How to Increase Average Session Time on Your eCommerce Store

Are you paying attention?

Probably not. 

47 seconds is the average amount of time people can only pay attention to one screen.

Also, in eCommerce, the average time spent in a single session fell by an alarming 7.5%.

Consequently, as the average session time decreases, so does the conversion rate. 

In this article, we talk about 15 brilliant ways of getting users to stay on your eCommerce site.

Let's go! 

What does ‘time on page’ even mean? 

‘Time on page’ was a metric from Universal Analytics – it measured the average amount of time a user spent on a specific page of your store. 

In GA4, it’s measured in 2 parts – the goal is to understand user engagement in terms of: 

a) time spent per user during engaged sessions originating from a particular page (average engagement time)

b) number of pages viewed during said session (Views per user)

Key Takeaways:

👉 ‘average engagement time’ = “time on page” (on GA4)

👉 “time on page” ≈ “average session duration” (on Shopify)

👉 ‘average engagement time’ in GA4 ≈ ‘average session duration’ in Shopify 

15 Brilliant Ways To Increase ‘Time On Page’ For Your eCommerce Store

1. Learn more about your customers 

If you want customers to stick around a bit longer, you’ll have to give them a reason to stay. When you know who your customers are:

👉 You won’t try doing things that may end up having a negative impact

👉  You’ll also be able to make sure that your pages address the pain points your customers share – and match their intent

Dive into your GA4/Shopify analytics dashboard – and start looking for answers to:

✅ Who’s coming in – what devices do they use – their interests/age groups

✅ Where they’re coming from – like country, area, etc. – also check if they came from another website, search engine, social media, or emails

✅ What are they looking for – what page did they land on – search queries that were raised in your site search

✅ When are they coming in – does activity happen around seasons or a particular time of day – is there a seasonality aspect

2. Capture attention quickly 

Once your users are on your page, the timer starts ticking. Your first fold (the first thing a visitor sees) needs to be so strong that they will want to scroll. 

Here are some ideas on how you can make sure your time on page increases – and makes users scroll:

✅ Pull attention to keywords and reassure visitors – bold out parts of the product descriptions with keywords 

✅ Use visual trust badges in your images about your policies or awards won to reinforce trust

✅ Offer some form of social proof, like ratings, mentioning the number of reviews, or a quote from a review

✅ Show the USPs in a short, but crisp description above/below the pricing and CTA button

✅ Avoid clashing elements – minimize clashing colors and appropriately sized font weights

✅ Use your product images to show off product features – infographic style

3. Nudge visitors toward the next step 

Once users start scrolling, your goal should be moving towards the next step. The next step? Get them to move towards the checkout flow. 

It can start with something as simple as:

✅ Making the navigation menu sticky

✅ Showing a sticky add-to-cart bar

✅ Hiding the notification bar on scrolling

✅ Showing a sneak peek of products in image carousels

✅ Animating certain elements like CTA buttons or product thumbnails

✅ Leaving quotes from reviews in your microcopy

✅ Changing the cursor while hovering over certain elements

Remember: Your goal is to get the message across in a subtle, yet effective manner.

FURTHER READING: 25 Best Examples of Nudge Marketing in eCommerce

4. Start a conversation with your visitors

“There’s a reason why some shoppers like to visit brick-and-mortar stores. Someone who’s helping you choose the right product makes it easier to shop and beats the AI bot that can offer only scripted advice.” — Mike Hale, UX specialist, Convertcart 

eCommerce brands can upgrade their live chat strategy by introducing shopping assistants to help visitors shop better and increase average session time.  

Shoppers are also less hesitant to give their email IDs and other details to a person rather than a bot. 

See how Lululemon enabled virtual shopping where customers can book appointments by adding basic information including email ID:

5. Use exit-intent popups but don’t be annoying 

Exit-intent popups are another great way to keep visitors on your page longer.

But wait, popups are annoying, right? Here’s how JewelStreet does it: they use their exit popup to their highest converting page, the women’s jewelry category page.

They saved their best for last. 

Need more ideas to improve your average engagement time with exit intent popups? Try these ideas:

✅ Create different popups by time spent on page – for early exits, offer a lead capture discount – for longer durations, offer a quiz

✅ Trigger non-intrusive pop-ups on checkout – offer an option to save cart 

FURTHER READING: How to make Shopify popups less annoying (+ examples)

6. Offer smart product recommendations (and create excellent internal links)

SEO best practices recommend linking to pages internally – especially pages that correlate to a certain theme.

Offering up product recommendations lets you hit four targets in one go: upsells/cross-sells, SEO, personalization, and retention.

Most customers keep returning to your store because they’ve had a valuable experience before. So, how do you start with smart linking?

Include the following on your homepage, collection pages, and product detail pages:

✅ Browsing history

✅ Fresh products based on browsing behavior

✅ A combination of offers and recommended products 

✅ Bestsellers based on location

✅ Your brand’s USP in the recommendations you offer through retargeting

See how Macy's offers personalized product recommendations and consequently improves average session time:

FURTHER READING: How to Cross-sell on Product Pages—Without Being Pushy (+ Examples)

7. Personalize 🙂

Personalization can be taken a step further than providing recommendations based on browsing history – all you need to do is start collecting zero-party data. 

As defined by Forrester, ‘zero-party data’ is information that consumers voluntarily provide to brands. You can use this data to offer product recommendations, and content like:

✅ Interactive size guides like a sizing calculator

✅ Location-specific content, like showing winter collections in countries with colder weather

✅ Retarget returning visitors with in-website push notifications – show product recommendations, or offer support

See how Lancome has a 3-step survey to find the right product to encourage average session time and send personalized emails in sync with customer details. 

FURTHER READING: The Best Quiz Funnel Examples for your eCommerce Store

8. Add videos to offer more product information 

According to a survey, shoppers expect to see an average of 6 photos and 3 videos before making a purchase decision.

Why: mobile video consumptions go up by 100% every year. It also helps you save a lot of page space – and reduce scroll depth.

Here are some ideas on video types to use for increasing average session time on your eCommerce site:

✅ Customer review videos – these videos can show how customers use your product and add a touch of social proof

✅ Product demo videos – you can brag about your product features and benefits without hard-selling

✅ Shoppable live streams – if you’re going live on your socials – try adding a shoppable live-stream feed on your website as well

FURTHER READING: eCommerce product videos: Brand examples to learn from

9. Don’t implement infinite scrolling on any webpage

“Infinite scrolling might be easy to implement and one of the first strategies used for improving session duration. But the question to ask is ‘where?’ because not every page needs it.” — Luke Perry, CRO expert, Convertcart    

Many eCommerce stores ask us, “does infinite scrolling increase session duration?”

Here’s what we always say:

(✔) It keeps shoppers engaged as they scroll through and keep getting new content – while improving the session duration per shopper

(❌) It isn’t that great for your store’s UX – and eventually leads to decreasing conversion rates

If you’re implementing infinite scrolling, consider doing these:

✅ Implement a ‘load more’ button

✅ Add faceted navigation filters to help find products faster

✅ Add a progress bar to the product listing page:

FURTHER READING: Does infinite scrolling kill conversions? Here's what we found

10. Improve site speed for better session duration

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%

There’s no shortage of things you can do to speed up your eCommerce store, but here are the ones that’ll have the most impact:

✅ Use a lightweight theme – avoid unused extra features that load in the background, slowing your site down

✅ Run an audit on-site navigation to ensure menus aren’t hidden – highlight parent categories and sub-categories

✅ Compress files with heavy coding by minifying files with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS to reduce the time they take to load from servers to browsers

✅ Turn off lazy-loading for the first fold – this is to ensure that the first view loads first – and not cause users to bounce out of your site

✅ Implement caches with an expiry date – this is to ensure that the latest version of your site loads no matter what

FURTHER READING: Smart Ways To Speed Up Your eCommerce Store (Top 5 Platforms Covered)

11. Offer helpful content 

Just talking about your products can get boring fast – instead, take inspiration from your post-purchase flow. 

Here's what you can offer to help buyers form an understanding of the product before they make a purchase:

✅ ‘How-to’ guides about using the product

✅ Information on returns/buyback 

✅ Repair guides – or support guides with suggested products

For instance, if they are purchasing a bed for their pet, they should know how to familiarize their pet with the product – or, what they should do with the old product.

See how Harry Winston has the option to explore product care details on the product page: 

When clicked, the brand takes shoppers to a landing page with all the information regarding product care and different components, and the functioning of the products.  

Buyers can also request assistance by submitting a request form, and Harry Winston’s salons can help with customizations to repairs.

FURTHER READING: eCommerce content marketing mistakes (+ their fixes)

12. Restructure your content in a logical flow to retain visitors

Create your page copy in such a way that it answers the ‘What, Who, Why, How, and Where’ of the product. 

Here's how you restructure your content to retain visitors and increase time on page for your eCommerce store:

✅ What: introduce the product, and show it for what it is through your product title, price, and descriptions

✅ Who: include information about yourself, as a brand, your causes

✅ Why: its USPs, reviews, and features

✅ How: show how to care for the product, and how it works in general (or how to wear the product)

✅ Where: show where and when to buy the product – tune in some personalization to show when the product will be a good fit for the visitor – and how they can buy it

FURTHER READING: 18 Brilliant Ways To Convert First-Time Visitors Into Buyers (eCommerce)

13. Check your mobile UX 

Mobile devices keep seeing lower conversion rates and a dismally low average engagement time. 

Why: most eCommerce mobile UX sucks.

Your goal is to make it skimmable – think big fonts, and labeled images. 

Here are some ideas to ensure your mobile UX makes users stay:

✅ See if your CTA buttons are properly sized

✅ Remove sticky buttons – only keep the navigation and or add to cart bar sticky

✅ Enable auto-scrolling carousels on mobile

✅ Turn off the scroll to top button on mobile 

✅ Save screen space with smaller-sized images on mobile devices

✅ Use emojis and bold text to pull attention in key areas

✅ Remove animations on mobile – unless it's a video

FURTHER READING: eCommerce Mobile UX: 27 Ways to Get More Conversions

14. Prevent checkout drop-offs 

If users are spending too much time on your checkout page, things point to something being wrong. 

It means:

❌ There's a lot of information to fill in for the user

❌ There's not enough information on the checkout page

❌ There are way too many steps on your flow

Here's what you should do instead:

✅ Reduce form fields – make the shipping address the same as the billing address

✅ Offer a BNPL payment option – or a one-click mobile checkout gateway like Apple Pay

✅ Offer live chat support links on checkout – but make sure, they open in a new tab

Quick Tip: Set up your CRM to offer live chat support, once a user has spent more than 40 seconds on checkout. 

15. Define your internal traffic

This is probably the most overlooked step – especially on eCommerce stores. 

Chances are, you are over-reporting your average engagement time or session duration. It may so much so, that your actual engagement time or time on page may be lower than what it shows. 

This is why we recommend:

✅ Blocking all internal IP addresses – ones from your HQ, home, and phones

✅ Check your audience locations in your audience dashboard – if you see multiple users from your address areas, chances are they may be internal traffic

✅ Use campaign tagging when sending out your store for review – make sure you’re set up to pass these custom tags once users land from those links

People Also Ask

1. What is ‘session duration’?

Average session duration is the average time users spend on your website. A session starts when someone visits a page on your site and ends when they leave your site or after 30 minutes of inactivity.

2. Why does session duration matter?

One of the metrics Google uses to rank your website is user experience. Long average session duration will let Google and other search engines know that visitors find your content engaging and valuable, which will lead to an increase in rankings.

Longer session durations are also associated with higher conversion rates. This makes sense because a user who spends a lot of time on your site is more likely to become a repeat buyer or convert into a lead.

3. What is a good average session duration?

What’s considered a good average session duration will vary by industry. 

A report shows that the average across all industries is 4.41 minutes. This means a good average session duration would be anything above three minutes.

4. What is the difference between Shopify visitors vs sessions?

One of the cookies that report back to Shopify analytics is a record of the device accessing the store.

This device is called a ‘Visitor’, and one device equals one visitor.

This cookie will identify the device for future visits too, so you can see when and how often a particular customer on a particular device returns to your store!

Session data tracks the nature of a visitor’s interaction with the store.

Variables such as length (time spent in the store), location of the visit, and source of referral are collected by session cookies and presented to you via Shopify analytics.

5. ‘Average time on page’ vs ‘Average session duration’: same thing?

Average session duration measures how long visitors spend on your website as a whole, including multiple pages. Average time on page measures time spent on a specific page.

Another important difference is that the average session duration does not ignore exits and bounces. So bounces and exits typically contribute very low-duration sessions to the overall average.

6. Is ‘time on page’ the same thing on GA4 and Shopify?

No, “time on page” or “average time on page” is a deprecated Google Universal Analytics metric which used to measure the time spent by a certain user on a particular page – but, did not account for user movement and engagement. It is now shown as:

👉 Average Session Duration on Shopify

👉 Average Engagement Time on GA4, it’s on Average engagement time

However, Shopify shows the average session duration by the number of sessions launched by visitors.  

Whereas GA4’s average engagement time metric, measures session duration by ‘users’/ ‘visitors’  and also by the no. of sessions launched (average engagement time per session)

This means Shopify’s ‘average session duration' doesn’t exclude bounce rate and exits – whereas, GA4 does.

You must also read: 27 Practical Ways To Reduce eCommerce Bounce Rate

7. What is the difference between “average session duration” on Shopify and GA4?

Average session duration on GA4 is the sum total of all user engagement throughout your eCommerce store – it includes only engaged sessions (doesn’t include exits and bounce rate). 

On Shopify, it’s just an average of the durations of all sessions launched within a specific period. 

For example, let’s assume there were 6 sessions launched between May 10th and May 14th. The average session duration will average out the duration of all those sessions. 

You must also read: eCommerce Bounce Rate By Industry (+Tips To Improve)

8. How to find the ‘time on page’ for my eCommerce store?

Depending on your Analytics platform, look for reports that show you user behavior and engagement per page. 

✅ On GA4: Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens > Average engagement time

✅ On Shopify: Analytics > Reports > Sessions by landing page > Filters > Landing Page Path > Average Session Duration

Want a more granular view of your time on page by traffic source?

Go into Acquisition > Traffic acquisition > Add column > Page Path and Screen Class > Filter by Page Path and Screen Class to find Average Engagement Time per Session.

For Shopify Analytics, launch the ‘Sessions by referrer’ report – and enable “landing page path”, and “average session duration” filters.

How can we help you:

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 Convertcart solves. 

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.