# Sale price set smaller than the original price: +3.0% conversion

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Product page (Ecommerce)
- Elements: Pricing, discounts & savings display
- Test run by: [Clean Commit](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/clean-commit/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://cleancommit.io/ab-tests/sale-price-shown-smaller-than-the-original-price/
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/cleancommit-sale-price-shown-smaller-than-the-original-price/

Setting the sale price in smaller type than the struck-through original price lifted conversion rate 3.0% and revenue per visitor 7.3%. Clean Commit ran this 33-day test for an anonymized Shopify store and published it in its A/B test library. The signal is modest: the variant had only a 68.2% probability of beating the original.

## Result

**+3.0% conversion**

- Conversion rate: +3.0%, with a 68.2% probability of beating the original. That is a weak signal.
- Revenue per visitor: +7.3%, helped by a 4.2% rise in average order value.
- Orders: +1.6%.
- Flag: add-to-cart rate fell 5.0%, so the styling did not bring more shoppers to the cart.
- Desktop moved most, with revenue per visitor up 20.1% on 4,512 desktop visitors.

## Control

Product pages and product cards showed the sale price in normal or larger type next to the struck-through original.

## Variant

The sale price appeared in a smaller font than the struck-through original, on both product pages and product cards.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- Pricing research suggests people judge a number shown in smaller type to be lower. That may make the discount feel bigger.
- A larger original price draws the eye to the reference point and makes the saving clearer.
- The fall in add-to-cart suggests the effect is not simple. Some shoppers may have read the smaller price as less clear.
- With a 68.2% probability, part or all of the lift could be noise.

## Caveats

A modest signal after 33 days, with add-to-cart down 5.0%. Total sample size was not shared, and the results are reported by the agency that ran the test.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we show the sale price in smaller type than the original price, then conversion on sale items will rise because the smaller number feels lower.
- Primary metric: Conversion rate on sale items
- Guardrail: Add-to-cart rate
- Guardrail: Average order value
- Who should test it: Stores that run frequent markdowns and show compare-at prices. It does not apply if you rarely discount, and very small sale prices can hurt readability on mobile.

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Credit: Clean Commit ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/cleancommit-sale-price-shown-smaller-than-the-original-price/).
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.