Second photo moved to first in gallery: RPV £3.32 to £3.60
Test run byElevate A/B TestingElevate
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsElevate A/B Testing ran this test for The Cornish Company, swapping the first and second photos in one product gallery, and revenue per visitor rose from £3.32 to £3.60. The test ran ten days on 9,913 visitors. No new photos were shot and nothing else on the page changed.
- Revenue per visitor: £3.32 to £3.60, about 8% higher.
- Conversion rate: 11.66% to 12.61%, so more visitors bought.
- Add-to-cart rate: 18.2% to 18.9%, a smaller gain than the lift in orders.
- Orders: 580 to 617. Revenue was £16,490.50 against £17,276.40, about £785 more in ten days.
The change
Only the gallery order changed: photo two became the lead image.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The product page for a food hamper opened its gallery on the original lead photo.
Variant
The photo that used to sit second in the gallery became the first image shoppers saw. Everything else stayed the same.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- the new lead image may show the hamper's contents or value more clearly at first glance.
- many shoppers never swipe past the first photo, so whatever sits there does most of the selling.
- the larger gain in orders than in add-to-cart suggests the image may have set better expectations, so fewer carts were abandoned.
Caveats: Ten days on a single product page with under 10,000 visitors, and no confidence interval was shared. The post does not describe what either photo showed.
Who ran it
Elevate A/B Testing (@elevate_ab) shared this test on X. The numbers and screenshots are theirs.
View the original post on X
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we lead the gallery with the photo that best shows what the buyer gets, then revenue per visitor will rise because shoppers understand the product before they scroll.
- Primary metric
- Revenue per visitor
- Guardrails
- Add-to-cart rate
- Return or refund rate
- Average order value
- Who should test it
- Any store where the current lead image is a styled or lifestyle shot and a clearer contents or in-use shot sits further down. It matters less on pages where most visitors swipe the whole gallery.
Questions
Does the order of product photos affect conversion?
In this test it did. Swapping the first two photos lifted conversion from 11.66% to 12.61% with no other change.
Which photo should be first in a product gallery?
This test does not say which kind of photo won. It shows the lead slot is worth testing with photos you already have.
How long should a gallery order test run?
This one ran ten days on 9,913 visitors. Smaller stores may need longer to separate a real lift from noise.
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