The cart is THE critical touchpoint that makes or breaks conversion, so you need to perfect what you display, what you say and what they’ll pay.
Check out (pun intended) these 5 enlightening cart page A/B test results from the Deborah O’Malley’s amazing Guess the Test database.
Quick links:
- Next-day delivery countdown (in checkout)
- Shipping cost calculator
- FREE shipping highlight in checkout
- Coupon code error handling
- CTA button copy
Next-day delivery countdown (in checkout)
Countdown timers are a controversial UI element — they create urgency…and anxiety.
GSF Car Parts tested showing “Order within X hrs and X minutes to be delivered tomorrow!” on PDPs and cart pages with success, the next step was to test it inside the checkout.
This particular test set up was tricky — it required the right development and QA to ensure everything ran properly on-site and with warehouse and logistics operations. A next-day delivery SLA is nothing to mess with.
Variant:
Control:
Results:
The countdown timer crushed the control with 7.51% higher checkout completion (52.45% vs 48.47%).
This advanced test was executed with the the Convert testing platform — a great tool if you’re still looking for a good Optimize replacement.
Shipping cost calculator
A major point of friction at the cart step is “what’s my final cost?”
Why struggle through the first steps of a checkout only to get zapped by “sticker shock”?
As an ecommerce old head, I can tell you shipping estimators used to be table stakes in the cart, but have largely disappeared (most notably absent in Shopify’s standard checkout). You may argue 2 valid points:
☝️ Shipping estimators add clutter to the UI (following the eliminate unnecessary distractions at all cost mantra)
☝️ Who cares at what step they abandon (cart or checkout) if they don’t want to pay the charge anyway?
The control and variant:
A UK merchant tested this out, check out the with-and-without versions (no pun intended):
☝️ Note that this test was removing the estimator, as it was already live. The primary goal was to reduce cart abandonment.
☝️ ALSO note that the site used geolocation to pre-populate the estimator to reduce that piece of friction.
They tracked CTR (click through) to checkout and measured abandonment at delivery, payment and final order steps.
Results:
Shopify’s right — “Delivery costs will be calculated in checkout” outperforms the estimator. Removing it bumped CTR by 59.6% and conversions by 7.59%.
And interestingly, users that input payment details rose by 58.8% — a KPI we don’t usually talk about, but the step where users experience the most hesitation.
FREE shipping highlight in checkout
Speaking of Shopify checkout, this test tackles that famous little one-liner in the cart summary.
The good folks at Invesp found their client was loosing 63% of shoppers at checkout, and hypothesized that shipping cost was the main boogeyman at play, and that the copy “calculated at next step” undermined its Free US Shipping Over $50 offer.
The challengers
They didn’t just try a simple A/B split, but went all in with 3 variations of the control:
Pause for a moment and take your best guess on which came out on top ;) I’ll wait!
Results
Drumroll 🥁
V2 — the simple FREE chip beat control on click-through rate by 54.19%
The other mods all beat the control, just not by as much.
This test was run using Invesp’s homegrown tool FigPii, it’s a super affordable Optimize alternative optimized for page speed, and comes with surveys and screen recordings to boot.
Coupon code error handling
This one’s not that surprising, it’s rather genius!
Most sites treat coupon error events with indifference. Oh well, guess you’re s*** out of luck!
Is that the way to treat customers close to conversion?
Of course not.
Knockaround sells sunglasses and had the bright idea to test a coupon recovery pop-up (shown only when a user triggers and error).
Variant:
Control:
Result:
The proof is in the conversion lift — 7% more completed checkouts for this experiment, despite only appearing for disappointed coupon users.
CTA button copy
I love this one, because it makes you ponder the psychology of microcopy and how phrasing influenced the perceived “level of effort” involved with taking an action.
Warsaw Sneaker Store mused that their concise Order button copy may be too directive, and hypothesized that softening the CTA to be less pushy would coax more customers to checkout.
Control:
Variant:
Inside your Guess the Test account, you can play the game of “test your gut” and guess which version you think won.
For this test, I thought the more conventional copy was more clear, suggesting a traditional checkout form vs maybe an order form — especially since “Place Order” is usually the last step of the purchase.
Aaaaand, I was so wrong.
Result:
Go to checkout dropped conversions by 14%! (Yes, one-four!)
If you’re using “Proceed to checkout” — perhaps testing “Order” will give you a lift 🤷🏽