As an e-commerce company, it is important to be concerned about the bounce percentage of your website. The bounce rate is the percentage of people who leave your site after viewing a single page without performing any other actions. In order to make customers convert, they should be on your website for a long time to read your blog or sign up to your email list and perhaps add a few products to their shopping cart. If none of that happens, it’s a sign that you’re having a problem.
A high bounce rate on your ecommerce site may indicate that you’re not engaging your customers effectively or offering them what they’re looking for. In this article, we’ll walk you through the fundamentals of bounce rate and offer some tips to help you reduce the bounce rate on your eCommerce site.
What is Bounce Rate?
Bounce rate is the percentage of people who come to your online store, look at just one page, and leave the page without taking any actions or clicking through to other pages, as compared to the number of visitors to your website.
Bounce Rates within Universal Analytics vs. Google Analytics 4
There are, at present, two versions available that makeup Google Analytics: Universal Analytics (which is being removed by the end of July 2024) and Google Analytics 4. They evaluate bounce rates in different ways.
Within Universal Analytics, a bounced session indicates that a person only viewed a single page of your site but did not interact with it. With Google Analytics 4, there’s a lot of a focus on ‘ engaging sessions and engaged sessions, which determine the bounce rate and engagement rate of your website. An engaged session means that you have a visitor who has visited your site.
Although bounce rates are measured slightly differently on both platforms, both of them are essentially checking the same things: have your users engaged with your site?
How can you determine bounce rates for e-commerce?
To determine the bounce rate for a site to determine its bounce rate, you must divide the number of sessions that bounced or were not active by the total number of visits or sessions. For example, if ten users visited your online store and three left after just viewing one page, your bounce rate for e-commerce is 30%. You can also track your bounce rate within the analytics of your website.
Average Ecommerce Bounce Rate
Siege Media examined more than one billion sessions to determine the bounce rate benchmarks. In their findings, bounce rates varied from 10 to 92%. The median bounce rate is 50.9 percent.
However, bounce rates vary significantly depending on the industry. For the sector of travel, for example, the average bounce rate was higher than 90%.
They discovered that the average bounce rate for e-commerce was 54.54 percent. While bounce rates for ecommerce differ from year to year, the best percentage of bounce for your particular business may be different. If your bounce rate exceeds 54%, it’s time to act to lower it.
Why is a High Bounce Rate a Bad Sign for Ecommerce?
Sometimes, it’s okay to let people go off a website in a short time because it could indicate that they’ve discovered what they were looking for and will not have access to the site. If the visitors arrive at the website for e-commerce with a particular goal to achieve, for instance, looking up a specific item of information, and can quickly locate the information they require without having to navigate through different pages, a high bounce rate might not be an issue.
But, as an online brand, you should aim for users to stay for a long time on your website so that they can be converted into a customer buying your products.
All of these issues could result in a lower conversion rate, which can affect the performance of your online business. It is, therefore, crucial to determine the reason why your customers are leaving your website and to take action to reduce the bounce rate of your online store.
Other metrics worth looking at, along with bounce rate
To gain a complete insight into how visitors use your site, bounce rate isn’t the only thing you need to keep track of. There are other metrics for your website that you must take into consideration:
Traffic to websites. Measures of the number of people visiting the website during a certain time. It is usually measured in terms of the number of page views as well as unique visits. Page views.
Sources of traffic. It tracks where visitors to websites originate from. It will help retailers identify which websites are driving the most engagement and traffic to their websites.
Time on the page. It measures how long users stay on a specific page before they leave the website.
Type of device. It is the type of device that is used to access websites, which allows organizations to tailor their website for the most common kinds of devices.
Localization. Tracks where users connect to your website. It also provides e-commerce companies with insights into regional or cultural differences in consumer preferences and needs.
Ways to Reduce Bounce Rate
First, you should try to determine why users leave your website so quickly. Are they unable to locate the information they’re trying to find? Your e-commerce site isn’t running at a sufficient speed? Are there issues with usability on the platform for e-commerce? To find out the root of the problem, you can compare your site’s bounce rate against specific pages, evaluate the site’s internals, and also consider asking customers to take a survey.
Surveys can provide brands with feedback on customer satisfaction and the usability of their websites, which allows companies to make educated decisions on how to improve their website. It is possible to send surveys or questionnaires to customers or add mini survey pop-ups on your website.
If you’ve identified possible issues, you are able to take steps to fix these issues. There are a variety of aspects of your website that you can focus on to reduce bounce rates.
Improve technical issues and increase usability
eCommerce websites must be simple to use and quick. If your landing pages don’t take a couple of seconds to load, the visitors are likely to get dissatisfied and leave your site. To fix technical issues, ensure that your eCommerce website is located on a reliable server. You should also often test it to detect any problems. Make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices, as a large portion of customers shop online.
Enhance the design of your website
A well-organized ecommerce website is simpler to navigate and aids customers in finding the information they’re seeking. Check that your site’s pages are organized and that there are clear pathways that users are able to follow to finish their things or buy.
