Product Feed Contributing To Bounce Rate

[AWCthreads]

We subscribe to a product feed and have been very pleased with the results.

However, one of the unanticipated results is a trending increase in our site bounce rate. Should we be concerned about this 3-10% increase in bounce rate trend. It may go higher.

Of all the factors that can contribute to bounce rate, one of the factors is that we have a lot of products on the site that cannot be shipped out of state or shipped at all. These products can only be delivered in-state or picked up at our store.

The Analytics data suggests that feed products typically have a higher bounce rate, lower ctr, lower time on page, lower time on site etc. than products found by other means. However, the product feed generates sales.

Should I take these products off the feed that have a high bounce rate and are not "shipable"? Although they may land on feed product, they may click through to a shipable product.

Our feed provider says of the bounce rate is typically not something a lot of other merchants worry about. I'm not certain, but I'm inclined to disagree. What are your thoughts and experiences with this?

Thanks for the help.

[poolguy]

I'm really not sure what subscribing to a product feed means... but if you're referring to product data feeds you submit to shopping engines like Nextag or Pricegrabber, I would definitely worry about bounce rates.  You're paying them for these referrals after all.  You want them to count.

I recently removed a particular product line for a data feed, thereby reducing traffic, simply because the bounce rates were around 85%.  This tells me they were not good leads, for whatever reason, and I don't want to waste money on that anyway.

The "other merchants" that don't worry about bounce rates are clearly ignorant, or possibly the "feed provider" is ill-informed.  If you can take a hit revenue-wise from removing these leads, I would do it.  Bounce rates are very important for e-commerce sites .

[AWCthreads]

Thanks Clint. I suppose subscribe was a poor word choice. We don't feed the products ourselves, we have a 3rd party handle it for us. We're currently feeding to Google and Bing. Even though we don't pay for those leads I don't want a bump in bounce rate. You confirmed my thoughts. I appreciate the input.