Does a stronger delivery countdown lift desktop checkout conversion?

Our desktop checkout showed the delivery date and order timer in the header. We tested moving them into the page with a stronger countdown. Over 35 days, conversion fell 0.5%, short of our confidence bar.

Not significant Desktop 35 days Not called

SURFACE

Checkout

DEVICE

Desktop

VERTICAL

Ecommerce (B2C)

PRIMARY METRIC

Conversion rate

VARIATIONS

1

The hypothesis

By moving the delivery date and order timer into the page with a stronger countdown, we will add urgency, resulting in more visitors completing their registration.

A delivery date tied to a deadline gives visitors a reason to finish now. In the header, the date and timer were easy to miss, so we moved them to where visitors were looking and made the countdown more visible.

What we changed

Delivery date and timer moved from the header into the page

Var A moved the delivery date and order timer out of the header and into the body of the page. After 15 seconds, the timer dropped by 1 minute and flashed its colors for 1 second. It repeated this every 60 seconds.

VAR A: URGENCY

Delivery date moved into the page
Order timer moved into the page
Timer drops 1 minute and flashes each minute

The result

Conversion fell 0.5% with the countdown, short of our confidence bar

CONVERSION RATE

-0.5%

The countdown looked very strong in its first 2 weeks, then evened out. We ran it for 35 days to cover a full month, since visitor intent shifts between the start and end of the month. By the end, it converted 0.5% worse than the original, too small a gap to call.

What we would do next

Try urgency in a form visitors do not tune out

The early lift faded with time. Visitors may have learned to ignore the countdown, much as they ignore a banner. A next test would try urgency in a different form rather than a timer.