Capitaine Commerce has recently published their French e-commerce conversion barometer for 2016. More than 400 e-merchants answered to their survey about conversion metrics. Among other interesting conclusions, the report highlights the average conversion rates by sector (ratio between the number of transactions and the number of unique visitors.) The average conversion rate for all domains is 3%, with great differences between industries.

Now, what can these figures help us with? Of course, they are only averages, and there are a lot of variables that are not taken into account. If a business is very specific, or if the products sold are much cheaper or much more expensive than the average, or the number of competitors on the market… the results could be less meaningful. But still: it helps to know how a website is performing compared to others in the same industry. For example, if your website didn’t reach objectives in 2016, it can help identify the issue to know if others in the industry met the same situation. If they did, then there is not much to do on the website itself (rather analyze market, demand, etc.) But if they didn’t, then it’s time for analysis and adjustments, to try and understand why your website couldn’t be as performing as others.

A few actionable ideas:

1. In your favorite analytics tool, check your conversion funnel: at which step in the process are you losing conversion? Try to identify if there is a conversion-dropping step in the checkout.
2. How many of the sessions with products added to the basket did enter the checkout process? Shopping cart abandonment is usually around 80%. Is it more? Check that the shopping cart does give all necessary information: shipping, returns and exchange, delivery time estimation, taxes, etc. And don’t forget to display reassurance elements regarding payment security!
3. Can’t understand why your visitors add to shopping cart but never enter checkout? A good idea is to propose a phone number (or a chat, email, any contact option) on the cart page. So if visitors have a problem or a question on this page, you will (1) understand what it is and (2) be able to help them.
4. The problem is that visitors don’t even add products to the basket? Then the issue must be analyzed in a larger way: check your products compared to competitors (on and offline), compare prices. Do visitors have all the needed information on the product page? Is it clear that your website offers e-commerce?