Product Testing Overview
What product experiments do in Elevate A/B Testing, how product duplication works, and what you need to prepare before you start.
A product experiment compares one product listing against another. Different title, different description, different bundle, different images, or an entirely different offer.
It works by pairing each product you are testing with an alternative product, then showing each visitor one or the other.
How it works
You select the products to test, up to 500.
Each selected product becomes a group. Every group needs a product to test against.
For each group you either pick an existing product or have Elevate A/B Testing duplicate the original so you can edit the copy.
Visitors are split, and each one sees the product assigned to their variation.
Elevate A/B Testing tracks behaviour and attributes conversions to the product each visitor saw.
Duplicated products are created Unlisted, so they do not appear in your storefront navigation, search, or collections. Visitors reach them only through the experiment.
What you can test
Product title
Does a clearer or more descriptive name sell better
Description
Does a different length, structure, or angle convert
Bundle or offer
Does a bundle beat the single item
Images and media
Handled better by a Product Image Testing Overview unless the images come with other changes
The whole listing
Does a rebuilt product page beat the current one
When to use it
You want to change what the product is or how it is described
You only want to swap photos. Use a Product Image Experiment.
You are testing a bundle against a single item
You want to change the price. Use a Price Experiment.
The change needs a genuinely different product record
You want to change the layout of the page. Use a Page Testing Overview.
You want to test copy across many products at once
You want to edit text without duplicating anything. Use a Content Testing Overview.
Requirements
Elevate A/B Testing installed on your store.
The Elevate A/B Testing theme extension enabled.
Product testing works on all Shopify plans.
What duplication costs you
This is the type with the most housekeeping, because a duplicated product is a real product in Shopify and it starts life without everything the original has accumulated.
Title, description, images, price, variants
Product reviews
Inventory and fulfilment settings from apps
App configurations tied to the original product ID
Three things need attention before you launch, and Elevate A/B Testing walks you through all three in the review before launch:
Reviews. A product with no reviews against one with two hundred is not a fair comparison, and the missing reviews will lose you the experiment on their own. Reviews have to be copied by your review app's support team.
Inventory and SKUs. Variations should be recognisable as the same product to your other systems. Mismatched SKUs cause problems in fulfilment, reporting, and any app that reads product identifiers.
Sales channels. Duplicated test products should be limited to the online store. Left on other channels, they can appear in your Facebook or Instagram catalogues as separate listings.
None of this is difficult. All of it is easy to forget, and forgetting it produces a result that looks real and is not.
Next steps
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