Insight

Hidden Mobile Search Required an Extra Tap

Fame on Central’s mobile header kept site search behind a magnifying-glass icon. This made a high-intent product-discovery route less visible across the mobile store and required shoppers to take an extra step before entering a query. Search should be easy to find at the point where visitors want to narrow the product range. Blend’s analysis therefore recommended exposing the field consistently across the mobile experience. The implementation needed to work with the transparent homepage header and the sticky header state, where positioning and contrast could affect usability. Making the field visible gave shoppers a clearer invitation to search while leaving the rest of the mobile journey unchanged. The recommendation aligned with our approach to site search as a main navigation route.

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A/B Test

Exposed Search Bar Across the Mobile Site

We ran an A/B test through Intelligems across Fame on Central’s mobile site. The control retained the existing search icon. The variant replaced it with a consistently visible search bar and hid the original icon. We hypothesised that reducing the effort required to start a search would help shoppers reach relevant products sooner and improve conversion. The test’s primary KPI was conversion rate, with product discovery and checkout behaviour monitored as supporting measures. This implementation followed Blend’s Shopify CRO process for developing, quality-checking and monitoring a focused hypothesis.

The Results

After one week, the exposed search bar increased conversion rate by 19.62%, revenue per visitor by 31.30%, view-product-page rate by 1.31% and checkout-begin rate by 10.50%. View-collection-page rate fell by 1.80%, which may indicate that more visitors used search to bypass broader collection browsing and reach products directly. At approximately 97% statistical significance, the result strongly favoured the variant, although the test ran for less than Blend’s preferred two-week window for capturing weekday and weekend behaviour. The pattern suggests that search visibility removed a meaningful step from the mobile journey without weakening downstream intent. Fame on Central paused the experiment after the result was shared, so the evidence supports rollout rather than proving long-term post-launch performance. A useful follow-up would compare search engagement, query quality and product-find rates by new and returning visitors after permanent implementation, then test placeholder copy or predictive results within the exposed field.

  • 31.30%

    increase in revenue per visitor

  • 19.62%

    increase in conversion rate

  • 10.50%

    increase in checkout-begin rate
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