One test alone increased CR more than 10%. Factcool case study

Is your competition a guide for a better user experience?

There are plenty of solid players in the apparel and fashion category, while Factcool has started as an underdog in the industry. “We just copied the solutions, which competitors had and just put it on the web, and it did not have such great results as we thought it would,” shares M. Stračár from Factcool.

When competitors experiment on new features, the simplest thing to do is copy them. Still, it may have adverse consequences: “This type of user experience development was costly as we had to develop some humongous changes and features to only then see if they caused any improvements or not.”

Based on Jakob’s Law of Internet User Experience, users spend most of their time on other sites. Users prefer a site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know—design for patterns users are accustomed to. However, blindly copying competitors without testing can lead to wasted resources and missed opportunities.

Company management inspires experiment-driven culture

Significant website changes make great impressions at the board meeting because they are tangible and apparent, while small changes may go unnoticed for months. These two approaches differ significantly. One requires a significant investment of time and money, while the other needs a well-defined process and customer focus.

The value of Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) shines through once you understand that you are not optimising your website to impress your board. Instead of looking at the big design changes, it is much better to look at the bottom line of your financial statement.

“Unfortunately, the big changes were not bringing the results that we expected. So the old mantra of the revolutionary approach based on following the competitors had to be abandoned. Instead, we focused on our user problems.”

Top management changed and brought a different approach. They also had the experience, necessary knowledge and the will to do things differently. The new way allowed implementation of improvements faster and measurement of their impact more accurately. Yes, the changes were smaller, but the results were more tangible.

Instead of analysing in what may only be called a historical way—when you note the results, then implement a change and compare results to the previous period—it is more precise to have website traffic split in two and begin A/B testing.

Small changes create massive results

Factcool was surprised and delighted to see what kind of difference a change in a small thing like basket clearance logic or the sequence in which you add information during the purchase makes.

One of the quick wins we identified was in the user behaviour data. There was a considerable checkout abandonment rate: 75.1%, and in this step, visitors spent most of the time while the Exit Rate was highest compared to other steps.

Through further investigation, we found that the number of form fields might scare visitors away, as it immediately feels like there’s a lot of effort needed to complete this step. We proposed a variation that would divide the form into two manageable sections and create a feeling of less effort required.

Experience in various industries leads to a broader understanding

Working across categories ranging from tourism to clothing to jewellery provides unique value. Factcool experienced this first hand: “We usually benchmark ourselves with the direct competition and are quite blind to other segments.”

All hypotheses were rooted in Factcool website visitors’ behaviour. Still, the solutions to that behaviour came from various past experiences, and these created massive value because they were new to the whole category and added to Factcool’s uniqueness.

Factcool understood that user behaviour changes over time, and it is worth rechecking the solution to the problems that consistently reappear in the analysis. “It was interesting to see that of the 20 Hypotheses that you have prepared, we have tested about three already. Our view about what issues we should solve first had merit. We were happy to retest these as some time has passed since we explored these areas.”

“By outsourcing conversion rate optimisation, we can get more insights and create a better experience for our users. Then we saw the change in the bottom line. Through this process, we have learned to listen to our customers more and test if it works rather than think it will work.”

Key takeaways

• Don’t blindly copy competitors – What works for them may not work for you. Test everything.
• Small changes can drive big results – A single checkout form optimization led to 11% CR increase.
• Data-driven culture starts at the top – Management buy-in is essential for sustainable CRO programs.
• Cross-industry experience matters – Solutions from other verticals can provide unique competitive advantages.