Running an online store without tracking the right ecommerce metrics is like driving with a blindfold. You might be moving forward, but you have no idea whether you’re heading toward a cliff or an open motorway. The numbers below reveal whether your store is thriving or slowly bleeding revenue through a hundred tiny cuts you haven’t noticed yet.
I’ve organised these into the metrics that matter most for diagnosing store health. Each includes an industry benchmark so you can compare your performance against the broader market.
Conversion Rate
Divide completed purchases by total visitors, multiply by 100, and this will calculate your store’s conversion rate. This will tell you whether your store actually sells or just attracts window shoppers.
The global average conversion rate sits at 2.7% according to ECDB’s 2024 benchmark data. Food and beverage stores typically outperform this at around 6%, while luxury and jewellery retailers struggle to crack 1%. Desktop shoppers convert at roughly 3.2% compared to mobile users at 2.96%, according to Dynamic Yield data.
If your conversion rate falls below 1.5%, something fundamental needs fixing in your customer journey. A/B testing different landing page elements and checkout flows can push this number higher, but only after you’ve identified where visitors actually drop off.
Average Order Value (AOV)
Global AOV reached $144.52 in November 2024, marking an 8.7% annual increase according to Oberlo. But that headline figure masks enormous category differences. Baby and child products average £286 per order, while beauty and personal care hovers around $67. Calculate your average order value by dividing total revenue by order count. If the result sits significantly below your category average, bundling products or setting free shipping thresholds can encourage larger baskets. The add to basket rate averages 11.1% globally, meaning roughly one in nine visitors adds items to their cart, and tracking this alongside AOV reveals whether you’re attracting browsers or buyers.
Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate
Nearly seven in ten shoppers abandon before paying.
Baymard Institute calculates the average shopping cart abandonment rate at 70.22% based on 50 different studies. The luxury sector suffers worst at 82.84%, while pet care retailers see just 54.78%. High extra costs drive 48% of abandonments, followed by forced account creation at 26%.
Mobile users abandon at 77%, considerably higher than desktop’s 66%. If your rate exceeds 75%, audit your checkout for hidden fees, unnecessary form fields, and slow page loads.
Improving ecommerce UX across these touchpoints can recover significant lost revenue. Small changes like displaying delivery costs earlier or offering guest checkout often produce immediate results.
Customer Retention Rate
Ecommerce businesses average around 30% retention according to LoyaltyLion research, though some reports place customer retention rate between 28% and 38%. Anything below 25% signals serious problems with product quality, customer experience, or post-purchase communication. The ecommerce churn rate matters because acquiring new customers costs five to twenty-five times more than keeping existing ones. Calculate retention by comparing customers at the start and end of a period while excluding new acquisitions, then tracking customer lifetime value (CLV) alongside to reveal whether loyal customers justify their acquisition costs.
Customer Acquisition Cost
Add up all marketing and sales expenses, divide by new customers acquired, and you’ve calculated what each buyer costs to win. Your customer acquisition cost (CAC) must sit below customer lifetime value to run a sustainable business. Most ecommerce brands aim for a CLV to CAC ratio of at least 3:1. Spending £50 to acquire customers worth only £40 over their lifetime means subsidising every sale.
Cost per acquisition (CPA) often gets used interchangeably with CAC, though CPA can refer to any conversion action, not just customer purchases. Both metrics help evaluate whether paid advertising delivers profitable returns.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
Most experts consider 4:1 a healthy ROAS benchmark for ecommerce, meaning £4 revenue for every £1 spent on advertising. The average return on ad spend across industries is 2.87:1 according to industry data. Fashion and apparel brands often target 400-800% returns to offset high customer acquisition costs, while categories with thinner margins may need to push even higher.
A ROAS below 2:1 typically indicates unprofitable campaigns that need restructuring or pausing. Track this by channel to identify which platforms deliver strongest returns. Revenue by channel analysis helps allocate budgets toward your most effective traffic sources rather than spreading spend thin across underperforming platforms.
Refund and Return Rate
The National Retail Federation found ecommerce return rates reached 16.9% in 2024, with clothing exceeding 26%. Online purchases see refund and return rates roughly three times higher than in-store purchases due to sizing uncertainty and the inability to physically inspect products. Total U.S. retail returns hit $890 billion in 2024.
Improving product photography, size guides, and descriptions reduces these costs. If your return rate exceeds 20%, investigate whether specific products or categories drive disproportionate returns. Sometimes a single SKU causes most of your return headaches, and fixing that one listing solves half the problem.
Net Promoter Score
Subtract detractors (scores 0-6) from promoters (scores 9-10) after asking customers how likely they are to recommend your store. A net promoter score above 50 indicates strong satisfaction, while anything negative requires immediate attention to your customer experience. NPS predicts long-term growth better than most transactional metrics because it captures emotional connection alongside purchase behaviour. Pair it with post-purchase surveys to identify specific improvement areas rather than guessing at what’s broken.
Traffic and Engagement Metrics
Beyond purchases, monitor what happens before customers reach checkout. How many people land on your site? How many scroll past the first screen? Do they click through to product pages or leave immediately?
Impressions tell you how often your products appear in search results or ad placements. High impressions with low clicks suggest listings need stronger copy or imagery. Understanding your traffic sources helps identify which channels deserve more investment and which drain budget without delivering buyers. Pageviews and unique visitors reveal raw reach, while engagement metrics expose whether that attention converts to genuine interest.
Units sold and average inventory sold per day inform stock planning. Track these against safety stock levels to avoid costly stockouts during demand spikes or tying up cash in products gathering dust on warehouse shelves.
Where To Start
Begin with conversion rate, AOV, and cart abandonment if you’re new to analytics. These three reveal the most about store health and offer the clearest paths to improvement. For stores already tracking basics, layer in retention rate, CLV, and ROAS to understand long-term profitability rather than just transaction-level performance.
If analysing this data feels overwhelming, our ecommerce SEO audit service includes a full performance review alongside technical recommendations. The shift from measuring individual sales to measuring customer relationships changes how you think about marketing spend entirely.
