{"id":16789,"date":"2025-10-23T21:56:56","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T21:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getshogun.com\/learn\/ecommerce-ab-testing\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T22:25:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T22:25:23","slug":"ecommerce-ab-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/learn\/ecommerce-ab-testing","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Started with Ecommerce A\/B Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Behind the scenes of all those flashy product images and captivating categories, ecommerce businesses continuously work to improve their website\u2019s user experience. One of the ways they do this is A\/B testing (or split testing).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ecommerce A\/B testing works to understand consumer behavior and optimize the online shopping experience. It does so by showing two different versions of a web page to different groups of a target audience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Data shows that A\/B testing is the <\/span>second most popular<\/span><\/a> conversion rate optimization (CRO) method that companies use \u2013 which proves that there\u2019s plenty of merit to the strategy. Whether it\u2019s a change in wording or a swap in color, imagine being able to convert a much greater amount of leads just by tweaking your website design.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why A\/B Testing Is Important<\/h2>\n

The ultimate goal of ecommerce A\/B testing<\/a> is determining how your website will perform at its best. What changes could you make to improve metrics like improving average order value (AOV) or lead to more conversions? With split testing, businesses can compare two versions of a webpage or digital asset to determine that. The different versions usually consist of a current version (A) and an altered version (B). Once the altered version is successful a new variant can be created to further optimize the page.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question that online shopping is highly competitive. While customers can visit a mall and select from the stores available there, the digital ecommerce space is endless, with an estimated <\/span>24 million ecommerce sites<\/span><\/a> around the world in 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

A\/B testing lets businesses improve their overall shopping experience by understanding their customers better and then delivering exactly what they\u2019re looking for. The entire process can help you get answers to important business questions, generate more revenue from existing customers, and even provide information for future marketing strategies.<\/span><\/p>\n

With this hard data to base your decisions on, you can make changes to the design and UX of your website rooted in solid facts. Small tweaks to your checkout process, product pages, or home page can lead to a substantial increase in conversion rates, and A\/B testing can help you keep up with changes in consumer behavior and trends.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Basics of A\/B Testing<\/h2>\n

Before starting an A\/B test, there needs to be a theory based on what area of the site you think can be improved. For example, you might think changing the color of your \u2018Add to Cart\u2019 button from red to green will increase click-through rates.<\/span><\/p>\n

The golden rule of A\/B testing is to only test one thing at a time. If you change multiple things on a page at once, like fonts, headlines, colors, and images, it becomes impossible to figure out which one of these changes influenced the results \u2013 for better or for worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you stick to one change, like the color of a button in our example, you can eventually associate any increase or decrease in conversions to that specific change. It\u2019s all about understanding how things work behind the test and creating a meaningful theory.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in testing multiple variables at once, you can use an advanced version of A\/B testing called ecommerce multivariate testing. With this type of testing you\u2019re able to test multiple variables to see which combination performs the best out of all of them. While you can look into how specific elements interact with each other and influence user behavior, it\u2019ll require a larger sample size to produce accurate results.<\/span><\/p>\n

Things to Test<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s certainly no shortage of variables you can tweak, but figuring out which changes will have the biggest impact on your ecommerce site can take some time. So, what are some things you can test? Let\u2019s look at a few elements<\/a> that could bring about results.<\/span><\/p>\n