What is Bounce Rate?
Bounce rate measures how often visitors leave after a single-page, non-interacting visit. Traditionally, a 'bounce' was any session in which the visitor viewed one page and then left without clicking through to another. It is expressed as a percentage of total sessions that bounced.
Interpreting bounce rate requires context. On a product or landing page meant to drive action, a high bounce rate can flag problems: slow loading, poor mobile experience, mismatched ad messaging, or weak product-market fit. On a blog post or a store-hours page, though, a visitor can get exactly what they needed and leave satisfied, so a high bounce isn't necessarily bad.
Definitions have also evolved. Google Analytics 4 reframed the concept around 'engaged sessions,' defining bounce rate as the percentage of sessions that were not engaged: no conversion, no visit lasting ten seconds or longer, and fewer than two page views. As a result, bounce numbers aren't always comparable across tools or time periods.
Why it matters in e-commerce
For ecommerce research, bounce rate is a proxy for how well a store's traffic and landing experience are matched. A store buying lots of traffic but bouncing most of it may be struggling to convert: a weakness a sharper competitor can exploit with better offers, faster pages, or tighter ad-to-page alignment.