Zara is one of the world’s largest international fashion companies. The retailer focuses on providing quality clothing and accessories to men, women and children around the globe.
Zara’s website experience is unique and almost editorial. When you visit, it’s like flipping through a fashion magazine that features all of the latest finds for your closet. And while it’s refreshing to experience something new, we wonder if Zara could take the experience to the next level.
Could uncovering hidden navigation elements improve the customer experience and boost sales? We could test that.
The Opportunity: Navigation Elements Are Hidden From Customer View
Currently, customers that land on the Zara website don’t see a clear call to action that illustrates what to do next. It’s a bit complicated to find what you’re looking for quickly.
The desktop version of the website features a hamburger menu with the navigation to each shopping category section hidden inside. Shoppers must find the menu and then select a category, which may result in unnecessary friction within the shopping experience.
The Control
Our Hypothesis: Exposing Navigation Elements Will Improve the Discoverability of Products & Increase Add-to-Carts
When it comes to e-commerce websites, quick product discoverability matters. Customers visit these websites to do one thing: shop. If finding products they wish to purchase is confusing, they’re more likely to click away.
Research conducted by the Baymard Institute has shown that not having main category elements exposed in the main navigation area can make it difficult to begin product discoverability.
In fact, Baymard research recommends that sites make product categories the top level of the main navigation (e.g., Men’s, Women’s, etc.) and that they should be visible without needing to hover on the desktop.
Recently here at Cro Metrics, we performed a similar test for an e-commerce beauty brand. We found that exposing the category elements in the visible navigation helped improve product discoverability, which increased purchases by 16% and revenue by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Potential Fix: Placing Shopping Category Elements Front and Center
As you can see in the variation, our change would be small, but potentially mighty. We would expose the category elements and place them in the upper navigation for easy access.
Once a shopper lands on the website, they can quickly choose which category they wish to shop and carry on with their experience. We hypothesize that this change would make the site easier to navigate and increase add-to-carts and transactions.
The Variation
What Can Cro Metrics Test for You?
A few simple tests can help you pinpoint where your website needs some changes to improve the customer experience. The result? Enhanced CX that boosts add-to-carts, sales and overall revenue. What can Cro Metrics test for you? To learn more about our experimentation and optimization programs, send us a message.