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Many large e-commerce retailers are using "quick views" for products on their collection pages where more details appear either on-hover of via some other trigger.
Has anyone performed any A/B tests as to the effectiveness of this method/feature and it's effect on conversion rates? If so, what were the results?
The ecommerce company I work for uses modals (pop-ups) to show a quick view of products. Google Analytics doesn't detect this interaction (no trigger was set on it either) so I don't have any data of people who click on the quickview vs. people who navigate to the products detail page. After implementation the effect of it (on conversion rates or something else) hasn't been recorded. If I look back now, I can't see any specific change in the conversion rate in the analytics in the period after introducing the quick view option. The conversion rate was influenced by a lot more changed made to the website around that time. So in short: superficial analysis shows no change in conversion rate after adding the quickview method.
Here's a great article from Baymard on Quick Views
Baymard writes in their article that quick views often lead to small increases in conversion. However...
Though quick views may slightly increase conversions at times, there is an overall poor design on the product listing page leading users to rely on quick views. We are simply optimizing something that is fundamentally flawed.
Truly big gains are when we tackle core design issues rather than polishing something that is broken. What we should be testing against the quick view would be changes to the listing page itself.
Actually quick view doesn't change any conversion rates. If anything, quick view helps save user bandwidth and time. It becomes very cumbersome for the user to goto the product page only to find out that the product is not something that they like. So, quick view might decrease the page views or click rate but not conversion rates. If the products are good, SEO is done inside out then the conversion rates will be high.
There are some important benefit for "Quick View" methods for example:
Reduces server load. Since the information on the product is already stored on the page — hidden behind the scene — the page does not get reloaded when the visitor enables this feature. It is simply taken from a hidden state and put into a visible state. Blockquote
Expedites shopping. Visitors can quickly add products to their carts without having to wait for the actual product page to load. Having the ability to browse through a category page and read expanded product details in the quick view without having to load the product page, will shave crucial seconds off the shopping experience.
Discounts to MAP. Manufacturers sometimes require a “minimum advertised price” policy that limits merchants in how they list product prices below MAP on their websites. But MAP policies do not typically apply to quick view modals. Thus, merchants can show discounted — below a manufacturer’s minimum advertised price — product prices on the quick view. Show discounted pricing, other details. You can utilize the quick view feature to show discounted product prices before the cart page.
You can find more here: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3310-Using-Quick-Views-to-Increase-Conversions or http://www.electricvine.com/blog/webdesignnj/index.php/2012/06/5-e-commerce-optimization-trends/
In terms of ROI i think it's not easy to track this action to the number of products sold because there are to many variables during the process of buying.
What you can try to do track using custom events or A/B testing to understand if the "add to cart button" is clickable on the product page or in the Quick view mode.
My Theory:
Quick View is an attempt to fix a collections page conversion issue in a heavy handed / broad manner without having done the proper user research.
The real solution would be to A: Figure out why customers are not finding the correct product easily, and B: Fix this by including the required information directly on the collections page (ie: Show available color swatches; multiple product image angles on rollover (mrporter.com); product reviews (rei.com); Where the product is made (mec.ca); Rich filters/search; Available sizes; etc...)
