Case Study: Simplifying Payment Messaging to Boost Conversions

🧠 Background

Many shoppers abandon carts not because they don’t want the product, but because they’re unsure about payment flexibility. Through heuristic research and past test learnings, we identified a gap. For a premium fine jewelry brand based in California, inconsistent installment messaging between the product pages and the cart was causing hesitation at the point of purchase.

This test aimed to validate whether clear and consistent financing info (especially for ShopPay and AfterPay) would reduce friction, build trust and increase sales.

💡 Hypothesis

If we present installment messaging consistently on both the product pages and the cart, shoppers will feel more confident and informed, leading to a reduction in abandonment and an increase in conversion rate and revenue per user.

This builds on the CRO principle that clarity reduces friction. For a deeper dive into frictionless UX, see Baymard Institute’s checkout optimization research.

🧪 Test Setup

• Test Duration: 13 days
• Traffic Split: First 3 days at 30% volume (50/50), then 100% (50/50)
• Audience: All devices, all users
• Tested Locations: Product pages (add-to-cart area) and cart drawer

🔧 Variants

• Control: Generic, inconsistent messaging
• Variant 1 (ShopPay): Consistent ShopPay messaging on product pages and cart
• Variant 2 (AfterPay): Consistent AfterPay messaging on product pages and cart

📊 Results

🏆 Winner: AfterPay messaging (Variant 2)

📈 The AfterPay messaging led in all key performance indicators.

🔍 Insights

• Clear messaging reduces friction. The AfterPay variant made payment terms more transparent, helping users feel reassured about their financing options.
• Trust = Action. Better clarity drove a 15.07% lift in checkout initiation, indicating that more users were willing to start the purchase process.
• Higher-value orders. The 12.72% increase in ARPU suggests shoppers were more willing to commit to larger purchases when they understood payment flexibility.
• ShopPay underperformed. Despite being a well-known checkout method, ShopPay messaging didn’t resonate in this context, highlighting the need for message clarity over brand familiarity.

✅ Recommendations

• Roll out AfterPay messaging across product pages and cart as the winning variation.
• Continue testing ShopPay messaging to refine its positioning and better align it with user behavior.
• Test hybrid financing displays, comparing multiple payment options side-by-side for different segments.

⭐ Conclusion

This experiment shows that how you present financing options matters as much as the options themselves. With the right messaging, this brand saw significant lifts in conversion, revenue and checkout engagement, all without changing the product or pricing.

Key Takeaway: Clear, consistent messaging builds confidence, and confident shoppers buy more.

📣 Let’s Talk CRO

Looking to unlock more wins like this for your eCommerce brand? Our CRO experts specialize in A/B testing, shopper psychology, and UX refinement to help you move the metrics that matter most.

👉 Contact us today to uncover your next big opportunity.