Ecommerce Benchmarks 2025: Conversion, CAC, AOV, and Retention Data by Vertical
by Om Rathod
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9 min read
Aug 24, 2026
Every ecommerce operator thinks they know if their numbers are good. Most are guessing. CPMs are up, iOS 14.5+ still muddies attribution three years later, and GA4 changed how "conversion rate" gets calculated in ways half the industry hasn't noticed yet. That's the gap this report fills.
These ecommerce benchmarks 2025 cover conversion rate, AOV, CAC, ROAS, retention, and channel mix, broken out by vertical and platform instead of flattened into one meaningless blended average. If you've ever read a press release claiming "average ecommerce conversion rate is 2.5%" and wondered what that actually tells you about your beauty brand doing $3M on Shopify, the answer is: not much.
There's a difference between vanity benchmarks (the kind agencies publish to get backlinks) and operational benchmarks you can actually act on. This report is built for the second category. Data is split by vertical and by platform, because a supplements brand on Amazon and an apparel brand on Shopify are not playing the same game, even if they show up in the same "ecommerce industry average" spreadsheet.
Why Ecommerce Benchmarks Matter More in 2025
Rising CPMs mean the same ad budget buys fewer impressions than it did two years ago. Combine that with post-iOS tracking gaps and the slow death of third-party cookies, and most brands are flying with a foggier windshield than they had in 2021.
That fog makes benchmarks more useful, not less. When you can't fully trust your own attribution, knowing what "normal" looks like for CAC or ROAS in your vertical gives you a sanity check that your dashboard alone can't provide.
This report covers six areas: conversion rate, AOV, CAC, ROAS, retention, and channel mix. Each section breaks numbers out by vertical and by platform, Shopify versus Amazon, rather than handing you one blended figure that applies to nobody's actual store.
Methodology: Where This Data Comes From
The numbers here come from aggregated, anonymized account-level data pulled across Shopify, Amazon, Meta, Google, and GA4 integrations. [VERIFY exact sample size before publishing], spanning a rolling 12-month window, across five verticals: beauty, apparel, home goods, supplements, and electronics.
We excluded outlier accounts (anything more than 3 standard deviations from the vertical median), low-traffic stores under [VERIFY traffic threshold], and B2B-only sellers, since B2B buying cycles and cart behavior don't map cleanly onto DTC funnels.
One thing worth being upfront about: these are medians and ranges, not guarantees. If your CVR sits below the benchmark for your vertical, that's a flag to investigate, not proof something's broken. For a full breakdown of how each metric is defined and calculated, our data dictionary is the reference we'd point you to before you start comparing your own numbers against anyone else's report, including this one.
Conversion Rate and AOV Benchmarks by Vertical
Here's the median range by vertical, based on the sample described above:
Beauty
Median CVR: 2.2% to 3.1%
Median AOV: $48 to $65
Apparel
Median CVR: 1.6% to 2.4%
Median AOV: $70 to $95
Home Goods
Median CVR: 1.3% to 2.0%
Median AOV: $110 to $160
Supplements
Median CVR: 2.8% to 3.9%
Median AOV: $55 to $80
Electronics
Median CVR: 1.1% to 1.8%
Median AOV: $140 to $220
[VERIFY all figures above against current dataset before publishing]
Desktop still converts higher than mobile in almost every vertical we looked at, typically by 30% to 60% relative. Mobile traffic volume dominates, but desktop closes. That gap is narrowing in beauty and supplements, where mobile checkout flows have gotten genuinely good, and widening in electronics, where higher price points seem to push buyers back to desktop before they'll commit.
Cart abandonment sits in the 68% to 78% range across verticals, with the sharpest drop-off between "add to cart" and "reach checkout," not between checkout and purchase. Most brands optimize the wrong step. The checkout page usually isn't the leak. The gap between cart and checkout is.
Worth flagging: GA4's event-based model changed what "conversion rate" even measures compared to old Universal Analytics session-based tracking. If your CVR looks like it dropped overnight sometime in the last two years, that's often a measurement change, not a performance change. Comparing your own historical trend across that transition without adjusting for it will make you chase a problem that doesn't exist.
Paid Media Benchmarks: CAC, ROAS, and CPM by Channel
Blended numbers across channels hide more than they reveal, so here's the split:
Meta
CPM range: $9 to $18
CPC range: $0.80 to $1.60
Blended ROAS range: 1.8x to 3.2x
Google Shopping / PMax
CPM range: $6 to $14
CPC range: $0.55 to $1.30
Blended ROAS range: 2.5x to 4.5x
TikTok
CPM range: $7 to $15
CPC range: $0.60 to $1.40
Blended ROAS range: 1.2x to 2.4x
[VERIFY all ranges before publishing]
A blended ROAS number by itself is close to useless without knowing the brand-versus-prospecting spend split behind it. A brand running 70% of Meta spend on retargeting warm audiences will post a much higher blended ROAS than one investing in cold prospecting, and neither number tells you which brand is actually growing. If you want to sanity-check your own blended figure against spend mix before you compare it to any benchmark, run it through our ROAS calculator.
CAC benchmarks shift hard by AOV tier. Sub-$50 carts should generally see CAC in the $15 to $30 range to stay profitable. $50 to $150 carts run $30 to $65. Above $150, CAC of $70 to $150 is often still fine, assuming margins and repeat rate support it.
The most common mistake we see: brands with sub-$50 AOV chasing CAC benchmarks built for $150 carts, because that's the number their agency reported as "good." It's not good for their margin structure. It's just a number.
Retention and LTV Benchmarks
Repeat purchase rate varies more by vertical than almost any other metric here. Supplements and beauty run 30% to 45% repeat rate within 12 months, thanks to consumable, replenishable products. Apparel and home goods sit lower, 15% to 25%, since those purchases are more occasion-driven.
Time-to-second-purchase averages 45 to 75 days in supplements and beauty, versus 90 to 150 days in apparel and home goods. [VERIFY these ranges]
Email and SMS revenue share is one of the more telling numbers in this whole report. Healthy brands see 25% to 35% of total revenue attributed to owned channels. Below 15%, you're almost entirely dependent on paid acquisition, which is a fragile place to be when CPMs climb.
LTV:CAC ratio benchmarks: a ratio under 2:1 usually signals a margin problem that will only get worse as you try to scale. 3:1 to 4:1 is the healthy scaling zone most brands should target. Above 5:1, you're often actually under-investing in growth, leaving volume on the table.
Subscription models skew every one of these numbers upward, since a single subscriber's LTV compounds in a way a one-time purchaser's never will. Comparing a subscription brand's retention benchmarks against a one-time-purchase brand's is comparing two different businesses wearing the same spreadsheet template.
Amazon vs Shopify: Where Benchmarks Diverge
Amazon listings convert higher than Shopify PDPs, often by a wide margin, typically landing in the 8% to 15% range versus Shopify's 1% to 3% across most verticals. That's not because Amazon sellers are better marketers. It's intent and trust. Someone searching Amazon has already decided to buy something; they're choosing which listing. Someone landing on a Shopify PDP from a Meta ad is still deciding whether to buy at all.
ACOS benchmarks on Amazon typically run 15% to 30% depending on category, which doesn't translate directly to Shopify's blended ROAS figures; they're inverse metrics measuring similar things in different units, and treating them as interchangeable is a common reconciliation mistake. If you're running both channels, our breakdowns for Amazon and Shopify performance data are built to keep these separate instead of forcing them into one dashboard number that means nothing on either platform.
Return rates diverge too. Amazon's easier return policy tends to push refund rates higher, often 2 to 4 points above equivalent Shopify categories. [VERIFY]. Apparel is where this gap is widest on both platforms.
The bigger issue is definitional. "Conversion rate," "ROAS," and "return rate" aren't calculated the same way on Amazon Seller Central as they are in Shopify analytics or GA4. Before you benchmark yourself across both channels, make sure you're comparing the same underlying formula, not just the same metric name.
How to Use These Benchmarks Without Chasing the Wrong Numbers
Benchmark against your own vertical and your own AOV tier. Not the blended average, not a competitor's press release number, not whatever a case study claimed last year.
Don't optimize a single metric in isolation. Chasing ROAS up while ignoring CAC creep or margin compression is how brands "win" on the dashboard and lose on the P&L. This happens more than people admit.
Set a quarterly review cadence against these benchmarks, tied to your actual live data, not just an annual report you glance at once and forget. Annual benchmark reports (including this one) tell you where the market was. Your dashboard tells you where you are right now. For marketing leads specifically trying to defend budget with real numbers instead of last year's averages, that distinction matters in board meetings, and it's part of why we built dashboards for marketing leaders around live comparisons instead of static reports.
Real-time tracking catches drift from these targets in days. Manual monthly reporting catches it in weeks, sometimes months, after the budget's already spent.
Get Your Store's Numbers Benchmarked Automatically
Benchmarks are a starting point. They're not a scorecard, and they're definitely not a substitute for knowing your own numbers cold.
Trivas dashboards pull your actual CVR, CAC, ROAS, and retention data from Shopify, Amazon, Meta, Google, and GA4 into one place, so you can see exactly where you sit against these ecommerce benchmarks 2025 figures without exporting five spreadsheets and building a comparison by hand.
If you'd rather see your own numbers next to these ranges than eyeball it, start a trial and pull the comparison directly from your connected accounts.
We'll be updating this report annually as spend patterns, platform changes, and privacy rules keep shifting the baseline. Worth bookmarking, since "good" in ecommerce doesn't hold still for long.
Revenue growth leader and co-founder driving Trivas's commercial strategy. Om has led the product vision and execution from scratch. With a strong background in SaaS sales and GTM strategy, Om bridges product innovation with real-world customer needs.
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