TL;DR
Ecommerce conversion rate optimization helps you improve your conversion rates without increasing your marketing budget or (better yet) bringing in more traffic to your online store. Sounds like every marketer’s dream, doesn’t it? But how do you actually make that happen?
Well, in 2026, ecommerce conversion rate optimization goes far beyond basic tactics that used to work – and used to be enough – years ago. Why? Because competition in ecommerce is getting more aggressive, while consumer expectations are skyrocketing.
In this blog, we won’t be talking about the all-too-obvious ecommerce conversion rate optimization tactics like writing compelling product descriptions, optimizing your site load times, or offering free shipping.
Instead, we’ll outline the top 5 CRO strategies that go beyond simple tactics and work especially well in 2026 because they align with today’s customer expectations. And implementing even just one of them can actually have a major impact on your ecommerce conversion rate.
Ecommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the systematic process of increasing the percentage of your website visitors who take a desired action on your online store – most commonly, making a purchase. When done right, conversion rate optimization makes it easier for marketers to hit their conversion benchmarks by turning more of the traffic they’re already getting into paying customers.
Typically, ecommerce conversion rate optimization means improving these key areas:
There is no single universally accepted benchmark for a good ecommerce conversion rate. But according to data from Adobe, on average, ecommerce websites should expect to see a conversion rate of 1% to 4%. Mostly, that depends on the industry vertical.
For example, lower-cost items across food, beauty, and apparel sectors typically have higher conversion rates as shoppers are less hesitant to spend less money. Higher-cost items like electronics or home furnishings have lower conversion rates because of higher prices and longer consideration cycles. Based on Adobe’s data, these are the average conversion rates for the top 6 ecommerce verticals.
| Ecommerce vertical | Average conversion rate |
| Fashion and apparel | 2.7% |
| Health and beauty | 3.3% |
| Entertainment | 2.5% |
| Household goods | 2.1% |
| Electronics | 1.9% |
| Food and beverage | 4.6% |
Let’s now go over the top 5 CRO strategies for ecommerce businesses that can instantly drive impact:
Search abandonment is a silent conversion killer – yet most ecommerce businesses don’t even realize that. Based on Google Cloud’s data, search abandonment costs retailers over $2 trillion annually worldwide. When shoppers can’t find what they’re looking for on your ecommerce website, you’re quietly losing conversions and revenue. Just take a look at the stats from the Google Cloud’s research:
Image source: Google Cloud
The problem is that most ecommerce brands still rely on traditional site search functionality that is based on keyword matching. It means that when shoppers don’t use your exact product language, search breaks down, serving irrelevant results or none at all. And that creates a frustrating experience and lost conversions. AI-powered site search fixes that.
Here are some key capabilities of AI-powered site search engines:
According to research from Nosto, the vast majority of ecommerce brands are still missing key search functionality on their ecommerce websites, including error tolerance, personalized results, autocomplete, and alternative product recommendations when searches return no results. Ultimately, this means that implementing an intelligent, AI-powered site search is not only a powerful way to boost your conversion rates but also to differentiate your brand.
Recommended reading: AI-powered search in ecommerce: what you need to know in 2026
Implementing AI product recommendations on your ecommerce website is another impactful way to enable better product discovery and increase conversions. These are on-site widgets embedded into website pages (usually product category and checkout pages) that dynamically showcase relevant products to shoppers.
Some common recommendation widget examples are:
AI product recommendation engines use AI and machine learning algorithms to analyze shopper browsing behavior, purchase history, and engagement patterns to automatically suggest the most relevant products. Behind the scenes, AI recommendation systems provide suggestions based on these approaches:
The best thing about AI product recommendations is that they don’t just help improve conversions. They also increase average order value (AOV) through cross-selling and upselling, because shoppers are encouraged to buy more products that naturally complement what they were already looking for.
Recommended reading: AI product recommendations: the key to boosting your ecommerce sales
According to data from SellersCommerce, ecommerce stores lose $18 billion in sales revenue annually because of cart abandonment. That’s a huge number. Of course, a significant share of cart abandonment happens naturally as part of how people shop online. Many users are just browsing, comparing prices, saving items for later, or looking for gift ideas. These cart abandonments are often unavoidable.
But in many other cases, shoppers abandon their carts due to issues related to an inefficient checkout process. More specifically, some of the most common reasons for cart and checkout abandonment include:
| Reason to abandon online shopping cart | Share of people |
| Additional charges at final checkout (shipping, tax) | 48% |
| Mandatory account creation before checkout | 26% |
| Lack of trust on the site with credit card information | 25% |
| Long or complicated checkout process | 22% |
| Not enough payment methods | 13% |
And these issues can easily be resolved. Here’s how you can improve the checkout experience process and recover conversions that would otherwise be lost:
Recommended reading: How to boost your checkout conversion rate in 5 easy steps
Over the past couple of years, AI chatbots have mostly been seen as customer support automation tools. But that’s rapidly changing. For ecommerce brands in particular, AI chatbots have become powerful sales tools that can help increase website conversions. Today’s AI chatbots can instantly retrieve accurate, up-to-date information, engage users in a natural, conversational way, and turn more visitors into real sales.
Here’s how conversational AI chatbots can improve your conversion rates:
Setting up campaigns to recover abandoned carts is a popular and highly effective CRO strategy in ecommerce. However, most brands follow the same formula: wait an hour, send an email reminder, wait a day, send another follow-up email, and often stop there. But if your cart abandonment campaigns rely solely on emails, you’re missing out on the opportunity to re-engage shoppers who may not engage with emails.
The most effective cart recovery campaigns involve multiple channels. In fact, omnichannel campaigns have proven to significantly outperform single-channel ones. According to data from Omnisend, omnichannel campaigns (3+ channels) deliver a 287% higher purchase rate compared to single-channel campaigns. And what’s more, campaigns that include SMS are 47.7% more likely to convert.
Some of the best practices for effective cart abandonment campaigns include:
Here’s what an effective cross-channel cart abandonment flow might look like:
| Stage | Trigger | Action | Goal |
| Stage 1 | T + 30m | Push notification (app users only) | Drive instant recovery with a quick, low-friction reminder |
| Stage 2 | T + 1–2h | Email #1 (if no conversion) | Re-engage with product details, images, and trust signals |
| Stage 3 | T + 24h | SMS (if Email #1 unopened or no click) | Add urgency with a short reminder |
| Stage 4 | T + 48–72h | Email #2 (final reminder) | Reinforce urgency or introduce a limited-time incentive |
Image source: Really Good Emails
Knowing how to improve your ecommerce conversion rate is only half the equation. The other half is actually implementing those tactics and strategies using the right tools. And that’s where Maropost’s unified commerce platform comes into play. Here’s how you can leverage Maropost’s capabilities to improve your ecommerce conversion rate:
Book a demo now to experience the Maropost Unified Commerce platform in action and see how it can help you improve your ecommerce conversion rates through AI and automation.
An ecommerce conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to an online store who complete a desired action. While purchase is the primary conversion goal in ecommerce, businesses may also track other specific actions (micro conversions) that move shoppers down the conversion funnel, such as adding an item to a cart, creating a wishlist, or signing up for a newsletter. Overall, conversion rate is one of the most critical metrics for online retailers to track because it measures how effective your website is at turning your site visitors into paying customers.
The average ecommerce conversion rate is calculated by dividing the total number of conversions on a website by the total number of unique visitors during the same period. The formula for ecommerce conversion rate optimization is:
Conversion rate = (Total conversions / Total visitors) x 100
For example, imagine your ecommerce website attracts 10,000 visitors in a month and records 300 purchases. You calculate your conversion rate by dividing the number of conversions (300) by the number of visitors (10,000). This results in 0.03, or a 3% conversion rate. It means that 3 out of every 100 visitors to your website convert (complete a purchase).
That depends on your industry vertical (high-ticket products convert lower), the quality of your traffic, and other factors. But in general, in ecommerce, a conversion rate is typically considered bad when it’s below 1%. If your conversion rate is under 1%, you can safely assume it’s low, and it’s time to start implementing conversion optimization strategies.
Firstly, improving conversion rates enables you to get more revenue from your existing traffic and reduce dependence on new lead acquisition. And secondly, it has a significant revenue impact. For example, on a $10 million ecommerce site, a modest 0.5% increase in conversion rate can unlock $50,000 in additional revenue with no increase in traffic.
Some of the basic CRO tactics for ecommerce businesses to start with include: