Head-to-toe outfits carousel on homepage: -6.07% add to cart
Test run byOptimizelyTesting and CRO tool
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsA homepage carousel showing head-to-toe outfits across many categories cut add to cart by 6.07% and click-through by 10.4%.
Optimizely ran this test for an apparel retailer and published it as an Optimizely Field Notes use case.
Showing more variety made the homepage perform worse, not better.
- -6.07% add to cart. This was a loss.
- -10.4% click-through. Fewer visitors moved from the homepage into products.
- The variant also lowered the product page view rate across the site.
The change
The variant leads with a broad full-outfits carousel.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The standard homepage, with more focused merchandising.
Variant
A homepage carousel promoted a wide range of items across categories, styled as full head-to-toe outfits.
Why it likely lost
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Too many items across too many categories may have overwhelmed visitors.
- An outfit shows several products at once, so there is no clear single item to click.
- Visitors arriving for one type of item may not have seen it featured.
Caveats: Vendor-reported and anonymized, with no sample size, duration or confidence level shared.
Who ran it
Optimizely ran this test for an apparel retailer (Optimizely customer) and published the results (Optimizely Field Notes use case). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Optimizely →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we show full outfits across categories on the homepage, then shoppers will discover more products because they see how items go together.
- Primary metric
- Add-to-cart rate
- Guardrails
- Click-through to product pages
- Product page view rate
- Revenue per visitor
- Who should test it
- Apparel stores that want to sell complete looks. This test suggests a broad homepage carousel can backfire, so try outfits on product pages or a dedicated looks page instead.
Questions
Do homepage carousels hurt conversions?
They can, especially when they try to show too much.
Here a broad outfits carousel lowered both clicks and add to cart.
Should clothing stores show complete outfits?
Outfits can help on product pages, where shoppers already have an item in mind.
On the homepage, this test found focus worked better than breadth.
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