It would be terrible to launch your website only to discover hours (or minutes) later that something is wrong. Maybe there’s a glitch in your pricing or a huge typo in one of your product descriptions. The best way to prevent such a headache? Conduct a thorough round of e-commerce website testing.
E-commerce website testing includes functional testing, security testing, performance testing, database testing, usability testing, and mobile app testing. For more on these types of testing, check out this article.
One of the simplest types of e-commerce website testing that can help ensure your site is attractive, clean, and compelling before the world sees it is A/B testing, also known as split testing.
What is A/B testing?
A/B testing helps e-sellers pinpoint which elements of their website drive customers to act.
A/B testing is something you can and should do throughout the life of your website to improve not only your homepage, but also individual aspects of your product listings, your shopping cart layout, and more.
A traditional split test directs part of your website traffic to one version of a web page and the other part to a different version of that page. By doing this, you can compare how website visitors in each group behave on each page.
If your conversion rate isn’t high, if visitors are consistently ditching their shopping carts on your site, or you have average or poor returns on your ad spending, A/B testing can help you figure out why.
The pluses and minuses of traditional A/B testing
Shogun, Convert, and Dynamic Yield are some of the top e-commerce website testing tools that can help you run an A/B test.
As live testing tools, they split traffic between two or more versions of a live web page and record data on which version earned the most conversions.
Another option is to run manual split tests by posting one version of your homepage for one week and recording the data, then switching to the variant the next week. But this is tedious and time-consuming.
Whether you use manual tests or a software program, you’ll have to run tests for two or more weeks. That’s how long it takes to get conclusive data with a traditional A/B test.
If you are just starting out, live split testing won’t help you much because your website has to have a lot of traffic in order to test.
And if you use ads on Google or Facebook to drive traffic, the cost of split testing can get expensive.
How to use PickFu for e-commerce website testing and A/B tests
For anyone who doesn’t yet get a ton of traffic on their e-commerce website — or who simply wants to get results in minutes or hours, not weeks — split testing on PickFu is an excellent option.
It’s also much easier than traditional A/B testing.
PickFu matches you with U.S.-based audiences who share valuable feedback on core aspects of your e-commerce website.
Pose a question to your audience, something along the lines of “Which product title do you like better?” or “Which logo is more compelling to you?” Respondents vote for which option they like best. That’s not all: they also give you written feedback explaining their vote.
PickFu is ideal for A/B testing. For other types of e-commerce website testing such as usability or security testing, you should use a focused tool or program.
The differences between PickFu and traditional A/B testing
While you can change several elements on your e-commerce website to conduct a live A/B test, you can’t direct customers to a single aspect in order to see how they react.
With PickFu, you can.
Another difference is that PickFu doesn’t use your actual website data in order to run a test. That means you don’t risk losing sales or website security by running third-party software on your site that directs half your traffic for several weeks to a potential dud of a product listing.
You get feedback from customers in a PickFu poll that you wouldn’t get from a traditional A/B test.
And PickFu is a lot easier to use. You can set up a poll within minutes and receive feedback in as little as 15 minutes.
To run an e-commerce website test on PickFu, simply choose two (or more) aspects of your website to test, upload images or copy and paste text, select your audience, and post the poll.
While you don’t poll your live audience on PickFu as you would in a traditional A/B test, you can target a pool of respondents based on various demographics, including age, occupation, ethnicity, income, number of kids, sexual orientation, pet ownership, and much more.
A PickFu e-commerce website success story
Steve Chou, who runs the e-commerce site Bumblebee Linens, knows firsthand the limitations of traditional A/B testing. That’s why he decided to try PickFu.
In his first PickFu poll, Chou asked respondents which of these two product photos they found most appealing:
After 20 minutes, respondents chose a clear winner: Option B. Chou featured the winning photo from the PickFu poll on his site, and sales of that listing increased by 209%.
If you go to Bumblebee Linens’ site now, you’ll see flowers laid next to linens in many of the product photos — just like the winning photo from Chou’s PickFu poll.
What to test on your e-commerce website
Here are some of the most important things to test on your e-commerce website using PickFu.
Hero image and headline
The hero image is the banner at the top of your website. As its name sugges
Hero images typically feature authors/founders, products, contextual images relevant to your brand, or non-contextual imagery such as illustrations.
Use PickFu to test different hero images and headlines before creating your website. Or, test your existing hero against a newer or different version to see which one respondents like better.
Photos
It’s worth taking more than one product photo for each of your listings and testing several against each other on PickFu. You never know which one your customers will adore.
In this PickFu poll, Option A features a woman lying on a unicorn pool float against a white backdrop. In Option B, she’s sitting on the float in the water.
The change in setting made all the difference.
“I chose [Option] B because it actually shows the float in the water so it helps me understand more what it’s for,” one respondent wrote.
“Option B, because without the pool and water in the background the photo just looks silly and bizarre,” added another.
Before you post, split test those product photos on PickFu for higher conversions and sales on your e-commerce website.
Product description copy
It’s surprisingly difficult to write a compelling description for a product. PickFu can help you make sure your product descriptions are clear, error-free, and intriguing.
UI elements: shopping cart, checkout, login, order tracking
With an open-ended PickFu poll, you can test certain aspects of your website’s user-friendliness. Ask users what they think of the layout, landing page, shopping cart, and more.
In the poll above, most users liked this landing page. Their feedback included detailed comments such as, “I like that the graphics are simple yet engaging. I recognize other companies’ logos so that lends credibility along with the list of their customers in the footer. The language is clear and states what they do. I also like that they request my work email so I know this is a business solution.”
Once you test aspects of your e-commerce website’s UI on PickFu, you can make adjustments before investing in a more expensive, time-consuming UI/UX test with a different program.
Start your e-commerce website testing process today
A PickFu poll starts at $50 for 50 responses from a well-vetted pool of U.S.-based audiences. You’ll get results within hours, if not sooner.
This makes it easy for you to communicate with your team of web designers and developers and make any necessary changes. Once your e-commerce website goes live, watch your sales climb.
Get started on your first PickFu poll today!
