# Countdown timer for a Memorial Day sale: positive, figures not shared

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Site-wide (Ecommerce)
- Elements: Countdown timers
- Test run by: [UN/COMMON](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/un-common/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://www.shoplift.ai/case-studies/ursa-major
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/ursa-major-memorial-day-countdown-timer/

A countdown timer during Ursa Major's Memorial Day sale was reported as a winner, though no figures were published. The agency UN/COMMON ran the test for the skincare brand, and it was published as a Shoplift case study. The main finding was that new and returning visitors responded very differently.

## Result

**positive, figures not shared**

- Overall result: positive, according to the source. No metric or number was given.
- New and returning visitors had very different outcomes. The source does not say which group did better.
- No sample size, duration or confidence level was shared.

## Control

The Memorial Day sale ran on the site with no countdown timer.

## Variant

A countdown timer showed how long the Memorial Day sale had left.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- A timer makes a real deadline visible, which can prompt shoppers who planned to buy to do it now.
- Returning visitors may already know the products and only need a nudge on timing, while new visitors may need more reasons to trust the brand first. This is our guess; the source does not say.
- Because the deadline was genuine, the urgency was honest, which matters for a brand that guards customer trust.

## Caveats

No figures were shared, not even the metric used, so we can't judge the size of the effect. Holiday sale traffic also differs from normal traffic.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we show a countdown to the real end of our sale, then more shoppers will buy during the sale because the deadline is clear.
- Primary metric: Conversion rate during the sale
- Guardrail: Conversion rate for new vs returning visitors
- Guardrail: Average order value
- Guardrail: Conversion in the days after the sale
- Who should test it: Stores running time-limited sales with a real end date. Report new and returning visitors separately. Skip it if the deadline isn't real, since fake timers can damage trust.

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Credit: UN/COMMON ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/ursa-major-memorial-day-countdown-timer/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.