figuring conversion rates

specific definition

[webwoman]

Is the sales conversion rate based on the number of visitors that make a purchase - or the number of purchases that each visitor makes?

I have a site where some customers buy 8 - 10 items in one order, and some buy only 1 item. It seems that each item purchased represents a conversion...so in figuring my conversion rate overall, should I count only the visitor and his one 'order', or each item as a separate order?

Sounds nitpicky, but I recently did a lot of work to better the conversion rate and saw no increase - However, there is a huge increase in income because the visitors are putting more items in the cart.

Thanks for you thoughts on this.

-webwoman

[roitracker]

I would count each customer as one conversion (regardless of number of items) & then use average order value to calculate profit per conversion.

[cgrantski]

It's great that you are looking at more than one measure. Just keep doing that and don't worry about calling any of them "conversion" (single word). Congratulations on the units-per-order increase by the way; that's significant.