More visible search bar at GANNI: +7.5% conversion rate
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsGANNI made its search bar easier to see and reported a 7.5% rise in conversion rate and a 21.9% rise in mobile search use.
The Danish fashion brand ran the tests itself, and the work was published as a VWO case study.
The figures come from several search-bar tests combined, so no single tweak gets the credit.
- Conversion rate: +7.5%. This is the combined result of the search-bar tests, not one variant.
- Mobile search engagement: +21.9%. Far more mobile shoppers used search once it was easy to find.
- No sample size, duration or confidence level was shared.
The change
The search bar gets a border, a larger icon and hint text so it stands out.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The search bar was there, but it did not stand out. GANNI found that visitors who used the original search converted noticeably worse.
Variant
Across several tests, GANNI added a border around the bar, made the magnifying-glass icon more visible, and tried a longer bar with hint text inside it.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Many fashion shoppers arrive looking for one item, and search is the fastest way to it. Hiding it slows them down.
- A border and a larger icon make the bar look like a tool you can use, not a decoration.
- Hint text inside the bar tells shoppers what they can search for, which lowers the effort to start typing.
Caveats: This is a bundle of several search-bar tests reported as one result, so the lift can't be tied to the border, the icon or the hint text alone. No sample size, duration or significance was shared.
Who ran it
GANNI ran this test for GANNI and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on GANNI →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we make the search bar more visible with a border, a bigger icon and hint text, then more shoppers will search and buy, because shoppers with a specific item in mind will find it faster.
- Primary metric
- Conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Search usage rate
- Zero-result search rate
- Revenue per visitor
- Who should test it
- Stores with large catalogs where many shoppers hunt for a specific product. Less likely to matter for stores with only a handful of products, where browsing is quicker than searching.
Questions
Does making the search bar more visible increase sales?
It can. GANNI saw conversion rise 7.5% after a set of visibility tests, though the result combined several changes.
What makes a search bar easy to find?
A visible outline, a clear magnifying-glass icon and a little hint text inside the bar.
A longer bar also helps on wider screens.
Should search be open by default on mobile?
For large catalogs it is worth testing. GANNI's mobile search use rose 21.9% once search was easier to spot.
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