Compare Mode
Summary
“Compare Mode” in the new Android cart allows buyers to select items they wish to compare and then see side-by-side the most important features of those items. After assessing insights from an initial painted door test, we designed a Compare mode with higher visual prominence, that would capture as many buyers as possible, who we hoped would ultimately benefit by being able to evaluate the most key pieces of information of listings, side-by-side, and commit to a purchase.
The MVP experiment proved neutral. We continue to see a “leaky bucket” issue, with ~3% of users tapping on the compare button and only ~1.4% of users making it into the side-by-side view. We are building a fast-follow with improvements and plan to test Compare Mode on other surfaces, such as listing pages and search results.
Company
Etsy
Date
Aug. 2023-Feb. 2024
My role
UX/UI Prototyping Strategy Research
The challenge
Because the research tells us… comparison today is overwhelming for our buyers
We believe that… by creating a dedicated Compare Mode
Will result in… buyers more easily comparing items and finding what meets their criteria faster
- Though comparison shopping is critical to Etsy, driving ~78% of GMS (Gross Merchandise Sales), the experience needs improvement. The current process is mentally strenuous, requiring buyers to go back-and-forth between listing pages and rely on memory to manually identify hard-to-find differences between items.
- The difficulty of comparison between items is exacerbated by the mobile shopping experience (vs. desktop shopping) in which users see less info at a time due to a smaller screen size, and cannot stack information side-by-side in a tabbed view.
- A side-by-side compare mode experience is common across other e-commerce players and would improve the ease of comparison.
- Prototype-testing revealed that Android buyers would find value in a side-by-side compare mode, especially in cart.
Solution
For phase one, I completed a competitor audit of six comparison tools (Target, Best Buy, Amazon, Apple, Home Depot, Staples, and B&H). I found:
- Compare mode is a tool being more frequently offered to buyers as a method of evaluating and selecting items
- All competitors observed had at least 13 areas of comparison, with Best Buy including as many as 62 data points to compare in their experience
- For experiences that allowed product selection, 2 or 4 items was common
- Search results was most often the entry point for this experience, with buyers selecting which items they’d compare
- Secondarily, we saw comparison tools for similar items on listing pages
- Amazon was the outlier, with comparison of similar items via the cart
Next, we ran a painted door (not fully functional) to capture data and understand engagement rates and contexts in which the tool would be helpful. We found:
- ~1.5% of users tapped on the Compare Mode button, with 80% of those people never making it through item selection
- ~73% of users are comparing 2 items, with ~27% comparing 3+
- The majority of buyers were looking to compare only 1 or 2 category taxonomies
With these insights, we went on to design Compare Mode in full with the following themes in mind:
- Present the most valuable Comparison variables:
We believe providing the most valuable comparison points, in the right order, will allows buyers to do the majority of their comparison in cart, and avoid the tedious process of comparison as it exists today. - Increase visual prominence of Compare Mode:
We believe that by making the entry point to Compare Mode visible, buyers will more frequently utilize and benefit from the feature. - Address the drop-off between launch and selection (the "leaky bucket"):
We believe minimizing friction between launching Compare Mode and selecting items to compare, will result in less drop-off and more buyers fully entering and benefitting from the feature.
Results
Results were neutral
- We’re still seeing a “leaky bucket” for compare mode - ~3% of users tap on the compare button while only ~1.4% of users make it into the side-by-side view (we lose about half of users on the selection screen)
- Users who tapped on “Compare” had lower conversion, were less likely to go from cart → listing page, and were less likely to add items to cart - this could be because Compare Mode led to more friction prior to checkout or because these users were already having trouble comparing
- Compare Mode was neutral on CR and trending negative on ACBV (Avg. Converting Browser Value), with negative directional movement in the quantity of items purchased and the price of items. The effect was more pronounced with more frequent shoppers, suggesting we may be pushing users to compare items in their cart and decide between them when they weren’t originally planning to do so.
V2 + next steps (designs above)
V2 will continue to address our "leaky bucket" issue with:
- Focused item selection screen
- Auto-launching buyers directly into the grid, in more scenario
- Updated actions + affordances (ie: "Remove" and "Buy it now" buttons)
- Dark mode improvements
In addition to V2, we plan to test Compare mode on other surfaces, such as:
- Listing pages
- Search