A successful website drives traffic, converts leads and creates happy customers.
But, when, according to Statista, only 1.6% of global eCommerce visits converted into purchases in Q3 2025, what is the best way to boost conversions and make for more profitability within your business?
After all, you’ve put in all the hard work to get your name out there and bring visitors to your website, what are you supposed to be doing to close more deals?
Read on below as we discuss what you can do to improve your eCommerce conversion rate and share some of our best practices when it comes to eCommerce websites and improving customers’ experience on your site to make the purchasing experience as smooth as possible.
Strategy Summary: Improving eCommerce Conversion Rates
| Focus Area | Key Action Steps | Impact on Conversion |
| Site Performance | Reduce load times to under 3 seconds; optimise images and minify code. | Lowers bounce rates and reduces user frustration. |
| User Experience | Simplify navigation; use intuitive categories and search filters. | Helps customers find products faster with fewer clicks. |
| Visual Content | Use high-quality, multi-angle photos; add explainer videos or “shorts.” | Builds product trust and increases engagement levels. |
| Social Proof | Feature User-Generated Content (UGC) and authentic customer reviews. | Provides 9.8x more impact than influencer content. |
| Shipping & Returns | Offer free shipping; clearly display transparent returns policies. | Reduces “cart abandonment” and mitigates buyer risk. |
| Payment Flexibility | Integrate digital wallets (Apple/Samsung Pay) and “Buy Now, Pay Later” tools. | Streamlines the checkout process and accommodates budgets. |
| Product Information | Write clear, benefit-driven descriptions; avoid AI-generated text. | Answers customer questions and establishes brand authenticity. |
| Incentives | Use limited-time deals, bundle offers, and abandoned cart discounts. | Creates urgency and nudges hesitant shoppers to finish a purchase. |
What is eCommerce CRO?
Conversions are everything for eCommerce retailers, and this is where eCommerce conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is important. CRO is the practice of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, buying a product or signing up for a newsletter, through strategic improvements to the website design and usability.
As an eCommerce business, improving the conversion rate of your online store can have a huge impact on your bottom line.
What Is A Good eCommerce Conversion Rate?
On average, an eCommerce website can expect a conversion rate of 1% to 4%. However, you may find that this figure varies by industry, business model, target audience, pricing, marketing and products.
Never consider an ‘average’ as a set in stone, guaranteed rate, and never compare your business to other industries. This is why it is important to note your own average conversion rate and work from that figure. Consider “Is my conversion rate already strong, considering my industry, price point and typical customer behaviour, or can it be steadily improved over time?”
Why Should I Calculate My Conversion Rate?
Your conversion rate is an important metric to benchmark the progress of your marketing and sales efforts. With a conversion rate figure, you can get:
- Valuable insights into your order processing,
- A better understanding of how effectively your website is sustaining customer attention,
- Specific details and insights into your website’s design and development.
Calculating and assessing your conversion rate is a good way to impact revenue, improve marketing efficiency and optimise your customer journey. The businesses that get more from their existing traffic will be less dependent on new lead acquisition.
How Can I Calculate My Current Conversion Rate?
Conversion rate can be calculated by using the following formula:
Conversion rate = (Total conversions / Total visitors) x 100
Say you had 1,000 visitors on your website. 20 of them made a purchase. Therefore, your conversion rate is (20/1,000) x 100 = 2%.
Why Is Conversion Rate Important?
Conversion rate is crucial. It will measure how effective your website and supporting marketing campaigns are at turning visitors into customers. Therefore, this directly impacts revenue growth and your return on investment.
A high conversion rate means that your user targeting and experience are working well together and aligned. A low conversion rate, on the other hand, suggests a messaging misalignment, user bottlenecks, irrelevant traffic and weak propositions.
How To Improve Your eCommerce Conversion Rate
Reduce Load Times
The shorter the load time, the less frustrating the user experience.
Think of all the times you’ve tried to access a website and found yourself waiting for it to load in between pages. Is it frustrating, right? Especially when you’re browsing, navigating between pages and comparing different products.
According to Google, over half of mobile users will leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load.
Of course, you can’t be responsible for the speed of your users’ internet, but you can optimise your website for speed. Some quick fixes include optimising large images, minifying code and leveraging browser caching, all best done by a specialist if you feel at all doubtful!
Easy To Follow Navigation
High bounce rates and long browsing times can be due to a website that is challenging to navigate. If your users struggle to find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently, then they’ll struggle to buy.
Users expect to find a logical website navigation and to find what they want in as few clicks as possible. Try to organise your category pages intuitively with minimal nesting, and implement filters such as size, colour, and other criteria, to speed up product searches.
Better Product Images
The images on your website actually tell a lot about your brand. High-quality images that clearly show the product will reassure visitors that they are buying the correct product from a trustworthy brand. Therefore, this can significantly impact your e-commerce conversion rates.
A blurry image is never useful, especially on e-commerce websites. When customers can’t easily zoom in to inspect a product, they’ll be less inclined to purchase, leading to high cart abandonment rates.
Our tips for product images are:
- Ensure you have images of the product from various angles so customers can view them clearly.
- Avoid AI-generated product images, as people can quickly detect when something seems off,
- Ensure your images are optimised in terms of file sizes, so they don’t slow down your website.
Informative Supporting Videos On Product Pages
Younger customers are typically used to video platforms such as Instagram reels, TikTok, YouTube shorts and similar channels. These bite-sized snippets see 2.5 times more engagement than long-form content.
Whilst, of course, textual content and images are essential, explainer videos to support your content will help improve conversion rates and make your content easily digestible.
Having high-quality videos with subtitles can be a great way to improve your conversion rate.
User-Generated Content
User-Generated Content (UGC) can be a highly successful way to nudge your customers closer to purchasing.
According to HubSpot, consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful than influencer content, and 79% of people find that UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions.
Why’s that? Your customers find product reviews and photos from actual customers more trustworthy than content coming directly from your company. After all, that way, they know that the product will arrive exactly as described on the website.
Placing UGC on your homepage is a great way to reduce bounce rates and establish trust quickly, whereas leveraging UGC on your category, product and checkout pages is a good way to improve conversion rates.
Social Proof
We all know that customers read reviews before they purchase a product online. Therefore, social proof in the form of customer reviews is essential to build the trust required for a customer to convert. Having no reviews may lead customers to ignore your products. Artificially written reviews will not sound authentic, which will cause customers to ignore your products.
A good balance of authentic customer reviews is important. Try:
- Encouraging customers to write reviews.
- Sending reminders to customers to request reviews.
- Attending to negative reviews authentically, ideally fixing the problem at hand to show that you care about your customers.
- Seek professional advice if false, malicious reviews have been left about your business.
Free Shipping
Free shipping may be a costly way to improve your conversion rates; however, it is important.
A Forbes survey found that half of respondents completely avoid retailers that do not offer free shipping, and 77% have abandoned their purchases due to unsatisfactory shipping options.
Often, customers will spend more per order with free shipping, often to meet minimums, and wait longer for an order when shipping is free.
After all, add-on fees in the checkout will always be a pain for users. All they will do is add friction and push customers away from purchasing by losing trust.
Multiple Payment Options
Not offering the payment option your customers prefer may lead them to abandon the payment altogether.
Consider streamlining mobile payments. Digital wallets, such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, are commonly used for eCommerce purchases. This can be a quicker way to pay, improving conversion rates thanks to the convenience.
Many customers also prefer to pay in instalments, and offering tools like Klarna welcomes another segment of your customer base. In changing economic landscapes, the ability to spread payments over months may make your customers more likely to convert.
Easily Found Shipping Information and Returns Policy
Your buyers care a lot about both your shipping and returns policies. They want to know they can trust the item will arrive and that if anything goes wrong, it will be sorted without stress.
Openly advertise free delivery thresholds and feature clearly recognisable logos of the trusted courier companies you use, such as Royal Mail, DPD or Evri. A ‘Next-Day Delivery’ countdown on product pages will also create a sense of urgency, pushing the customer towards a final decision.
Never hide your returns policy. Remember, buying online is still a risk to the customer as they cannot physically see the product, so a returns policy acts as insurance to mitigate risk. Use human-centric language, such as ‘Easy 30-day returns’, to further reduce anxiety.
This all builds customer trust, reduces purchase anxiety and drives sales.
Clear Product Descriptions
Ensure your eCommerce product descriptions include precise information, without being overwhelming. When a product description fails to meet a user’s expectations and answer their questions, many will click away rather than convert.
Include information about your product’s composition and dimensions, and ensure the description is benefit-driven. Why does the product matter to your customer?
Never use AI to write your product descriptions; human-written descriptions will be a lot more authentic.
Offer Product Discounts
Running regular promotions drives extra sales and repeat purchases. They turn window shopping into actual sales, reducing procrastination. Consider offering first-purchase incentives, limited-time deals and bundle deals as a low-risk entry point for new customers and grow brand loyalty into higher lifetime value.
Try offering a small, personalised discount via email to customers who have abandoned their cart, to nudge them to return to their basket and checkout.
Improve Your eCommerce Conversion Rate With You and I Agency
Optimising your conversion rate is the catalyst to eCommerce success. After all, the higher your conversion rate, the more successful your other marketing efforts will be, and your sales will go up, too.
Above, we’ve listed a few tips and tricks to help improve your conversion rate. Here at You And I, we appreciate that making these changes can seem a little complicated at first. That is why we’re here to support you in testing, experimenting and finding the right combination of changes that work for your customers, and improve your eCommerce website’s conversion rate. Why not contact us today and have a chat, and see what our experts can do for you?
