Card logos shown at checkout: 5% of orders moved off high-fee methods
Test run byOptimizelyTesting and CRO tool
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsShowing accepted credit card logos prominently at checkout shifted 5% of purchases away from high-fee payment providers.
Optimizely ran this test for an online retailer and published it as an Optimizely Field Notes use case.
The win was a lower cost of payment, not a reported conversion lift.
- 5% of purchases shifted away from high-fee payment providers. That cuts processing costs on every order that moved.
- Optimizely credits the test with about $2.7M in incremental revenue. It does not explain how that figure was calculated.
- The effect on conversion rate was not stated, so treat this as a margin win, not a sales lift.
The change
The variant adds prominent accepted card logos at payment.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The checkout did not make it obvious which card brands the store accepted.
Variant
The checkout showed accepted credit card logos in a prominent spot near payment.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Some shoppers may pick an alternative wallet only because they are unsure their card works. Seeing the logo removes that doubt.
- Card logos act as a familiar signal of what is accepted, so shoppers choose the default card option more often.
- Small cost savings add up because they apply to a share of every order.
Caveats: Vendor-reported and anonymized, with no sample size, duration or confidence level shared. The conversion impact was not stated.
Who ran it
Optimizely ran this test for an online 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 accepted card logos prominently at checkout, then more shoppers will pay by card instead of high-fee methods because they can see their card is accepted.
- Primary metric
- Share of orders paid with lower-fee payment methods
- Guardrails
- Checkout conversion rate
- Average order value
- Payment errors or declines
- Who should test it
- Stores that offer several payment methods with very different fees, such as cards next to buy-now-pay-later or wallets. If you offer one payment method, or fees are similar, there is little to gain.
Questions
Do payment icons at checkout increase conversions?
They can reassure shoppers, but this test did not report a conversion change.
Its measured benefit was a shift toward cheaper payment methods.
Where should card logos go at checkout?
Put them next to the payment step, where shoppers decide how to pay.
That is where doubt about accepted cards matters most.
How can a store lower payment processing fees?
Make the cheaper payment options easy to see and choose.
Then measure the payment mix, not just conversion rate.
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