Do homepage trust signals and customer favorites lift sales?

Our homepage gave new visitors little proof of quality before they reached the products. We tested adding quality signals and a customer favorites section that led into the collections. Over 16 days, conversion fell 5.7%, while revenue per visitor held about even.

Lost Responsive 16 days Called at 90%

SURFACE

Homepage

DEVICE

Responsive

VERTICAL

Ecommerce (B2C)

PRIMARY METRIC

Conversion rate

VARIATIONS

1

The hypothesis

By showing trust signals on the homepage, we will help shoppers trust the products and explore more options, resulting in more add to carts and sales.

New visitors arrive on the homepage with little reason yet to trust the products. Quality signals and a set of customer favorites give them proof that others buy and like what they see, plus a natural path into the collections.

What we changed

Quality signals and a customer favorites section added to the homepage

Var A added quality signals lower on the homepage, sized to support the page without taking it over. It also added an "Our Customer Favorites" section to lead shoppers into the collections. The new sections pushed the products further down the page.

VAR A: TRUST SIGNALS

Quality signals added lower on the page
Signals sized to support, not overwhelm
"Our Customer Favorites" section added
Products pushed further down the page

The result

Conversion fell 5.7% with the added trust sections

CONVERSION RATE

-5.7%

REVENUE PER VISITOR

-0.6%

Over 16 days, the version with trust signals converted 5.7% worse than the original. Revenue per visitor was nearly flat, down 0.6%. Results were down across all devices, and the loss cleared our confidence bar, so we paused the test.

What we took from it

Users preferred the original homepage with products higher up

The new sections moved products further down the page. Shoppers who came ready to buy had to scroll past more content to reach them, which may have caused some confusion. Revenue held about even, so the shoppers who did buy spent a little more per order.