Group discount message on product pages: +1.2% CR, inconclusive
Test run byClean CommitCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdvertising a discount for military, nurses, first responders, students, teachers and government staff lifted conversion rate by just 1.2%, which we treat as inconclusive.
Clean Commit ran this test for a Shopify store and published it in its A/B test library.
With only 2,515 visitors and a 51.1% chance of beating the original, the test could not tell the two versions apart.
- Conversion rate: +1.2%. The variant had a 51.1% probability of beating the original, which is close to a coin flip. Inconclusive.
- Revenue per visitor: +9.4%, and average order value +8.1%. On this small sample, both are within normal variation.
- Add-to-cart rate rose 6.1% and click-through rate 27.2%, but the extra clicks did not turn into more orders.
- Devices split sharply: mobile conversion rate rose 31.5% while desktop fell 42.0%. Treat both as noise until retested.
The change
A linked group discount message added below the price
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The homepage and product pages made no mention of any discount for eligible groups.
Variant
A message on the homepage and under the price on product pages offered a discount to government employees, military, nurses, first responders, students and teachers. Each mention linked to a page where shoppers could verify eligibility.
Why it likely came out this way
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Only a slice of shoppers belongs to the eligible groups, so the message was irrelevant to most visitors.
- Verification adds a step. Some eligible shoppers may have clicked through to check and then dropped off.
- The message matched the site's existing promo styling, so it may have blended in with other offers.
- At 2,515 visitors over 14 days, the test was too small to detect a modest effect either way.
Caveats: The test ran for 14 days on 2,515 visitors, far too few for a reliable read. The large mobile and desktop swings in opposite directions suggest noise rather than a real device effect.
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 show a verified discount for eligible groups near the price, then conversion rate will rise among those shoppers because they get a clear money reason to buy now.
- Primary metric
- Conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Revenue per visitor
- Drop-off on the verification page
- Average order value
- Who should test it
- Stores whose buyers skew toward these groups, such as workwear, outdoor or education products, and with enough traffic to segment results. It probably won't move much if eligible shoppers are a small share of visitors.
Questions
Do military and student discounts increase conversion rate?
In this test, the overall lift was 1.2% and the result was inconclusive.
The effect likely depends on how many of your shoppers actually qualify.
Where should a group discount message go?
This store placed it under the price on product pages and on the homepage, linked to an eligibility check.
Near the price is where shoppers weigh cost, so it is a sensible first spot to test.
How many visitors do I need to test a discount message?
More than this test had. With 2,515 visitors the result was a near coin flip, so plan for a much larger sample before reading the outcome.
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