Your users can spend a lot of time on your site because they find the content addictive and exciting, or they can search for stuff that's there but impossible to find. Or the phone rang.

We are not saying that metrics are useless. However, if you have a webshop, you should care a lot about the incoming traffic, conversion rate, average basket size, shipping and handling costs, and profit.

The average time on site does not affect any of the above.

Your marketing strategy is essential in driving relevant traffic to the website, and the user journeys and user experience define the conversion rate.

The shipping costs, product sourcing, general logistics and other factors determine your profit. Your webshop will become profitable with a fair conversion rate and average basket size. Luckily, the user journeys and user experience can be modified relatively easily.

You need to test your site with users, learn from their reactions, listen to their feedback, make changes, and repeat the process.

That can be much easier than getting a lower price per click from Google or a better shipping rate. Focus on the things you can change. Most of them start with user testing.