'Shop This Color' button on product pages: -6.8% revenue/visitor
Test run byClean CommitCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding a 'Shop This Color' button to product pages cut revenue per visitor by 6.8% and conversion rate by 2.6%, even though clicks rose.
Clean Commit ran this test for an anonymized Shopify store and published it in its A/B test library. The store did not ship the change.
- Click-through rate: +2.6%, the goal metric, with a 94.9% probability of beating the original.
- Conversion rate: -2.6%, a negative result.
- Revenue per visitor: -6.8%, and average order value: -7.6%, both negative.
- Add-to-cart rate: -0.1%, essentially flat.
The change
A Shop This Color button links to every product in the selected color.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A product page with no link to other products in the selected color.
Variant
A 'Shop This Color' button that linked to a filtered page of every product in the chosen color, mostly camo patterns. It was hidden when no other product shared that color.
Why it likely lost
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- The button sent shoppers away from the product they were already looking at.
- More choice at the decision point can stall a purchase rather than grow it.
- Click-through looked good, but it measured interest, not buying.
Caveats: The test ran 60 days on 17,746 visitors, most of them on mobile. It is a modest sample, so the size of the drop is uncertain.
Who ran it
Clean Commit ran this test for a Shopify store (anonymized) and published the results (Clean Commit A/B test library). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Clean Commit →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we add a link to other products in the selected color, then revenue per visitor will rise because shoppers who like a color will find more items to buy.
- Primary metric
- Revenue per visitor
- Guardrails
- Conversion rate
- Average order value
- Click-through rate
- Who should test it
- Stores where colors or patterns drive buying and shoppers often buy matching sets. Judge it on revenue, not clicks, since this test raised clicks while sales fell.
Questions
Do cross-links to similar products help on product pages?
Not always. In this test a color cross-link raised clicks but lowered revenue per visitor by 6.8%.
Why did more clicks lead to fewer sales?
The button likely pulled shoppers away from the product they were about to buy. Clicks measure interest, not purchases.
What metric should I judge a product page link on?
Revenue per visitor or conversion rate. A click-through goal can look like a win while sales drop.
Similar tests
@oliverkenyon@oliverkenyon@oliverkenyon@oliverkenyon
Convertibles