Competitor prices above Add to Basket: no clear result, leaned worse
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsShowing competitors' higher prices above the Add to Basket button did not produce a clear result: both add-to-basket clicks and sales came in lower than the original, but the gap was not statistically significant.
Paperstone, a UK office supplies retailer, ran this test itself, and it was published as a VWO case study.
The team used what it learned to design a second version that put the comparison below the button.
- Add to basket: lower than the original, but not statistically significant. We count it as inconclusive.
- Sales conversions: also lower than the original, also not significant.
- Over 12,000 unique visitors, split 50/50. Exact percentages were not shared.
The change
Competitor prices inserted above Add to Basket, pushing the button down
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Product pages showed only Paperstone's own price above the Add to Basket button.
Variant
Competitors' higher prices were shown on the 5,000 product pages that had competitor price data. The new block sat above the button and pushed Add to Basket further down the page.
Why it likely came out this way
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Pushing the Add to Basket button down the page may have made the main action harder to find.
- Naming competitors could remind shoppers to go and check those sites, especially where the price gap was small.
- A plain list of other prices may have looked like an ad and been skipped.
Caveats: The result was inconclusive and leaned negative, so treat it as a warning sign rather than proof. Only visitors to the 5,000 product pages (out of 18,000) with competitor data were included, and test length was not shared.
Who ran it
Paperstone ran this test for Paperstone 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 Paperstone →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we show competitors' higher prices on product pages, then more visitors will add to basket because they can see we are cheaper without leaving to compare.
- Primary metric
- Add-to-basket rate on pages with competitor data
- Guardrails
- Sales conversion rate
- Exit rate from product pages
- Position of the Add to Basket button on screen
- Who should test it
- Retailers that compete mainly on price against well-known rivals and have reliable competitor data. Keep the main button where it was; this version suggests moving it down can hurt.
Questions
Should I show competitor prices on my product pages?
It can work if you are clearly cheaper, but it carries risk.
In this first Paperstone test, both clicks and sales dipped slightly, though not significantly.
Does showing competitor prices send shoppers to competitors?
It might. Paperstone's team worried about exactly that, especially where shoppers did not know a rival sold the item or the gap was small.
What did Paperstone change in the retest?
They moved the comparison below Add to Basket, put their own price next to the rivals' prices, highlighted the saving and gave the box a more formal look.
Similar tests
@oliverkenyon@oliverkenyon@oliverkenyon@oliverkenyon@oliverkenyon
@DaveDiederen