What Is Conversion Rate?
Conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who buy. It's the multiplier on all your traffic investment.
Key Takeaways
- Conversion rate = Orders ÷ Sessions × 100.
- Average eCommerce conversion rates are 1.5–3%; above 3% is strong.
- Small improvements in conversion rate compound significantly with traffic growth.
The formula
Conversion rate is orders divided by sessions (or unique visitors), expressed as a percentage. If 10,000 people visit your store and 200 buy, your conversion rate is 2%. This means 9,800 people left without purchasing — each one representing an unfulfilled marketing investment.
Why conversion rate is so powerful
If you double your traffic but your conversion rate stays constant, revenue doubles — but so do your marketing costs. If instead you improve conversion rate from 2% to 3% with the same traffic, revenue grows by 50% with zero additional marketing spend. Conversion rate optimisation is often the highest-return activity available to an eCommerce business.
Common conversion killers
Slow page load speed. Confusing navigation or product discovery. Lack of social proof (reviews, ratings). Unexpected shipping costs at checkout. Limited payment options. Required account creation before purchase. Complex or lengthy checkout forms. Address each one in order of traffic volume — fix the highest-traffic pages first.
How to improve it
A/B test product page layouts, add customer reviews, simplify checkout to the fewest possible steps, offer guest checkout, and show shipping costs early in the journey. Install a session recording tool to watch where real customers drop off. Fix those specific friction points.