Breadcrumbs on collection pages: +1.8% conversion, inconclusive
Test run byClean CommitCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding clickable breadcrumbs to collection pages raised conversion rate 1.8%, but that is within normal variation, so we treat it as inconclusive.
Clean Commit ran this test for an anonymized Shopify store over 45 days.
The variant had a 70.9% probability of beating the original, well short of a clear win.
- Conversion rate rose 1.8% with a 70.9% probability to beat control. That is not a clear difference.
- Add-to-cart rate rose 3.0% and revenue per visitor 2.2%. Both moved the right way but stayed within normal variation.
- Orders rose 1.8% and bounce rate barely moved at -0.5%.
- Desktop responded more than mobile: conversion rose 4.2% on desktop versus 0.9% on mobile.
The change
The variant adds a breadcrumb trail above the collection title.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Collection pages showed the title, filters and product grid with no breadcrumb trail.
Variant
Every collection page got a clickable Home / Parent Collection / Current Collection trail. It sat above the collection title and product grid, apart from the filters.
Why it likely came out this way
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Breadcrumbs help shoppers who land deep in a store, but many visitors already know where they are from the menu.
- The trail is small and easy to miss, so it is unlikely to change buying decisions much.
- On mobile, breadcrumbs take little space and get little use, which may explain the weaker mobile result.
Caveats: The test ran 45 days, but the visitor count was not shared and no metric reached a clear result. Read the small lifts as noise until a retest confirms them.
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 clickable breadcrumbs to collection pages, then shoppers will browse more and convert more because they can see where they are and step back up a level.
- Primary metric
- Conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Bounce rate
- Revenue per visitor
- Who should test it
- Stores with deep catalogs and nested collections, where shoppers often land on subcategories from search or ads. A store with a few flat collections will likely see no difference.
Questions
Do breadcrumbs increase ecommerce conversion rate?
Not clearly in this test. Conversion rose 1.8% over 45 days, but the result was within normal variation.
Where should breadcrumbs go on a collection page?
This store placed them above the collection title and product grid, kept apart from the filters so the two don't compete.
Are breadcrumbs worth adding if they don't lift sales?
They are cheap to build and can help shoppers find their way in a large catalog.
Just don't expect them to move revenue on their own.
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