Recently viewed products section: +1.0% conversion, inconclusive
Test run byClean CommitCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding a recently viewed products section for returning visitors raised conversion rate by just 1.0%, too small to call, so the result is inconclusive.
Clean Commit ran this test for an anonymized Shopify store and published it in its A/B test library.
Shoppers browsed more, but add-to-cart rate did not move.
- Conversion rate: +1.0%, with a 71.2% probability of beating the original. Within normal variation.
- Revenue per visitor: +1.7%, also too small to call.
- Click-through rate: +4.9%, and bounce rate fell 5.7%, so more visitors kept browsing.
- Add-to-cart rate: -0.1%, flat. More browsing did not lead to more items in the cart.
The change
The variant adds a recently viewed section for returning visitors.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Product pages with no recently viewed section.
Variant
Returning visitors saw a recently viewed section listing three to six products they had browsed before. Visitors with no browsing history did not see it.
Why it likely came out this way
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Returning shoppers may already find past products easily through search, menus or their browser history.
- The section helps shoppers revisit items, but it does not give them a new reason to buy.
- The section only showed for returning visitors with history, so most traffic may have been unaffected.
Caveats: The test ran on 97,250 visitors over 35 days and still could not detect a clear effect on sales.
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 returning visitors their recently viewed products, then conversion rate will rise because picking up where they left off takes less effort.
- Primary metric
- Conversion rate among returning visitors
- Guardrails
- Add-to-cart rate
- Revenue per visitor
- Page load speed
- Who should test it
- Stores with large catalogs and many returning visitors who compare products over several visits. Stores with small catalogs probably will not see much change.
Questions
Do recently viewed product sections increase conversions?
In this test, not by a measurable amount.
They kept visitors browsing, but sales barely moved.
Who should see a recently viewed section?
Only returning visitors with browsing history, as in this test. New visitors have nothing to show.
Is a flat result a waste of a test?
No. It shows the feature is unlikely to be a big lever, so you can focus on other ideas.
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