Does a strike-through price with savings lift product page sales?
The product page showed a single price with nothing to compare it to. We tested adding the list price struck through, plus the dollar amount saved. Conversion rate rose 16.1% and revenue per visitor rose 16.7% over 29 days.
Won Responsive 29 days Called at 90%
The hypothesis
By showing the list price struck through next to the sale price and the amount saved, we will make the value clearer, resulting in more shoppers buying from the product page.
A lone price gives the shopper nothing to compare it to. A higher list price with a line through it, next to the price they pay, frames the deal at a glance.
Showing the saving as a dollar amount does the math for them. Together these cues can raise perceived value and add a reason to buy now.
What we changed
We added a struck-through list price and the amount saved to the price.
In the control, the product page showed only the current price. In the variation, the list price appeared next to it with a line through it, and a short line below showed how much the shopper saved. Nothing else on the page changed.
- List price shown with a line through it
- Amount saved shown under the price
The result
Conversion rate rose 16.1% with a struck-through list price.
Over 29 days, conversion rate rose 16.1% and revenue per visitor rose 16.7% across devices. Average order value held about steady, so the gain came from more shoppers buying, not bigger orders.
We let the test run past our usual window to make sure the lift held. Early swings in revenue and order value leveled out with more time, and the conversion lift stayed in place.
What we took from it
Showing the saving made the price easier to act on.
On this page shoppers had no anchor to judge the price against. The struck-through list price and the saving gave them that anchor, and more of them bought. The saving only works if it is honest, so we recommended checking prices against competitors on a regular schedule after implementing.