Why Is Your Conversion Rate Low: Possible Causes + Solutions

If you've been researching "why is my conversion rate so low" - you are already ahead of 90% of store owners.

After reviewing and working with eCommerce stores across industries, we have compiled a list of reasons for why is your conversion rate dropping.

Reasons for Low Conversion Rate in eCommerce

1. Poor homepage layout 

2. Confusing product pages 

3. Zero "search" results 

4. Too many product options 

5. Not giving enough reasons to checkout 

6. Hidden costs

7. Long shipping times

8. Complicated checkout flow

9. Weak mobile CTAs

10. Irrelevant product bundles 

11. Generic email campaigns 

12. Poor targeting

13. No focus on SEO & site visibility 

14. Slow load times

15. Lack of social proof optimization

16. No personalized customer service 

17. Lack of competitive distinction

18. Weak pricing strategies

19. Complicated copy

20. Abrupt website redesigns

21. Broken links and pages

22. Too many pop-ups

23. Not enough testing

Read on to see the reasons for decreased conversion rates and how to fix them in detail:

1. Poor homepage layout 

Every website with a low conversion rate - has one common problem: a homepage that doesn’t do enough to persuade shoppers.

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Quantify the USP in clear words
• Feature your best-selling brands instead of offers
• Highlight free shipping/any new offers through a welcome pop-up
• Sort out possible navigation & search issues
• Introduce reviews/testimonials/press mentions in the first fold
• Feature the live chat option prominently
• Tell a compelling story, as Beardbrand does

2. Confusing product pages 

Ask yourself: Why is my conversion rate dropping? What might make shoppers drop off? Too much product information? Lack of social proof? Is it the size? Is it transparency around shipping?

How to fix decreased conversion rates:

• Limit text, use more images
• Introduce “quick view”
• Answer customer objections
• Help, genuinely (This can be about how to use, when to use, with which of your products this specific product goes well & why, etc.)
• Highlight deals with labels (For example, if certain products carry “free shipping”, ensure they carry that label.)
• Create bite-sized content blocks—collapse (what you can) into bullet points 

3. Zero "search" results  

Shoppers expect to see the right results even if their queries don’t exactly match the keywords in the product name they’re keying in.  

How to fix low website conversion rates:

• Bring in autocomplete
• Show alternative results if the search says “no results” 

4. Too many product options 

A large number of product options/recommendation = low conversion rate.

This is especially true for shoppers who don’t exactly know what they want, and those who are engaging with your brand for the first time. 

How to fix decreased conversion rates:

• Add urgency prompts like “selling fast” or “just a few left!”
• Reduce the number of product recommendations (ensure the number  never exceeds 5 to 6)
• Highlight a product recommendation (you could offer it at a lesser price, apply an additional discount advantage etc.) 
• Bring in filtering & sorting options across category pages

Read more: 13 Brilliant Ways to Overcome Choice Paralysis in eCommerce (2024)

5. Not giving enough reasons to checkout 

Cart abandonment is often the common cause for why conversion rates drop.

And it happens because shoppers start to doubt or reconsider their decision to purchase given the total cost of the product(s). 

The more shoppers fall prey to this problem, the more your conversion rate suffers. 

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Offer an OTP-driven guest checkout option
• Send really good abandoned cart emails
• Make it easy to save the cart
• Feature discounts in the mini cart:

6. Hidden costs

“We saw many cart page drop-offs. Research showed that our shoppers were hesitant to buy due to unclear shipping costs at checkout. After showing shipping estimators earlier in the journey, we saw a significant reduction in cart abandonment.” - Zach Dannett, Co-founder, Tumble Living

Research has proven that among the topmost reasons for shopper frustration, is the lack of knowledge about the total cost - before checkout. 

How to fix decreased website conversion rates:

We uncovered was unclear shipping costs at checkout. We moved shipping estimators earlier in the journey and saw reduced cart abandonment. - Emma Zerner, Co-founder & Content Strategist, Icecartel

Introduce an order summary

• the total price
• any applicable taxes, and 
• shipping rates (based on what kind of shipping options are available)

Editable quantity buttons

• Feature applicable coupon codes within the mini cart 
• Feature a shipping rate calculator on the product page 

More ideas: How do I increase my website’s checkout rate? (26 proven ideas)

7. Long shipping times

74% of shoppers believe that shipping is the main driver to a great shopping experience. 

Extended or unclear shipping and delivery times are major reasons for low conversion rates.

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Introduce express shipping at extra charges
• Offer in-store pickup as a backup
• Highlight faster shipping on your membership plan

8. Complicated checkout flow

“One problem we recently fixed was how we allow users to edit their delivery information in checkout while trying to keep them in the checkout flow i.e. not going back to ‘shopping mode’.” - Kathrina, Marketing team, Droppe

50% of American shoppers agree that they’ll be less likely to complete a purchase if checkout takes more than half a minute. 

When checkout becomes repeated work, shoppers drop off- in fact 17% of customers are known to abandon their order for this reason. 

How to fix decreased conversion rates:

• Enable autofill & autocomplete in your forms
• Offer an account log-in prompt
• Feature a one-page checkout
• Use a progress indicator to show how much time is left for completion

You might like: 35 Stunning Examples of Checkout Pages

9. Weak mobile CTAs

“We observed that a significant portion of our traffic came from mobile devices. Without a seamless mobile shopping experience, you risk losing a substantial number of potential sales. It's essential to ensure that your site is responsive, loads quickly, and is easy to navigate on mobile devices.” - Chris Cho, Founder, DroneSourced

The reasons for fewer visitors converting through mobile could just be because you haven’t built your storefront FOR mobile.

Sometimes, the challenge is with CTA’s – they may not look clickable or they may be difficult to tap and go to the next level of action. 

How to fix low website conversion rates:

• Design CTAs that pass the “thumb test” (a gradient or shadow with enough white space around them)
• Add microcopy to nudge shoppers to click the CTA
• Use the Google Mobile-Friendly Test Tool to gather important data, such as: 

        → if your site is mobile-friendly

         → how your site looks on mobile devices

         → if there are any mobile usability issues

10. Irrelevant product bundles 

So here’s another scenario––your target audience seems to be exploring your product bundling options, but few or none are actually taking them home. 

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Offer "creating your own bundles":
• Enable shoppers to buy the products independently as well:

11. Generic email campaigns 

Generic and salesy email campaigns are the death knell for conversions. 

Most brands that have a low conversion rate - are also the ones that send unispring emails.

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Segment, personalize - don't send the same email to everyone
• Don't just sell - share educational content with your subscribers
• Spend time on designing emails - make sure they look amazing
• Don't send more than 2 emails each week, treat email as a long term game

12. Poor targeting

Here’s something that may not come to you intuitively: most websites are selling to their target audience, but those people aren’t the ones buying from them.

Very often, you may have this idea of your target audience in your head BUT sometimes, those people aren’t the ones buying from you.

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Deepen customer research & create nuanced personas (Study past buying behavior, understand customer analytics, and follow the customers to see where they come from, what they do, and what you can do for them.)
• Track customer testimonials (Notice what changes shoppers ask for)
• Develop multiple overlapping buyer personas (What keywords people use to search for your eCommerce store)

13. No focus on SEO & site visibility 

If your keywords & content haven’t been updated for a while, this can leading cause to 'why is my conversion rate dropping'.

How to fix low website conversion rates:

• Update content & catalogs at regular intervals
• Update your brand keywords with Google Keyword Planner. 
• Update your catalog to help customers discover products and categories. 
• Update your image file names and alt tags to improve SEO-based discoverability by search engines

14. Slow load times

Research shows that:  

• A load time of 0–4 seconds was ideal for conversion rates
• The first 5 seconds were the most crucial and had the highest impact on web conversion rates
• For every additional load time—between 0–5 seconds—the conversion rate drops at an average of 4.42%

How to fix decreased conversion rates:

• Run a site navigation audit (Make sure your menus aren’t hidden, sure sub-categories are laid out neatly)
• Check for browser compatibility
• Compress files with heavy coding (Minify files with Javascript, HTML and CSS)
• Delay load time for images below the fold

15. Lack of social proof optimization

When shoppers scour through reviews to decide on a purchase, they’re looking for great reasons to buy or concerning reasons not to. 

So, if they have to look through your reviews page by page, it could become a long-winding exercise leading to first frustration and then most probably, drop offs. 

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Offer the filtering option with the most relevant markers (rating, size, activity, most votes, least votes, with pictures 
• Highlight review images & make them clickable

16. No personalized customer service

While browsing or shopping on your site, if shoppers have a tough time, it might be an instant put-off. 

The situation is worse if they’ve added to cart and have an intention to buy but their experience leads them to jump off, possibly never to return later. 

How to fix decreased conversion rates:

• Introduce a customer feedback link across all pages
• Maintain the live chat button as a sticky feature
• Collect feedback through an exit-intent popup 

17. Lack of competitive distinction 

If you’re blindly copying what Amazon does, then shoppers will quickly close the tab. 

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Create helpful guides based on how to use products or materials/ingredients used in your products.
• Research the interests of your target audience. For instance, see how Lenskart created a KPop-inspired collection to reach their shoppers:

18. Weak pricing strategies 

If it costs more, shoppers will always go to the competition.

If the product costs less, they are worried about product quality. 

There are some strategies to achieve a win-win situation. 

How to fix low website conversion rates:

• Test different prices for returning shoppers and customers to encourage repeat buys
• Increase average order values with subscription-based pricing
• Assure shoppers about product quality with a transparent price breakdown

19. Complicated copy

Always assume everyone is skimming. 

Even you are scrolling through this blog trying to see what catches your eye. 

Displaying copy with technical terms is the fastest way to make shoppers bounce off. 

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Back up your words with numbers (research, statistics, etc)
• Create FAQs to help shoppers understand your store policies 
• Write in simple language that everyone gets, like Happy Socks does:

20. Abrupt website redesigns 

Change can be tough. 

Especially if shoppers recognize your store through certain elements such as your website color scheme or brand models. 

Our advice – take it slow and keep an open mind. 

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Announce any changes or rebranding through an email series and on social media
• Highlight features so shoppers to navigate new features

• Make sure to get feedback from shoppers on the new experiences 
• Host a sitewide sale to commemorate the occasion

21. Broken links and pages 

It’s always disappointing when a shopper lands on a 404 page or can’t click on any element such as a size button or CTA.  

How to fix low website conversion rates:

• Display micro copies for unavailable elements (e.g., this size is out of stock)  
• Redirect shoppers to social channels to improve engagement
• Prompt shoppers to explore products that closely the URL or search query

22. Too many pop-ups 

A few years ago, Google announced how “intrusive interstitials” or aka “popups” on mobile sites would hinder ranking. 

Most eCommerce store pop-ups usually fill the entire area and obstruct a shopper’s experience. 

How to fix low conversion rates:

• Display a pop-up teaser that expands when clicked
• Ensure the pop-ups take minimum screen space
• Make it easy to dismiss the popup
• Use a contrasting color scheme

23. Not enough testing 

Through continuous A/B testing, we found that many shoppers found our checkout process complicated. A few tweaks like reducing the number of checkout steps resulted in a 15% increase in our conversion rate! - Matt Little, Founder, Festoon House 

Improve Low Conversion Rate through Customer Value Optimization

The process your eCommerce business can undertake to assess gaps in the customer journey map for audiences across the conversion funnel to close and improve conversions is called Customer Value Optimization—there are several ways to improve conversions through CVO:

Make help & resources readily available

Be it live chat, a blog section on how to use your products better or evn an FAQ section that covers all the important interaction points for a customer, instantly available support can make customers across the funnel convert better.

Convey your products' UVP clearly

Making your product content count across your website can significantly improve customer value optimization—how you write your product descriptions, what you highlight as takeaways and how well you clarify product use cases can improve low conversion rates.

Offer appropriate incentives

Whether it's a first-time customer or someone who has fallen dormant in the shopping journey, featuring the right kind of incentives to keep engaging and buying is critical. Be it discount pop-ups on the website or email exclusive offers, well-timed and optimized incentives can boost your eCommerce conversion rate.

Prioritize trust & security

Your shoppers across the conversion funnel are eager to know you're a business that can be trusted—this means showcasing trust seals, guarantees and proof of reviews becomes a customer value optimization to recover from a low conversion rate.

eCommerce Low Conversion Rate FAQs

What does low conversion rate mean for your website?

Across the hundreds of clients we've worked with around the world, we've seen a low conversion rate typically result from the following reasons:

Poor navigation: If your visitors aren't able to make their way through your store in a simple and direct manner (because of lack of categorization, breadcrumbs etc.,) your eCommerce conversion rate can easily plummet

Insufficient information: Too much or too less product content as well as information that does not tell the shopper what they can expect, are all recipes for a low conversion rate in eCommerce

Indistinct CTAs: Calls to action that don't stand out from the rest of the layout or don't communicate the exact action can lead to a poor conversion rate for your eCommerce site.

Uninspiring nudges: If you've been using the same old labels and highlights for your store audiences (read "sale" and "X% off",) they're likely to be jaded and as a result, you may see a low conversion rate.

Overcomplicated checkout: Too many steps in your checkout form or the need to create an account or lack of payment transparency can make shoppers take afew steps back, leading to a low conversion rate

What will be a good conversion rate in 2024? 

In the big picture, most eCommerce businesses end up with a conversion rate anywhere between 2% and 3%.

The average conversion rate in the eCommerce market increased by 6.87% from 2.12% to 2.27% in November 2023 compared to November 2022.

So while it's a healthy practice to aim for a rate of 3% +, businesses that do really well record conversion rates of over 10%, with some reaching a rate as high as 11.45%.

So to answer the question, there’s no ‘good’ or ‘right’ conversion rate.

Eventually, you’ll need to start looking at internal data rather than external data.

Check out these *underrated* conversion rate optimization ideas for eCommerce 

A low conversion rate can be caused by all or a mix of the above points, so we suggest you go through your data to identify exact drop-off junctures. 

How to analyze low conversion rates?

As an eCommerce business, you can use multiple tools to assess your low conversion rates, and they can be applied to figure:

Data across channels: This can help you see which channels are bringing you traffic and how these sources are also helping in conversions from time to time—studying channels can help you decide where to increase your spends for better rechability and impact.

Website behavior: Which actions visitors are taking more, which parts of the site they're spending more time on, how often they're returning to browse etc. can all signal towards conversion behavior.

Email clicks & opens: Without factoring in how your email audiences are converting, you can't decide if your overall conversion rate is low or not.

Quality of personalization: While analyizing low conversion rates, you have to keep an eye on the quality and extent of personalization for each shopper—if they're converting less, it could simply mean they're not seeing content or recommendations they truly prefer.

How can you improve your website's conversion rates?

Even if the average conversion rates are lower in your industry, the top advertisers are outperforming you by 3-5x or more.

And while there’s no one answer to improving your conversion rate, we’ve seen how crucial it is to focus on understanding your customers' psychology. 

Here are some ways to low conversion rates can be caused:

Focus on micro conversions to begin with 

Yeah, we’re talking about that popup to encourage email signup or automated email confirmation for product delivery. 

Offer hyper-personalized recommendations

Because an overdose of choices leads to decision fatigue.

Introduce the guest checkout option

A study shows that 23% of buyers will abandon the cart if they have to create a new account.‍

Make reviews a must-have

Online buyers trust product reviews 12-times more than the product description and sales copy.

‍70% of teens trust influencers over traditional celebrities and 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations.

Ensure speed at every touchpoint

Offer shoppers instant gratification through mobile app-enabled shopping, instant downloads, a fast-loading website, and responsive and fast customer support.

Now you know the possible answers to 'why is my conversion rate so low' and strategies on how to improve this metric. Next?

Let us help:

98% of visitors who visit an eCommerce site—drop off without buying anything.

Why: user experience issues that cause friction for visitors. 

And this is the problem we solve.

We've helped 500+ eCommerce stores (in the US) improve user experience—and 2X their conversions. 

Our conversion experts can audit your site—identify UX issues, and suggest changes to improve conversions.

REQUEST A SITE AUDIT‍