This is What the Average Time Spent on Website Before Conversion Looks Like Across Different Product Categories
As an online business, understanding your customer's browsing and purchasing behavior is crucial for improving conversion rates and driving growth. One key metric to focus on is the average time spent on your website before a conversion occurs.
Fortunately, we have access to recent data from the Baymard Institute that sheds light on this important metric across different product categories. Let's dive in and explore what this data can tell us about optimizing the customer journey.
The graph above shows the average time spent on a website before conversion for five major product categories: Apparel, Electronics, Furniture, Home Decor, and Sports Equipment. The data was collected in 2022 by the respected ecommerce research firm, Baymard Institute.
Here's what the data reveals:
Furniture has the longest average session duration at 4.1 minutes
Customers browsing for furniture tend to spend the most time on a website before converting, with an average of 4.1 minutes per session. This makes sense given the complex, considered nature of a furniture purchase. Customers likely need more time to research options, compare features, and visualize how items would look in their homes.
Electronics come in second at 3.4 minutes
The electronics category has the second highest average session duration at 3.4 minutes. Similar to furniture, customers purchasing electronics often need to weigh a number of technical specifications and features before making a decision. The research process can be more involved compared to simpler impulse buys.
Home Decor is close behind at 3.6 minutes
Home decor products fall just behind electronics, with an average session duration of 3.6 minutes. Home decor purchases also tend to be more considered than apparel or sports equipment, requiring customers to carefully choose pieces that complement their existing decor.
Sports Equipment averages 2.9 minutes
At the lower end of the spectrum, sports equipment has the shortest average session duration at 2.9 minutes. These types of purchases are often more straightforward, with customers potentially having a clearer idea of the specific item they need.
Apparel has the quickest conversions at 2.8 minutes
Apparel has the lowest average session duration at 2.8 minutes. Clothing and accessory purchases tend to be more impulse-driven, with customers often having a good sense of their size and style preferences going into the shopping experience.
So what do these insights mean for ecommerce businesses? Here are a few key takeaways:
1. Optimize for Longer Session Durations in Considered Purchase Categories
For product categories with longer average session durations (furniture, electronics, home decor), it's crucial to ensure your website experience is optimized to engage customers throughout their research process. This could involve features like robust product filtering, detailed specifications, and 360-degree imagery to help customers visualize items in their homes.
2. Provide Frictionless Experiences for Quicker Conversion Categories
On the other end of the spectrum, apparel and sports equipment customers tend to convert more quickly. For these categories, the focus should be on creating a seamless, frictionless shopping experience that allows customers to quickly find and purchase the items they need. This could mean features like one-click checkout, saved payment methods, and easy size/color selection.
3. Use Session Duration Data to Personalize the Customer Journey
Tracking average session duration by product category can also provide valuable insights for personalization. If you know a customer is browsing your furniture collection, for example, you could serve them more detailed product information and comparison tools to facilitate a longer, more engaged session. Conversely, for customers browsing apparel, a more streamlined experience focused on rapid conversion may be appropriate.
Ultimately, understanding your customers' browsing behavior and adapting your website accordingly is key to driving higher conversion rates and revenue. By leveraging data-driven insights like the average time spent on website before conversion, you can optimize the customer journey and deliver experiences that truly resonate.
Flowpoint.ai is an AI-powered website analytics tool that can provide these types of in-depth behavioral insights to help you make data-driven decisions about your website and marketing strategy. With features like advanced funnel analytics, session tracking, and AI-generated recommendations, Flowpoint makes it easy to uncover opportunities to boost conversions across your entire customer journey.