Premium Travel Equipment Brand Shopify CRO Case Study: Results After 3 Months

The Approach

We began by translating the CRO audit findings into a prioritised testing and implementation roadmap.

Rather than treating each recommendation as an isolated usability improvement, we organised the programme around the customer journey. The first priorities addressed the areas with the greatest combination of commercial impact, customer reach and supporting evidence:

• Mobile navigation and category discovery
• Product-page actionability
• Value communication at the purchase decision
• Device-specific payment friction
• Collection refinement and access to high-intent actions

This sequencing allowed our team to address the most important PDP-to-cart and mobile-discovery constraints first, while preparing further work around search, personalisation, product recommendations and cart optimisation.

What The Data Revealed

The audit showed that the brand did not have an intent problem. A substantial proportion of visitors were already reaching product pages, and certain customer groups demonstrated strong buying behaviour.

The friction appeared when customers needed to navigate the range, assess premium product value or take the next buying action.

Several findings shaped the roadmap:

• Mobile represented 76% of traffic but materially underperformed desktop.
• More than 55% of visitors entered through a product page.
• The largest product-page drop occurred around Add to Cart.
• New visitors accounted for 77.6% of traffic.
• Search users converted 120% above the site average, despite search being used by only 1% of visitors.
• Returning visitors generated 52.7% of revenue from 22% of traffic.

Together, these findings suggested that improving discovery and decision confidence could have a greater commercial effect than simply increasing traffic or applying generic ecommerce conventions.

Making Product Discovery Easier on Mobile

Mobile visitors needed to move through a technically detailed product range without relying on repeated scrolling, backtracking or hidden navigation controls.

We addressed this through a connected group of mobile discovery improvements rather than one standalone change.

Testing a Redesigned Mobile Category Menu

The existing mobile menu did not make the full category structure sufficiently easy to scan. We tested a redesigned category menu intended to help customers enter relevant collections and understand the available product range more quickly.

During the test period, the redesigned menu produced:

• 4% higher Checkout Begin Rate
• 3% higher Average Order Value
• 1% higher Revenue per Visitor
• 1% higher Collection Page View Rate
• 2% lower Conversion Rate

The test did not reach statistical significance, so it was not treated as a definitive conversion win. However, the pattern indicated stronger downstream intent and higher basket value among customers using the revised navigation.

This was an important learning. Navigation changes do not always improve every metric simultaneously. In this case, the results suggested that clearer category access may have improved the quality of shopping journeys, even though it did not increase the overall proportion of visitors converting during the test.

Following the test, the redesigned menu was rolled out permanently.

Keeping Collection Controls Within Reach

On collection pages, filter and sorting controls were positioned at the top of the page. Once mobile customers began browsing, reaching those tools again required them to scroll back through the collection.

We implemented sticky filter and sorting controls so customers could refine the range while they browsed.

This change was implemented to remove repeated friction from the discovery process and shorten the route between entering a collection and finding a relevant product.

Preserving Access to Navigation, Search and Cart

The menu, search and cart icons also disappeared as mobile customers scrolled.

We updated the mobile navigation so these actions remained accessible throughout the browsing journey. This gave customers a consistent way to change direction, use search or return to their cart without losing their position on the page.

It was a relatively small interaction change, but one that affected the highest-volume device segment across the store.

Keeping the Purchase Action Within Reach

Product pages carried significant responsibility within the journey. More than half of visitors landed directly on a PDP, but Add to Cart represented the largest point of friction.

Long-form product information could also move the primary purchase button out of view while customers compared specifications, reviewed product details or considered use cases.

We implemented a sticky Add to Cart experience that kept the purchase action visible as customers moved through the page. Supporting accessibility and quality-store controls were repositioned to ensure the sticky element did not obstruct other functionality.

The change addressed the PDP bottleneck directly. Customers no longer needed to locate or scroll back to the original purchase area once they had reached a decision.

This mattered particularly for premium travel products, where customers may spend longer assessing features before committing. The implementation preserved purchase momentum without relying on pricing incentives or discounting.

Building Confidence at the Decision Point

Most visitors were new to the store, yet important trust and value messages were positioned primarily in the footer.

That meant customers considering a premium product could reach the Add to Cart area without seeing the reassurance most relevant to their decision.

Testing Key Value Propositions Below Add to Cart

We tested placing key value propositions directly beneath the Add to Cart button.

The hypothesis was that presenting reassurance at the point of purchase would help new and higher-consideration customers progress with greater confidence.

The variant produced:

• 2% higher Revenue per Visitor
• 2% higher Average Order Value
• 2% higher Checkout Begin Rate
• No change in Conversion Rate
• 1% lower Add to Cart Rate

The result did not reach statistical significance at a weekly level, so the movements were treated as directional.

What made the test useful was the relationship between the metrics. The additional reassurance did not persuade more people to add a product to their cart, but customers exposed to it appeared more likely to move towards checkout with a higher-value basket.

This suggested that decision-point messaging was influencing the quality and confidence of progression rather than simply generating more clicks. Following the test, the revised value-proposition placement was rolled out permanently.

Adapting Payment Choices by Device

The audit also raised questions about how express checkout and standard payment options were presented on product pages.

Rather than assuming one payment hierarchy would work universally, we tested alternative presentations and evaluated mobile and desktop behaviour separately.

Testing Express Checkout Against Other Payment Options

Two payment variants were compared with the original product-page experience.

At an aggregate level, the test variants underperformed the control. The device breakdown, however, revealed an important difference.

Mobile Variant B produced:

• 1% higher Conversion Rate
• 2% higher Revenue per Visitor
• 1% higher Average Order Value
• 1% lower Add to Cart Rate
• 4% lower Checkout Begin Rate

The same direction of change was not seen on desktop. Both desktop variants declined across most of the measured outcomes.

The strongest decision was therefore not to replace the payment experience across the entire store. Variant B was rolled out on mobile, where it produced a positive commercial response, while desktop retained the original experience.

This is an important part of evidence-led CRO. A broadly applied “best practice” could have weakened desktop performance. Segmenting the results allowed the team to retain what worked for one audience while introducing the alternative only where the evidence supported it.

Extending the CRO Roadmap

The three-month programme also established the foundation for further work around underused or commercially valuable pathways.

Additional initiatives included:

• Improving homepage subcategory access
• Showing recently viewed products to returning visitors
• Expanding product recommendation modules
• Developing a more persuasive smart-cart experience

The audit also identified a clear opportunity to expose search more prominently on mobile. Search users converted 120% above the store average, despite only 1% of visitors using the feature. A mobile search-bar test has therefore been prepared and placed in the A/B testing queue, but was not yet live during the case study period.

Together, these initiatives extend the same strategic direction: making it easier for customers to discover relevant products, resume consideration and build higher-value baskets.