is converting at around the average mark, you are

under-performing.

Understanding Average Conversion Rates

What is the success rate of an AB testing program? | #CRO

The rst thing you should understand is that 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 tra co Facebook.

Some of the variables that impact conversion rate include:

Product type
Product cost or average order value
Tra c 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 di erent
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13/08/2020 The Average Website Conversion Rate by Industry (Updated by 2020) | Invesp

goals you are trying to optimize for (say, % of visitors who add a
product to cart, download a lookbook or ll a contact form, etc.).

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

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 internal metrics on over 300 websites we track. We
also use publicly available data from several analytics and
personalization software companies. The data provided in this article
tracks metrics from September of 2009 to Mid-2019. We also update
this article regularly as new data becomes available.

1. Average Conversion Rates of E-commerce Websites

As of Q2 – 2019:

The average ecommerce conversion globally is at 2.58%

The average ecommerce conversion in the US  is at 2.57%.
The average ecommerce conversion globally is at 3.81%.

Let’s compare how the ecommerce conversion rates vary globally, the
US and the UK since 2014:

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13/08/2020 The Average Website Conversion Rate by Industry (Updated by 2020) | Invesp

Data Source: Monetate

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We can see how average website conversion rates have uctuated

globally in the last ve years:

How average website conversion rates have uctuated in the US during

the last ve years:

And nally, the changes in average website conversion rates in the UK

during the last ve years:

Historical Average Conversion Rates For E-commerce

Websites

In the early 2000s, Shop.org reported the average e-commerce website

converted 3% of its tra c into customers.
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In 2014, MarketingSherpa pointed that the majority of stores had

conversion rates in the range below 1% up to 5%, with few companies
reaching higher rates.

FireClick Index data from 2015 show an average e-commerce

conversion rate close to 7.2% globally.

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Conversion data for fashion and apparel, from Fireclick index:

Conversion data for catalog websites, from Fireclick index:

Conversion data for specialty websites, from Fireclick index:

Conversion data for outdoors and sports websites, from Fireclick index:

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Conversion data for software websites, from Fireclick index:

Back in 2010, outdoor and sporting stores converted less than 0.5% of
the tra c they receive. In 2015, these stores were converting 4.8% of
their visitors into customers. This is close to a 900% increase in
conversion rates.

From Fireclick index ndings, specialty stores convert at the highest

average rates (7.6%), followed by catalog websites (6.7%), fashion and
apparel (5.9%), outdoors and sports (4.8%), and software (4.1%).

A 2014 benchmark study from MarketingSherpa, showed that business

services, electronics, softwa, e and video games, and publishing and
entertainment related products convert substantially better than other
product categories.

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The study also found that stores that sell multiple products saw an
average 17.2% conversion rate. Niche stores selling only one-category
products, on the other hand, had a 16.3% conversion rate. This result
goes against conventional wisdom that targeted, niche stores do better
than general stores.

The result goes against Fireclick index ndings as well, which show a
6.7% conversion rate for catalog stores and a 7.6% conversion rate for
specialty stores. Niche stores, in this case, outperform stores selling
multiple products.

Average Conversion Rates For Top E-commerce Websites

The following data shows the top 15 converting online retailers for
2014.
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13/08/2020 The Average Website Conversion Rate by Industry (Updated by 2020) | Invesp

Rank Website Conversion Rate

1 Play.Google.com 30.00%
2 MovieMars.com 22.95%
3 DollarShaveClub.com 20.00%
4 1800Contacts.com 18.40%
5 1800Flowers.com 16.90%
6 Coastal.com 14.50%
7 Keurig.com 13.00%
8 FTD.com 11.70%
9 ProFlowers.com 11.70%
10 PureFormulas.com 10.74%
11 FreshDirect.com 10.50%
12 TheGreatCourses.com 10.04%
13 1800PetMeds.com 10.00%
14 AmeriMark.com 10.00%
15 OvernightPrints.com 9.95%

2. Average E-commerce Conversion Rate by Device

As of Q2 – 2019:

The average ecommerce conversion for desktop is at 3.90%

The average ecommerce conversion for mobile is at 1.82%
The average ecommerce conversion for tablet is at 3.49%

By the end of 2016, traditional devices, i.e. desktops and laptops, reach
a considerably higher conversion rate than mobile devices. Among
mobile, conversions on tablets more than double compared to
conversions on smartphones.

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Here is how data looks for the last ve years:

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Let’s see how mobile vs. desktop compare:

3. Average “Add to Cart” Rates

The percentage of visitors click on the add to cart button when they get
to a product page on an ecommerce site varies globally, the US and the
UK:

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4.
Average Conversion Rate For Lead Generation Websites
You will not nd any published data on the average conversion rate for
lead generation websites. Invesp internal metrics, based on
approximately 35 di erent lead generation websites, indicates an
average of 13% of visitors converted into customers, with the highest
converting site sustaining a rate at 28%.
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5. Average Conversion Rate For A iliate Websites

Similar to lead generation sites, there is no published data on the
average conversion rate for a liate websites. Invesp internal metrics,
based on approximately 17 di erent a liate websites, indicates an
average of 26% of their visitors converted into customers.

6. Average Conversion Rate On Freemium Products

Companies o ering freemium products are able to reach high
conversion rates. Slack, for instance, converts 30% of free subscribers
into premium paying customers. These are the conversion rates of
some freemium providers, according to Business 2 Community.

Product Conversion Rate

Slack 30%
Spotify 27%
Evernote 4.1%
Dropbox 4%
Google Drive 0.5%

7. Average Conversion Rates For Webinar Registration

Pages
Over the last couple of years, there has been a massive push to use
webinars as a lead generation activity to drive business leads. However,
few articles and blog posts have addressed increasing conversions for
webinar registration pages. The data we provide here is narrow and
based on our own webinar registration page.

The conversion rate for webinar registration pages varies

depending on the type of webinar software you are using.
GotoWebinar, which seems to be the most popular, might increase
conversions anywhere from 5% to 15%.
Conversion rate for webinar registration page depends on the
quality of the visitors you are driving to the page, the webinar title,
day, and time of day.
The standard GotoWebinar registration page converts 22% of
visitors.
Custom-built webinar registration pages convert 35% to 45% of
visitors.
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9. Average Conversion Rates By Platform

Mac users, at the 4th quarter 2016, bought more than Windows users,
who bought substantially more than Linux users. During the 4th
quarter 2016, conversion rates were the same for Mac and Windows
users. On mobile platforms, Android under-performs against iOS.

 Source: Monetate

10. Highly Motivated Visitors Drive Higher Conversions

In a famous conversion experiment, you give ten people a credit card.
Direct them to an e-commerce website. Ask them to buy a particular
item the store carries.

How many of these ten people are able to complete the

purchase?

Remember, they are only required to perform the purchase. They are
not spending their own money. All they have to do is navigate to a site,
nd an item, add it to their shopping cart, and successfully nish the
checkout process.

Logically, you would guess that at least eight of the testers should
complete the task.

Wrong! When the experiment was done, only two were able to
accomplish the goal of buying the item. If only two concluded the
checkout process under these circumstances (full motivation and no
fears or objections), it is no wonder that everyday consumers do not
convert on the web.

We highly recommend running the same test for your website and
examining the results.

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11. Understanding Your Website Visitors: Browsing Vs.

Converting
Visitors’ intent as they browse your website has a direct impact on your
conversion rates. Are visitors coming to your website to research
products with the intention of buying online? Or are they taking
information from your site back to brick-and-mortar stores to buy
there? It depends on the nature of the product you o er and how
visitors view it. This answer is focused on visitor-centric information
and not on factors you control, such as website messaging, design,
copy, etc. These are the three di erent categories of visitors’ intent:

Browse online / buy online: clothes, event tickets, books, and toys,
or making reservations
Higher browse online / Lower buy online: Electronics, computers,
sporting goods
Lower browse online / Higher buy online: airline tickets

So, what can you do with this categorization? Think about your own
website and consider the type of browsing vs. buying of your average
consumer. If you know that visitors tend to use your website for
research but do not convert online, what can you do to convert more
visitors into buyers?

12. Why An Average Conversion Rate Is Not Good

Enough (And What You Can Do To Improve It)
As we saw earlier, conversion rates vary greatly across stores. Some
stores see conversion rates in excess of 10%. Some struggle with rates
under 2%.

According to WordStream, for example, the top 10% of stores see a

conversion rate of nearly 11.5%.
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Which is to say, getting an average conversion rate is really not good

enough for an e-commerce store. Instead of benchmarking yourself
against the average, focus on what the top 10% are doing and reverse
engineer their e orts.

Here are a few steps you can take to improve your conversion rates:

1. Focus on top-converting tra c 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 tra c.

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 tra c comes from. If your top channel
is social and you have very little direct tra c, 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.

2. Promote best-converting products/categories

Di erent products and product-categories will have di erent

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.

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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 at 10%.

Finding a product with a reasonably high order value and strong

conversion rates can do wonders for your store.

3. 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 di erent
designs to see what truly works.
Experiment with di erent o ers. Instead of selling products
conventionally, try to run a time limited sale (like Groupon).
Change up tra c sources. Use the same landing page on di erent
channels (Facebook, Twitter, AdWords, etc.). Try a remarketing
campaign with top performing channel to push conversion rates
even further.

4. Invest in a mobile shopping app

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Smartphone tra c to e-commerce sites has steadily grown from 16.6%

of all tra c in Q2 2014 to 22.9% of tra c in Q2 2015.

Smartphone tra c conversion rates, however, are signi cantly 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 o ers several advantages over
a mobile website:

Personalization: By using location data and tracking user

engagement, a mobile app can o er a more personalized
experience to your customers.

Noti cations: You can use mobile noti cations 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.
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