For those who might not aware of, A/B testing is definitely not for every website. If you have a highly valuable product that only 20 people see a week, but when it converts it means a bigger return, A/B testing would be a lot harder to implement in a way to get return on investment.
That said, A/B testing and other type of multivariate tests are perfect for websites where you have a solid amount of traffic coming in so that you can reach statistical significance. Thus, diving into what has worked for other eCommerce websites is a must for implementing any meaningful change on your website. Familiarise yourself with many sources of information about eCommerce sites and come up with the tests that you feel are most likely to move the meter as far as revenue goes.
In today’s post, we will share five tips to maximise
1. Remove your sliders (carousels)
A/B Tests have continually shown that sliders (or carousels) are ineffective because the human eye reacts to movement and misses the other stuff, too many messages equals no message, and an effect called ‘banner blindness’ or the tendency for people to perceive it as an ad. Instead, try creating an alternative form of the main promotion area of your site that doesn’t use a slider and see how it performs.
2. Add Trust and Award Badges
Here are five most effective and trusted badges among customers:
- TRUSTe (3%)
- BBB (7%)
- McAfee (23%)
- Verisign (25%)
- PayPal (29%)
Usabilla has conducted a survey, asking 150 respondents and it revealed that:
- 76% said that the trust badges mattered, which 64% said that lesser known one’s helped as well.
- 61% didn’t make a purchase because of them missing, while 76% said they didn’t because the trust logo was unrecognisable.
So we can conclude that:
- Trust badges like this matter.
- Not alot of them are actually quickly recognisable
- If people don’t know what they are, they can actually hinder path to purchase.
Try to mix and match, test based on your own experience and see how they work.
3. Add product videos for popular products
Of course you need to have a video to make this work, but it’s definitely a fairly obviously beneficial thing to A/B test, because you’re telling the visitor in a more entertaining way with a video than simple images or a image carousel. Clearly if you have a comprehensive catalog this might not be easy to do for all of your products, but for the top 2 or 3 products the investment may be worth the reward.
4. Apply the badges for ‘fast and free shipping,’ and ‘no-hassle returns,’ right next to the add to cart button
Adding simple iconography that has branded colors next to the ‘add to cart’ button and expresses ‘fast and free shipping’ and ‘no hassle’ returns gave a boost of $1,700 in a week for a client of ours, which was about 10% more than the alternative without the icons. Tracking revenue is great because it can show you how closely connected effective design is with money in you or your clients pocket. No matter how you do it, make sure you start with a solid prediction, and at least a bit of time spent to make sure your additions feel like they’re part of the site visually.
5. Add post purchase sharing options
This feature allows a visitor to post or tweet about their recent order. If you are just buying a box of cigarette, perhaps this won’t be compelling. However, for an exclusive item, you can bet some people are going to want to brag about their new purchase. Give them an easy way to do so, that points back to gain you another customer. You can test your messaging on this page, and find what works best for you.