In prior Website Testing Wins, we’ve looked at how the color of an add-to-cart button can affect conversion results, and the impact of button copy on both conversion and new customer acquisition.

But what about the placement of the add-to-cart button—and, in this example, the product price and quantity selector, too—on the product detail page? That’s the question this retailer set out to answer. Since its call-to-action elements appeared together below the fold, the retailer was concerned that the page layout was holding back performance.

To check its hunch, it ran an A/B split test. The control group saw the add-to-cart button, product price, and quantity selector in their usual location between the social sharing icons and the customer reviews. For the test group, the add-to-cart button, product price, and quantity selector elements were moved to just under the product name and item number—making this information prominent, as well as accessible to visitors by eliminating the need to scroll.

I doubt you will be surprised to learn that the test version worked. Shifting the add-to-cart button and other elements critical to placing an order into this new spot on product pages boosted the add-to-cart rate by 1.53%, which then drove an increase in average order value of nearly 3%.

But even though this seemed like an obvious move, there’s always a risk in making a change to a page layout (or navigation menu, or checkout process) that your customers already know well. Testing the idea first allowed the retailer to go after this performance gain while limiting exposure to potential losses.