Multi-tier free shipping and gift progress bar in cart: +3.2% AOV
Test run byVisuallyTesting and CRO tool
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsHuron added a multi-tier progress bar to its cart showing how close shoppers were to free shipping and free gifts, and average order value went up 3.2%.
Visually ran the test for the men's personal care brand and published it as a Visually case study.
- Average order value: +3.2%.
- Conversion rate was not reported, so we can't tell whether the bar affected how many shoppers checked out.
- Sample size, test length and statistical confidence were not shared. The tier amounts were not shared either.
The change
The cart adds a progress bar with free shipping and free gift tiers.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The cart showed the items and total, with no progress bar for rewards.
Variant
A progress bar in the cart showed reward tiers for free shipping and free gifts, encouraging shoppers to spend a little more to reach each one.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Seeing a reward just out of reach nudges shoppers to add one more item.
- Several tiers give more than one goal, so shoppers who already pass free shipping still have a reason to add more.
- Low-cost personal care items make it easy to close a small gap to the next tier.
Caveats: This comes from a testing vendor's own case study. Sample size and statistical significance were not shared. Test length and the threshold amounts were also not shared.
Who ran it
Visually ran this test for Huron and published the results (Visually case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Visually →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we show a multi-tier progress bar for free shipping and free gifts in the cart, then average order value will rise because shoppers will add items to reach the next reward.
- Primary metric
- Average order value
- Guardrails
- Conversion rate
- Profit per order after gift and shipping costs
- Cart abandonment rate
- Who should test it
- Stores with lower-priced items that are easy to add to an order, and rewards worth chasing. It probably won't help if thresholds sit far above typical order value, or if most orders already pass every tier.
Questions
Do free shipping progress bars increase order value?
They often do. Huron's multi-tier bar for free shipping and free gifts lifted average order value by 3.2%.
Is a multi-tier progress bar better than a single free shipping bar?
Huron's test compared the bar with no bar, not with a single-tier one.
Extra tiers give shoppers who already qualify for free shipping a reason to keep adding.
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