{"id":19362,"date":"2014-03-04T23:54:02","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T18:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vwo.com\/blog\/?p=19362"},"modified":"2025-05-05T15:10:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T09:40:25","slug":"how-to-reduce-ecommerce-bounce-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vwo.com\/blog\/how-to-reduce-ecommerce-bounce-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"14 Ways to Reduce Bounce Rate and Increase Engagement for eCommerce"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

eCommerce bounce rate<\/a> may sound like a familiar problem to many. Visitors land on your site, hang around for a few precious seconds and then bounce without visiting another page. The average bounce rate for eCommerce businesses in 2015 was 57%. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download Free: Cart Abandonment Guide<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If the bounce on your eCommerce site is above this number, you should go through these 14 best practices to increase engagement by A\/B testing<\/span><\/a><\/span> most of the elements on the website as discussed below.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

1) Pay Attention to the Size of the Search Bar<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

One reason for the high eCommerce bounce rate is that visitors are not able to find what they are looking for. To combat this problem, you have to make your search bar as prominent as possible. As per UX Planet<\/a>, an ideal search box should be 27-character wide. However, search bars on average are only 18-character-wide. Though you can type long queries in short boxes, the problem is that only a portion of the query will be visible at a time. This makes editing or reviewing the query difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you can\u2019t devote so much prime real estate to your search bar, you can try making it dynamic like AllRecipes.com. The search box automatically becomes bigger as one starts typing in the box. Another way to optimize your search bar is to make it persistent (or \u2018sticky\u2019) like Shopstyle UK. Fix it at the top of the page so that visitors who scroll down the page never lose sight of it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

2) Have a Strong Site-Search Solution<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

Having an ideal-length search box will not be enough if it doesn\u2019t show up the right results. If you\u2019ve never really considered how site search might be affecting your site experience, then now is the time to do it. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Strong
Image source: Amazon<\/a> (Amazon auto-completes all the queries)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n

3) Speed is King<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

A website that loads at a lethargic pace is what one calls a bounce paradise. For every extra second, your web pages take to load, your conversions can drop.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decibel Insight\u2019s research on page load time and bounce rate says that slow loaders have a 72% higher bounce rate than fast loaders, and a 38% higher bounce rate than medium loaders. A fast-loading site also scores high on search rankings. Site speed is critical and you should take all possible steps to make yours faster. Here\u2019s a link to Google\u2019s best practices to reduce loading time<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Calculate
Image source: Pingdom<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n

4) Split Test the Timing of Your Modal Box<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

Imagine you have just entered an apparel store. You are walking at your own unhurried pace when suddenly a burly man runs into you with a feedback form. He asks you what you like in the store, what would make you come back, whether would you recommend the store to a friend, or if would you like to receive their yearly membership card. How would you react? If you possess infinite patience, you might just politely ask him to give you some breathing space \u2014 but not before mentally pledging not to enter the store again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now think of online shopping and modal boxes. Those theatrical pop-ups are a lot like that burly salesman. However, I won\u2019t completely disregard modal boxes. They can be extremely useful in increasing conversions<\/a>. The key lies in figuring out how long you should wait before making them pop open. If they pop up too early, you risk strangling the visitor. The time it for a little too late, and the visitor is already off to another tab. Solution? A\/B test the popup timing.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Popup\"
Image source: Schwan’s<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n

5) Display the Top Deals\/Discounts\/Limited Time Offers<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

Play the urgency card to get the visitors hooked. Scarcity has been identified as one of the six persuasion principles by Robert Cialdini in his epic book on influence. One way to engage visitors on the homepage is by displaying your best deals and discounts in the banner. See how eBags prominently displays its limited-time offer in the top banner.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Urgency\"
Image source: eBags<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Limited-time discounts catch eyeballs and you will be doing yourself a great injustice if you don\u2019t utilize them to hook the visitors.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

6) Eliminate Distractions<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

Too many choices often confuse people and impair action. Let there be no bombardment of information on your homepage. Simplify your design and work towards reducing distractions. Inside Buzz, a VWO customer used A\/B testing<\/a> to create a homepage with reduced options. The simplified version <\/span>increased site engagement<\/span><\/a> by 17.8%.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Control<\/figure>\n\n\n
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\"Variation<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n

7) Offer a Live Chat Help<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

While enhanced product findability and an exhaustive help section will resolve a lot of customer queries, having a 24-hour live chat feature is an <\/span>even bigger boost. Visitors might get stuck at places you didn\u2019t take into account or they might have questions you never thought existed.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Live
Image source: IKEA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Installing a live chat widget can go a long way in taking care of bounce. A well-trained customer executive not only resolves the query of the prospect but engages them till they get convinced about making the purchase. There are a few smart chat widgets that intuitively pop open when they figure out that a customer might be lost \u2014 depending on how they are behaving on a page. <\/span>The next 3 best practices are specifically for product pages<\/a>:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n

8) Let the CTA Stand Out<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

If the visitors are landing directly on your product pages, it\u2019s important that they easily identify a call to action (CTA) button to get to the next stage of the funnel. Without a prominent CTA, the visitor will feel stranded and may want to leave. RIPT Apparel, a VWO customer, saw a <\/span>6.3% increase in sales<\/span><\/a> after it made its CTA stand out against the backdrop.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download Free: Cart Abandonment Guide<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n

9) Give them the option to Engage Further<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

It might be the case that the prospect is not yet ready to make a purchase and needs more convincing. In that case, having just a prominent CTA on the product page won\u2019t cut<\/span>. You have to feed them with extra information by providing links to product manuals, guides,<\/span> and customer reviews. But make sure there\u2019s a \u2018Buy Now’ CTA on all these new links you are making open. The idea is to keep the visitor on the site long enough to make the sale.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

10) Turn off Auto-Play<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

So you have got product videos made and uploaded them on all the product pages to grab a pie of the rich online video market? Great. After all, videos have proven to <\/span>increase conversions<\/span> for Zappos and many other companies. But beware my friend. In your jest to increase conversions, don\u2019t annoy the prospects by thrusting a video on their face. Don\u2019t auto-play the videos. Please. Just count how many tabs are open in your browser right now. I bet it\u2019s more than 10. (And if it\u2019s any less, I feel you live a truly blessed life). So coming back to auto-play, it can often be annoying when a robotic voice starts reading a script from a tab you can\u2019t identify (actually now you can \u2014 <\/span>Thanks Google).<\/span>  But seriously, auto-play is one of the easiest ways to make someone run away.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next 4 best practices are design related<\/em>:<\/h4>\n\n\n

11) Navigation should be a Cakewalk<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

Good navigation requires intuitively finding out how a visitor will search for a particular product. Create a sitemap<\/a> and provide its link in bold on the homepage. Design a clear navigation menu and place it where visitors automatically look for them \u2014 horizontally on top or vertically on left. One position might work better for you than the other. So you should test the placement. The left menu worked better for one of our eCommerce clients when they ran a split test.<\/span><\/a> You could also think about testing bottom navigation for mobile devices<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Sticky
This is how the navigation menu looks when the page is scrolled all the way up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Sticky
The navigation menu remains fixed on top of the page even when the page is scrolled down<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n

12) Make Sure the Ads are Not Intrusive<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

If you have ads running on your website, try and place them in the least intrusive position. Nothing makes visitors want to run away from your website more than when an ad pops over a piece they are trying to read or some product they are checking out. Make sure you are NOT placing the ads where visitors automatically look for information \u2013 menu bar, search box or content area. Here\u2019s an excellent post on poorly placed internal ads<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

13) Good Design Instills Credibility<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
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\"Bad
Image source: Don Swanson<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The design here is not exactly pleasing to the eyes<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Don\u2019t judge a book by its cover<\/span> might be the popular adage. But when it comes to websites, visitors do judge them by their design. Design plays a big role in influencing people\u2019s perception of a website\u2019s credibility. A good design automatically makes sure you are taken seriously while a bad design breeds distrust. Try to invest in a neat and uncluttered design. Consistency in terms of fonts, colors, and layout is extremely important.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

14) Invest in a Responsive Design<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n

Your visitors will be accessing your site either from a laptop, tablet, or <\/span>smartphone or sometimes use all three devices at different stages of the funnel. Responsive web design provides an optimal viewing experience across different browsers and devices. It ensures the layout is resized so that the text and images don\u2019t break.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go to Google Analytics and check how much of your traffic comes from tablets and mobile. You should invest in a responsive design even if it’s a nominal percentage compared to your total visitors. Why you ask? Because mobile is the way to go. eCommerce sales from mobiles have been growing at 15% year on year.<\/p>\n\n\n

The Bounce Arsenal<\/h2>\n\n\n

I would like to create a little list of weapons to combat bounce. Help me with a few suggestions. Tell me what has worked for you in your fight against bounce or what you think might work. I will be glad and all that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, here’s something extra to help you. eCommerce optimization secrets from Craig Smith himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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