What’s Your E-Commerce Site’s Bounce Rate?

Knowing your bounce rate can help you identify underlying problems with your E-commerce site’s landing pages and ultimately help you keep customers on site. 

e-commerce bounce rate

It may lack the significance of metrics like click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate, but bounce rate is still an important indication of an e-commerce site’s success. If a large portion of your site’s visitors are “bouncing” without clicking through to a second page, it usually means there’s some other underlying problem.

 

Bounce Rate Defined

 

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website or webpage who leave or otherwise end their session without clicking through to a second internal page. A bounce can be triggered when a visitor clicks the back button in his or her browser, remains inactive for a prolonged length of time, closes his or her browser, or clicks on an external link.

 

E-Commerce Bounce Rates

 

According to ConversionVoodoo, the average bounce rate for e-commerce sites is roughly 33.9%. Of course, this is just the industry average. Some e-commerce sites may report a higher bounce rate, while others report a lower bounce rate. ConversionVoodoo, for instance, found that bigger e-commerce sites have lower bounce rates, presumably because they have more repeat customers – and repeat customers typically know what they are shopping for.

 

Measuring Bounce Rate

 

The easiest way to measure your e-commerce your e-commerce site’s bounce rate is through Google Analytics. This free-to-use analytics tool offered by the search engine giant reveals a plethora of data about your website, including its site-wide and page-specific bounce rates. If you haven’t done so already, create a Google account and add your e-commerce site to Google Analytics. Once added, it will collect data about your site’s visitors and their behavior.

 

Tips to Lower E-Commerce Bounce Rate:

 

  • Limit your use of external links.
  • Show related products at the bottom of product listings and search pages.
  • Show products that visitors have previously viewed.
  • Double-check all links to ensure they function as intended (a broken internal link may trigger a bounce).
  • Ensure page content is relevant to what visitors are looking for.
  • Encourage visitors to browse through multiple pages on your e-commerce site.

 

These are just a few simple ways to lower your e-commerce site’s bounce rate. Of course, you’ll never be able to achieve a 0% bounce rate – and that’s okay. Some visitors may land on a product page, only to leave your site without taking action; thus, triggering a bounce. But you have to look at the big picture. If you maintain a relatively low bounce rate (under 40%), it’s safe to assume visitors are finding what they want on your site.