Trust bar under the buttons on handbag pages: -10.2% RPV
Test run byConvertiblesCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding a three-icon trust bar under the add-to-cart buttons cut revenue per visitor by 10.2% on a premium handbag brand's product pages.
Convertibles ran this test and stopped it after 19 days without shipping either version.
A second version that paired the same bar with a rating score, larger price and image swatches came in at -3.4%.
- Trust bar only: revenue per visitor down 10.2% (516 orders vs 547 for control). A loss.
- Trust bar plus buy box changes: down 3.4% (533 orders), close to flat.
- At the midpoint, order value was within 1% of control, so the drop seemed to come from fewer buyers.
- Nothing shipped. The agency plans to retest the buy box changes without the bar.
The change
A three-claim trust bar added under the buttons (trust-bar-only version).
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The brand's existing handbag product page, with no trust bar under the buttons.
Variant
A trust bar right under the buttons with three claims: where the bags are designed, 14-day returns and exchanges, and a long repair promise. A second version also added a rating score, a bigger price and image tiles for colours.
Why it likely lost
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- On an expensive bag, a 14-day return window may read as a limit and raise doubt right before paying.
- Extra lines near the button give shoppers more to read at the moment of decision.
- The rating, bigger price and image tiles looked helpful, since that version recovered most of the loss.
- The test can't show which claim did the damage, because the bar was tested as a whole.
Caveats: The test ran 19 days with roughly 516 to 547 orders per arm, under the agency's 1,000-order target. The buy box changes never ran without the trust bar.
Who ran it
Convertibles ran this test for a premium handbag brand and published the results (Convertibles case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Convertibles →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we add a trust bar with only our strongest promises under the add-to-cart button, then more shoppers will buy because their main doubts are answered at the button.
- Primary metric
- Revenue per visitor
- Guardrails
- Conversion rate
- Average order value
- Mobile conversion rate
- Who should test it
- High-ticket stores thinking about adding a trust bar. Test each claim before rolling it out, and leave out anything that sounds like a limit, such as a short return window.
Questions
Do trust bars increase conversions?
Not always. In this test a three-claim trust bar under the button lowered revenue per visitor by 10.2%.
Why would a trust badge hurt sales?
Each claim reads as a promise. A weak one, like a short return window on a pricey item, may add doubt instead of removing it.
What should a trust bar say?
Only claims that are clearly strong for your price point.
Then test the bar against no bar before keeping it.
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