eBay is known as the world’s online marketplace, allowing consumers and businesses to buy and sell everything from cars to collectibles and beyond. eBay connects millions of buyers and sellers across 190 markets across the globe. There are currently 1.5 billion live listings published on the website.
It’s safe to say that products are the focus for eBay. That means product descriptions are critical for the shopping experience. Yet, is the current placement of the product descriptions hindering that experience? We could test that.
The Opportunity: Critical Product Descriptions Fall Below the Fold
When shoppers are shopping online, they want to be able to find product details quickly. This means the product description page must offer that information fast to reduce bounce rate. Shoppers are faced with many distractions during the process too, such as the allure of other products.
As a shopper scrolls through a web page, their engagement decreases. As a result, the content below the fold may go unnoticed. Currently, eBay’s product descriptions lie below the fold. The current product pages place similar sponsored items and sponsored items from the seller above the product description.
Shoppers who have to scroll or put extra effort into finding product information may decide to go elsewhere, abandoning the product altogether.
The Control
Our Hypothesis: Moving the Product Description Up Will Help Shoppers Find the Information They’re Looking for Fast
According to Baymard Institute, users perform an initial assessment of whether a product is likely to match their needs based on what’s above the fold. If study subjects were already interested in a product, they were more likely to spend additional time and energy scanning the page for the product description.
Those who were still in the early phase of their product search or doing product comparison were much more likely to move on with their search and abandon the product if details couldn’t be found easily.
In a Nielsen Norman Group study, users spent about 57% of their page-viewing time above the fold. And 74% of the viewing time was spent in the first two screenfuls. The top half of any website page is critical.
The Potential Fix: Move the Product Description Up Above the Fold
We would begin our test by moving the product description up into the first two screenfuls above the fold. This would enable shoppers to easily find the information they’re looking for. We hypothesize that this change would increase conversion rates, revenue, time on site and average order value.
The Variation
What Can Optimization Do for You?
When it comes to optimization, the placement of your content truly matters. Yet, to determine where your placement is off, you need to test. To learn more about experimentation and optimization, subscribe to Cro Metrics today.