Compact horizontal product boxes on mobile: 36.81% to 43.03% CVR
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsSwitching mobile category pages to compact, horizontal product boxes raised the product click conversion rate from 36.81% to 43.03%, at a reported 100% confidence.
Wingify Services ran this 46-day test for GRENE, a Polish agricultural supplies retailer, and it was published as a VWO case study.
Visits to the cart and to the thank-you page each rose about 10%.
- Conversion rate: 36.81% for the control vs 43.03% for the variant, at a reported 100% confidence.
- Clicks on product boxes: +15.5% (178 more clicks).
- Click-through to the cart page: +10%.
- Visits to the thank-you page: +10%.
The change
Large product boxes became compact horizontal rows with a cart icon.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Large product boxes filled most of the mobile screen. Shoppers had to scroll a long way to find what they wanted.
Variant
Each product box was made smaller, in a horizontal layout. The buy button was also replaced with a red-ringed cart icon that turned green once the item was added.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- More products fit on each screen, so shoppers saw more options with less scrolling.
- A smaller box makes it quicker to scan names and prices across a large range.
- The cart icon that turned green gave clear feedback that the item was added.
Caveats: The variant changed both the box layout and the add-to-cart button, so the lift can't be pinned on layout alone. The test ran in 2019 and the result is vendor-reported, with no sample size shared.
Who ran it
VWO ran this test for GRENE 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 VWO →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we shrink mobile product boxes into a compact horizontal layout, then more shoppers will click products and buy because they can scan more of the range with less scrolling.
- Primary metric
- Mobile ecommerce conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Product box click-through rate
- Add to cart rate from listings
- Average order value
- Who should test it
- Stores with large mobile categories where shoppers know roughly what they want, like parts, tools or supplies. Fashion or other image-led stores may lose more from smaller photos than they gain.
Questions
Should mobile product listings use a list or a grid layout?
In GRENE's test, a compact horizontal list beat large boxes.
It suited a catalog of parts and supplies where shoppers scan names and prices.
How many products should show per mobile screen?
There is no fixed number, but the large boxes GRENE started with forced long scrolling.
Fitting more products per screen was the main goal of this change.
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