Vacation cart cut to one Checkout button: +36.5% completions
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsReplacing three equally weighted cart buttons with one main "Checkout" button raised cart completions by 36.5% for a B2C package-vacation company.
MECLABS ran the A/B test and published it on MarketingExperiments in January 2013. The extra options stayed on the page as small plus-sign add-ons inside the product details.
- Cart completions rose 36.5%.
- No sample size, test length or confidence level was shared.
- MECLABS ran it as a variable cluster test, which means button layout and option placement changed together.
The change
Three equal buttons become plus-sign add-ons and one main Checkout button
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The cart gave three options of equal weight: "View Lodging Options", "Add More Activities" and "Checkout Without Lodging". Visitors had to choose between them to move on.
Variant
The extra options were played down and moved into the product details as plus-sign links: "Add Another Activity" and "Add Lodging to Your Activities". One main "Checkout" button became the focus.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Three equal buttons made visitors stop and decide. One clear main action removes that choice.
- The old "Checkout Without Lodging" label may have made checking out feel like missing something. The new design kept lodging as an optional extra.
- Add-ons stayed on the page, so people who wanted more could still add it.
Caveats: Travel booking from around 2013, with no sample size, duration or confidence level shared. It may be related to MECLABS's separately published vacation-rental checkout test (+36%).
Who ran it
MECLABS ran this test for a B2C package-vacation company and published the results (MarketingExperiments). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on MECLABS →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we turn competing cart buttons into small add-on links and keep one main Checkout button, then more carts will complete, because visitors have one clear next step.
- Primary metric
- Cart-to-order completion rate
- Guardrails
- Add-on attach rate
- Average order value
- Return visits to the cart
- Who should test it
- Stores and booking sites whose cart offers several next steps of equal weight. If your cart already has one obvious checkout button, there is little to gain.
Questions
How many buttons should a cart page have?
One clear main action usually works best. In this test, cutting three equal choices to one main Checkout button lifted completions by 36.5%.
Will removing upsell buttons cost me add-on sales?
You don't have to remove them. Here the add-ons stayed as smaller plus-sign links, but track your attach rate when you try this.
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