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Ask any eCommerce business owner which metric matters the most to them and the vast majority will tell you it’s the conversion rate right off the bat.
This doesn’t come as much of a shocker, after all, the whole point of your business is to get visitors to take the desired action once they land on your website, right?
But with over 4 million stores currently on Shopify, the competition is stiff as nails, which means improving your conversion rate will take a lot more than just offering a few discounts here and there.
We talked to 46 experienced Shopify store owners and asked them to share some of their best tips and practices on how to improve a store’s conversion rate.
Furthermore, we prepared some Shopify benchmarks that you might find useful when assessing your store’s success.
Let’s get started.
The Shopify conversion rate is the percentage of visitors that come to your online store and make a purchase.
It is calculated by dividing the number of completed orders by the number of website visitors and expressing the result as a percentage.
For example, if your store receives 100 visitors and 10 of them make a purchase, your conversion rate would be 10%.
If your conversion rate is not up to par, it probably means that there are issues with your store’s design, product offering, or checkout process that are preventing visitors from completing purchases, but we’ll get more into these details later on.
The name of this metric can vary depending on where you’re analyzing it. For instance, Google Analytics defines it as an eCommerce conversion rate, while Shopify Sales Analytics refers to it as an online store conversion rate.
You can find a detailed conversion Shopify report by going to Orders > Conversion Summary.
Before we show you the data from our survey, it’s important to note that there isn’t one universally “good” Shopify conversion rate.
The number can vary depending on a number of factors, such as the target audience, product prices, store design, customer experience, and the overall industry you’re in.
For instance, fashion products will probably have a higher conversion rate than cars.
With that said, our research showed us that the largest proportion of our respondents has a Shopify store conversion rate between 2.1% and 3.5%.
While this is slightly above compared to some other studies, our survey included only store owners that are considered experts in their specific niche.
When asked, the vast majority of respondents shared that they are satisfied with their Shopify store conversion rates.
Peter Varadi of MarketGap.Pro explains that because Shopify conversion rates are “usually less than 5% and only the most popular stores achieve 3%, our store’s 2.3% is pretty good.”
On the other hand, we have respondents who generally expect lower conversion rates and are still working hard on hitting their ideal target.
One example is Jeff Moriarty of Tanzanite Jewelry Designs, who mentions that he expects to see lower conversion rates since they sell higher-end jewelry. “We have been working hard over the past couple of years to increase it to levels close to what I see other sites getting, but not there yet.”
Conversion rates are only one piece of the Shopify success puzzle and focusing solely on this metric doesn’t guarantee a profitable business.
For example, are you paying enough attention to your RPV (Revenue per Visitor)?
You could have a conversion rate of 30%, but if the average order value (AOV) is $5, this high conversion rate falls short in comparison to a business with a 5% conversion rate and an AOV of $100.
We could list dozens of more examples like this, but what we are trying to say is that metrics like conversion rate need to be looked at comparatively. There are countless things that simply “depend” and no one number or benchmark should be seen as an absolute for success.
This is one of the reasons we launched Benchmark Groups – to help businesses see the full picture and compare multiple metrics within a single cohort.
With anonymized data from hundreds of companies, you can check out how other businesses in your industry are performing and make relevant comparisons.
For example, by joining this Shopify Benchmarks group you can anonymously compare your performance with other Shopify owners and benchmark key metrics such as gross sales, net sales, total customers, orders, shipping charges, and more. The group is free to join, so feel free to check it out.
If you ever asked yourself:
Databox Benchmark Groups can finally help you answer these questions and discover how your company measures up against similar companies based on your KPIs.
When you join Benchmark Groups, you will:
The best part?
When it comes to showing you how your performance compares to others, here is what it might look like for the metric Average Session Duration:
And here is an example of an open group you could join:
And this is just a fraction of what you’ll get. With Databox Benchmarks, you will need only one spot to see how all of your teams stack up — marketing, sales, customer service, product development, finance, and more.
Sounds like something you want to try out? Join a Databox Benchmark Group today!
The respondents we surveyed shared that the most important activities that have the greatest impact on improving Shopify store’s conversion rate are identifying the right target customers and showing testimonials, reviews and/or social proofs.
But there are a few more tested-and-proven strategies that you can implement.
Let’s get into the details of all of these.
Unsurprisingly, this was voted as the number one most important thing you can do to increase your store’s conversion rates.
Once you identify your target audience and have conducted the necessary research, you’ll have a deeper understanding of who your customers are, what they need and want, and how to market and sell your products to them effectively.
This also helps you improve their overall shopping experience since you can tailor your store’s messaging, branding, and overall customer experience to meet their needs and preferences better.
Lori Johnson of Munbyn shared a great strategy for getting in front of your target audience that you can steal:
“Specifically, we identify target customers and analyze what activities users will do in the purchase process and what keywords they will search for. We then use different forms of Google ads to cover the whole purchase process so that users will be familiar with our brand and tend to buy.
First, we use display Ads to target users with relevant interests and increase the number of displays for our brand. Next, we use YouTube to post videos and dynamic advertising to let target customers know more about our products and build a positive brand image.
Last but not least, we use Google CPC / Google Shopping to make our products visible to customers when they search for related items. This step will increase the click-through rate and conversion rate of our website because users will have a good impression of our brand.”
Testimonials and reviews are your biggest allies when it comes to establishing trust and credibility with your potential customers.
What’s more, they give you valuable feedback about your products. You can go through the reviews to learn what customers like and dislike about your product and then use that information to make improvements.
Aviad Faruzon of Faruzo adds that “shoppers are much more likely to make positive buying decisions if they observe that previous customers are satisfied with the purchase. Showing testimonials relays that we are a trustworthy brand.”
Aviad also says that this tactic helped him “double the store’s conversion rate from 2% to 4%”.
Related: 12 Proven Ways to Encourage Customers to Write Reviews (According to 100+ Marketers)
First impressions matter and your potential customers will judge your store immediately based on the visuals and overall webpage organization.
You should aim for a modern look without any unnecessary saturation. If your customers can navigate the store easily, you’re already doing better than most store owners.
The homepage and checkout page are particularly important and you should pay attention that things run smoothly on this end. A lot of businesses lose a ridiculously high number of ready-to-buy customers simply because their checkout pages are too complicated or confusing.
Also, don’t forget to invest in high-quality images.
Quality images can make your products more appealing and you can clearly outline certain details and features with them.
What’s more, it creates a professional and trustworthy vibe for your store, another huge factor when attracting customers.
Ben Kuhl of Shelf Expressions shares that his conversion rates began to improve “after we invested in professional photography for our products.”
“When we started out, our images were far more generic and didn’t show much style or flair, which for us didn’t project how these items might fit into a customer’s vision for their home. Our conversions were quite low to begin with, but now average 5-10% (depending on the traffic source), which makes our digital advertising profitable.”
Related: 21 Ways for Creating a Website Structure That’s Optimized for SEO
A strong CTA is an essential element of any successful eCommerce store and you should test several options to see which drives the most purchases before settling for one.
Make sure the CTA button clearly and concisely communicates the action you want the visitors to take and don’t be afraid to include it in several areas on your web page.
Do some research on CTA design techniques, colors, and which words have proven to be the most powerful in persuading visitors to take action.
Ilia Mundut of Heftyberry says that the “Add to Cart” button is the “main element on your page. Make it big, make it stand out in color, and make the font bigger. It really helps.”
He also recommends “putting a ‘SHOP NOW’ clickable text on the announcement bar in the header (after the “free shipping” text) that leads to the collections page. This worked wonders for us.”
Related: Use These 22 Blog CTA Examples to Boost Your Conversion Rate
No one wants to do business with a company that gives out half-hearted answers to their questions or takes days (or even weeks) to respond a message.
When customers have questions or concerns about your products or their orders, they expect to be able to get quick and helpful answers. Having a responsive customer service or chat feature allows you to provide this level of support, which can help improve the overall customer experience and increase customer satisfaction.
One great way you can do this is by incorporating a chatbot on your website.
Ann McFerran of Glamnetic says this has been a “game changer” for her business:
“We have many amazing products on our website, and having the chatbot allows customers to easily access answers to their questions, from product questions to customer service issues. People feel more inclined to purchase if their concerns are addressed quickly and efficiently, which the chatbot has been able to achieve for us.”
Sumeer Kaur of Lashkaraa puts the value of chatbots in an interesting perspective by describing them as the “missing element of in-store shopping, where you can ask employees questions about your purchase. The ability to do this at least partially with a chatbot removes some hesitation people sometimes have with purchasing items online.”
PRO TIP: Listen to this episode of Metrics & Chill to find out how Databox reduced median first response time, and which measures have been implemented to ensure this success is long-term and sustainable.
With more than 50% of eCommerce purchases being made on mobile phones, the right time to optimize your store for mobile devices was yesterday.
Furthermore, Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in search results, meaning you could be losing valuable SEO points as well.
Jeff Moriarty of Tanzanite Jewelry Designs shares one pro tip that helped him increase his store’s conversion rate.
“We saw a lot of success by moving the search bar on mobile devices from inside the navigation to the header of the website. We noticed that our conversion rates were 3x when people used the search function on their mobile devices. So we wanted to get more people to use it.
We decided to test moving the search bar from the internal navigation (hamburger menu) to the top of the website. Almost instantly, we saw an increase in our average conversion rate and about a 10% increase in daily transactions. Best test we ever ran.”
Related: 24 Ways to Increase Your Mobile App Conversion Rate
Considering that even a 1-second delay reduces user satisfaction by 16%, you should pay attention to whether you’ve done everything to ensure maximum website speed.
Image resolution, page elements, plugins, scripts, hosting… these are some of the main factors that influence your website speed, and if you’re not sure how to optimize them, hire a professional – it’s a worthwhile investment.
Shawn Harris of DaycareWebsites also emphasizes the importance of website speed since “people don’t have enough time to wait for your site to open. If your website has poor speed, visitors will instantly leave and move to another store.”
“Site speed is an important factor for a good conversion rate. A fast page speed has a better conversion rate and retains visitors for longer. It is why we paid special attention to improving the performance and speed of our store.”
In terms of specifics, Shawn shares that he “improved the content, optimized the size of the images, reduced the number of plugins, and adopted some other techniques to improve the speed of our Shopify store.”
Related: How Fast Is Fast Enough? What Is a Good Page Load Time for SEO
A/B testing can give you the answer to pretty much any dilemma you might have when deciding between several options on what to incorporate in your store.
From the store design and CTA button to the messaging and copy you use.
Peter Varadi of MarketGap.Pro mentioned that A/B testing had “the biggest impact on the store’s conversion rate. It’s an excellent method to figure out where things are going wrong and what you can improve on your Shopify Store. We tested a lot of things, such as; colors, images, CTAs, titles, banners, and element placement. We saw an increase of 0.7% after A/B testing.”
Are they really as successful as they seem to be on LinkedIn?
This is something that most businesses want to know about their competitors.
Sure, knowing how your conversion rate compares to last year is great and all, but knowing how we compare to competitors is what most of us are more interested in.
Up until now, this was pretty much impossible to tell (unless one of them decided to share their numbers publicly).
That’s why we decided to launch Benchmark Groups.
With Benchmark Groups, you can easily check out how your Shopify store stacks up against your competitors that are operating in the same industry and are of similar size.
The anonymized data comes from thousands of contributors, and you can use it to instantly see which areas you excel in and which need to be optimized for better performance.
And Shopify benchmarks are just the tip of the iceberg, you can join as many groups as you want and get access to hundreds of company metrics.
The best thing about it? You won’t have to pay a dime, and you can opt out at any time.
If there’s a more generous benchmark platform out there, we haven’t seen it.
Sign up for a free account and finally get a glimpse of how your peers (and rivals) are performing.
Hey, we’re Databox.Our mission is to help businesses save time and grow faster. Click here to see our platform in action.
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At Databox, we’re obsessed with helping companies more easily monitor, analyze, and report their results. Whether it’s the resources we put into building and maintaining integrations with 100+ popular marketing tools, enabling customizability of charts, dashboards, and reports, or building functionality to make analysis, benchmarking, and forecasting easier, we’re constantly trying to find ways to help our customers save time and deliver better results.
Filip Stojanovic is a content writer who studies Business and Political Sciences. Also, I am a huge tennis enthusiast. Although my dream is to win a Grand Slam, working as a content writer is also interesting.
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