# Square product cards on collection pages: -5.6% conversion rate

- Outcome: Lost
- Page type: Collection page (Ecommerce)
- Elements: Product cards & quick add, Bestseller badges & product labels
- 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/square-product-cards-on-collection-pages/
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/cleancommit-square-product-cards-on-collection-pages/

Redesigning collection page product cards into a cleaner square layout, with one card per row on mobile, cut conversion rate 5.6%. Clean Commit ran this test for an anonymized Shopify store and published it in its A/B test library. The loss was statistically significant and came mostly from mobile, so the original cards stayed.

## Result

**-5.6% conversion rate**

- Conversion rate: -5.6%. Negative and significant, with a 98.2% probability that the original performs better.
- Orders: -6.5%, so fewer shoppers bought at all.
- Revenue per visitor: -2.6%. Average order value rose 3.2%, which softened the drop.
- Mobile drove the loss, with conversion rate down 7.4%. Desktop barely moved at -0.8%.

## Control

The original product cards on collection pages, shown two per row on mobile.

## Variant

Cleaner square cards with redesigned badges, a hint that color options scroll, and more room for pricing. Mobile showed one card per row instead of two.

## Why it likely lost (our reading)

- One card per row on mobile halves how many products a shopper sees per screen, so browsing takes more scrolling.
- Fewer products in view makes it harder to compare options side by side, which can stall a purchase.
- Several card changes shipped together, so the mobile layout switch is our best guess at the cause, not a proven one.

## Caveats

The redesign bundled five card changes in one variant, so the result can't be pinned on one of them. The test ran 32 days on 67,334 visitors.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we make collection cards larger and cleaner, with one card per row on mobile, then conversion will rise because products are easier to judge.
- Primary metric: Conversion rate, split by device
- Guardrail: Orders per visitor
- Guardrail: Revenue per visitor
- Guardrail: Product page click-through from collections
- Who should test it: Stores with large catalogs that are weighing a card redesign. Test the mobile grid density on its own; this result suggests two per row is a safer default for browsing-heavy shoppers.

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Credit: Clean Commit ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/cleancommit-square-product-cards-on-collection-pages/).
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.
