Case Study: Focus DIY Test & Target
The Client
Focus DIY is a leading DIY and Gardening retailer in the UK, operating over 180 stores nationwide. The Focus website has over 7000 products for sale and includes a broad range of Focus & Payless brands as well as well known consumer brand products.
The Challenge
As part of an ongoing site optimisation strategy, and following in-depth analysis, Focus DIY wanted to increase the number of visitors reaching the search results pages on the site.
Background
We decided to carry out multi-variate testing using Omniture's 'Test & Target' tool. The tool was chosen above others due to the ability to test for multiple outcomes simultaneously such as:
- Click throughs to next page
- Add to basket
- Conversions
The Focus DIY site works using guided navigation, with both search and navigation built using ‘Locayta’ from Venda. Within this system category links are essentially pre-defined searches.
Our Approach
The test was run in two phases; initially we tested 5 variants of the same page. The chosen category was bathrooms due to the limited effect of seasonality on this group of products.
New Style (Control)
Old Style
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
(click on the images to enlarge)
Results
All test variants performed better than the control design (including the original list design!)
However, although one design performed better than the others, the winning design did not perform significantly better than the closest two competitors. Therefore we ran a second phase of test to pit the top three pages against each other.
Option 1 was the clear winner with a 58% lift in conversion rate.
There was also uplift in click through rates from this page design, rising from 72% to just under 82%.
Bounce rate was also reduced to 85% of its previous level across all category pages.
Today's design:
Following further testing, SEO friendly text has now been added to the page.
Conclusions
The outcome of the test was conclusive proof that giving the consumer what they need to follow the scent of information leads to greater sales. Whilst marketing might prefer glossy images – indeed many of us do – they do not work to guide people to categories as quickly and easily as clearly delineated categories.
The strength of this test is that the results have been replicated across the website once the learnings from a specific category were applied to the entire site.