'Exclusive Offers' tab moved first in menu: +10% transactions
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsMoving the 'Exclusive Offers' tab ahead of 'New Products' in the YSL Beauty homepage menu lifted transactions by 10%.
AB Tasty's consulting team proposed and ran the A/B test, which was published as a VWO case study.
It ran for a month on more than 150,000 visitors.
- Transactions: +10%. The main result, from one tab swap.
- Visits to the basket page: +9%.
- Visits to the checkout page: +13%.
- The team sent all traffic to the winner and built it into the site.
The change
The 'Exclusive Offers' and 'New Products' menu tabs swap places.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The homepage menu bar showed the 'New Products' tab before the 'Exclusive Offers' tab.
Variant
The two tabs swapped places. 'Exclusive Offers', which led to current offers and gifts with purchase, came first.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Luxury shoppers may respond well to the idea of exclusive treatment and gifts, more than to newness.
- Putting offers first gave shoppers a reason to buy now, which carried through to basket and checkout.
- The first tab in a menu gets the most attention, so its content shapes where many visitors go next.
Caveats: The test ran for one month on over 150,000 visitors, but no confidence level was shared. The idea came from the testing vendor's consulting team, which also reported the result.
Who ran it
AB Tasty ran this test for YSL Beauty 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 AB Tasty →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we put the offers tab before the new products tab in the main menu, then transactions will rise, because shoppers see a reason to buy now as soon as they look at the menu.
- Primary metric
- Transactions per visitor
- Guardrails
- Average order value
- Share of orders using an offer
- Clicks on new product pages
- Who should test it
- Brands that run gifts with purchase or exclusive offers alongside new launches. If your margin depends on full-price sales of new items, watch discount use closely, as this can shift buyers toward offers.
Questions
Does the order of menu items affect sales?
It can. Items placed first get more attention.
YSL Beauty saw 10% more transactions just by putting its offers tab ahead of new products.
Should a luxury brand promote offers?
Gifts with purchase and exclusive offers fit a luxury brand better than plain discounts.
In this test they drove more sales than new launches did.
How long should a navigation test run?
Run it for at least one or two full weeks, and longer if traffic is low.
YSL Beauty ran this one for a month on over 150,000 visitors.
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