The Best Testing Fail of the Week: If It Worked Once It, It May Not Work Again

This week’s fail was informed by a major success. A change that boosted conversions on one page ended up causing a very different result when reproduced.

Less Distraction

A large clothing retailer conducted some A/B tests and determined that removing suggested items from its Cart page increased conversions. The suggestions ended up serving more as a distraction than a help. The brand decided to take that lesson to its product detail pages, and A/B tested a variation without any product suggestions there either. On the variation pages, they saw a 5% decrease in conversions, 75% drop in RichRelevance suggested item click-throughs, 3.7% increase in search requests, 6% decrease in product detail page views, and a 2.3% decrease in add to carts.

Glass Half Full

Because of the Cart page design results, this A/B test seemed like a no brainer. Had they taken results from a different A/B test and applied them here, this brand would have seen a major revenue loss. Luckily, because of A/B testing, they were able to learn what works and adjust accordingly.

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