I am currently optimising an e-commerce website. The request was specific to the product pages, after gaining insight from analytics and feedback two alternatives were proposed, and tested.
The add-to-cart rate increase by 3% (roughly) with both options, but the overall conversion rate decreased by 1%, any idea why this happens?
No changed were made in other pages, only to the product page.
Cheers
A few possibilities that I can see:
Your measurement is not against the same baseline - the changes may have drawn in a few more people to the core pages, but they are browsers not purchasers - adding to the cart may be a way of noting products. As @Roger implied, you may be getting more purchases, but a slightly lower conversion rate, which is not really an issue.
Your improvements to the product pages may be excellent, and drawing people in to look, but they are put off when the changes* are not continuing to be reflected in the checkout.
Having said that, you need to continue to monitor and assess,, see if you can identify exactly where people are dropping out, which may give you some more clues. But the reality is that you may have look at some of the changes you have made and ensure that they are reflected through the checkout process.
You don't have to worry I think. In my opinion 1% change is really nothing. Conversion rates usually fluctuate, just like everything else. I wouldn't consider 1-2% a real change.
If you examine longer time periods (months) and compare them to each other, 1-2% can be considered a real change. But in some days you shouldn't worry about 1% drop in conversion rate.
