# Flat category menu instead of dropdowns: almost +12% checkouts

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Navigation & menu (Ecommerce)
- Elements: Navigation & mega menus
- Date shared: 2015-10
- Test run by: [Conversion Fanatics](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/conversion-fanatics/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://conversionfanatics.com/website-usability-testing/
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/cf-ecommerce-streamlined-category-menu/

Replacing a dropdown category menu with a flat menu that linked straight to the main product lines lifted successful checkouts by almost 12%. Conversion Fanatics ran this test for an anonymized ecommerce store and published it on its blog in 2015. The new menu removed one level of clicks between the shopper and the products.

## Result

**almost +12% checkouts**

- Successful checkouts: up almost 12% for the flat menu.
- No other metrics, sample size or test length were shared.

## Control

A menu with a few top-level categories. Hovering over each one opened a dropdown with many sub-options.

## Variant

A streamlined menu with the store's main product offerings as direct links. The sub-menus were removed, so one click took shoppers to a product range.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- Fewer choices up front may have made it quicker for shoppers to pick a starting point.
- Hover dropdowns can be fiddly, and some shoppers miss them entirely. Plain links are hard to miss.
- Removing a step between the homepage and products means fewer chances to drop off before browsing.

## Caveats

Sample size, duration and confidence level were not shared. The test dates from 2015, so menu habits and devices have changed since.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we replace our hover dropdown menu with direct links to our main product ranges, then more visitors will reach products and check out because they have fewer decisions to make before they start browsing.
- Primary metric: Completed checkouts per visitor
- Guardrail: Use of site search
- Guardrail: Product page views per session
- Guardrail: Revenue per visitor
- Who should test it: Stores with a small number of clear product lines and a deep dropdown menu. It probably won't help large catalogs where shoppers rely on sub-categories to narrow down.

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Credit: Conversion Fanatics ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/cf-ecommerce-streamlined-category-menu/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.