A/B Testing in E-Commerce

What is A/B Testing?

A/B testing (sometimes called split testing) is comparing two versions of a web page to see which one performs better. You compare two web pages by showing the two variants (let's call them A and B) to similar visitors at the same time. The one that gives a better conversion rate wins!

What Can We Test?

Almost anything on your website that affects visitor behavior can be A/B tested. Some elements that you can easily test are:
1. Headlines
2. Sub headlines
3. Paragraph Text
4. Testimonials
5. Call to Action text
6. Call to Action Button
7. Links
8. Images
9. Content near the fold
10. Social proof
11. Media mentions
12. Awards and badges

How does A/B testing help e-commerce sites in damage control?

Sometimes when you’re apprehensive about changing your website, trying out a variation that seems to have, say, a 50-50 chance of success requires courage. After all, if the variation doesn’t get the desired response, it can cause lost leads or conversions. And if yours is a website that receives heavy traffic, that loss can accumulate and become overwhelming within a day or two.

A/B testing tools help you keep that potential damage in check. For instance, you could show the Variation page to only 20% of your visitors, while the remaining 80% of the visitors still see the Control. You test the two versions of the web page with your live visitors and see how they respond to the change. You can always change the percentage who see the variation according to your specific requirements.

You can even track your revenue while this test is going on, and see for yourself which page (Control or Variation) is performing better for your unique set of visitors. As the statistical confidence of the test is achieved (based on the number of visitors on the site), the winning page is declared.

In simple terms, you’re no longer hanging in limbo, contemplating if you should go ahead with making a permanent change to your site. You simply A/B test for a few days and get a definite answer based on facts and proven data. After all, it’s about what works for you and not what you think should work.

Areas To A/B Test For E-Commerce Websites:

Why A/B testing is so important for e-commerce websites is because their conversion goal is not some indirect metric such as leads or downloads but a direct sale.

They can measure impact of the changes they do directly in terms of revenue. If tweaking some element on website increases average order value or revenue per visitor, it gives a direct push to company’s bottom-line

Testing Area #1: Call-to-Action Buttons

The buy now button (or call-to-action button as it is often called) is perhaps the most important element that an e-commerce website should be testing. There are various reasons why your existing buy now button may not be working well.

Button color and size: Larger and brighter generally works better. See this case study where red colored link increased conversions by 53%

Button placement: TaylorGifts increased clicks on the button by 10% simply by bringing add-to-cart button and pricing closer

Button text: RIPT Apparel, an online clothing store, increased sales by 6.3% simply by changing text on their buttons to convey limited time offers

Testing Area #2: Pricing, Discounts or Shipping Strategies

Various pricing strategies can be tested to motivate the prospective window-shopper to complete a successful sale. Even though testing pricing is hard and risky, there are ways to do it right. If you setup your price test correctly, you can gain a lot of insight into your visitor behavior.

For example, you can test ideas such as:

Ending prices with .95, .97 or .99: there are various primers on psychological testing that you can read and accordingly test on your website.

Design of pricing box: the way you show pricing can have a lot of impact. Is it to the left of product image or is it to the right? Is it closer to add-to-cart button? Do you have money back guarantee written next to your pricing?

You can also test your discount or shipping strategies.

For example, SmileyCookie, an online cookie store, found out that their customer don’t care as much about free shipping or discounts, as they care about next-day shipping. In fact, just by changing the policy that they display on al pages, they managed to increase sales by 41%.

Testing Area #3: Product Display & Search Results

Which products to show on homepage? In a particular category, do you show bestsellers or do you show newest products? Which product categories to show in the menu? These are some of the questions that you can answer via A/B testing.

Visitors respond to different products differently and as a marketer it is incredibly hard to guess which mix of products will produce maximum revenue. If you think you know it all and your e-commerce website has right product mix, read this case study on Mobal, who increased total sales by 27% just by adding a new product to the mix.

Similarly, you can test the default order of search results or number of search results to show. You can even test whether product recommendations increases revenue (by making them purchase more) or decreases revenue (by confusing them with too many choices).

Testing Area #4: Checkout Page

Visitors are so close to making the purchase, yet they sometimes abandon their shopping on the checkout page.

It is like going to a supermarket, adding products and then dragging the cart towards the payment counter before simply running away towards the exit gate deciding not to purchase the stuff.

Various ideas that e-commerce websites can use to A/B test on checkout page are:

Including or excluding a trust seal/badge. Slideshop added a trust badge and increased sales by 15%, while ICouponBlog removed a trust badge and increased conversions. This shows there is no definite answer and you must A/B test.

Removing unnecessary input fields and providing overview of order. That’s exactly what ReplaceDirect tested on their checkout page and they successfully decreased cart abandonments by 25%

10 A/B Testing Tools for Small Businesses:

1.       Google Analytics Content Experiments

2.       Optimizely

3.       Unbounce

4.       Visual Website Optimizer

5.       Genetify

6.       Convert

7.       Vanity

8.       Vertster

9.       A/Bingo

10.   Five Second Test

Conclusion:

If you want your E-commerce website to reach its full potential you should try A/B testing to enhance its design and overall usability. The potential for improvement is vast, and testing these elements will provide clues as to how your customers perceive your brand. The result may have a dramatic impact on your bottom line, so get into the habit of testing regularly.