Example: Mini Cart Test

Mini carts allow shoppers to easily view their selections without leaving product pages, encouraging continuous browsing and keeping bagged items top of mind. Below, we'll cover some test ideas you could implement on your mini cart and give you step-by-step instructions on how to set them up.

Mini cart tests

Imagine your cart as the “checkout line” of your website. If it's easy to use, customers breeze through; if not, they might abandon their carts. Below, we'll cover a handful of strategies you could test to optimize your mini cart.

Depending on your theme's editing capabilities, certain tests might require developers or special instructions to set up. If you need more help, contact customer support.

CTA buttons

Try adding various call-to-action (CTA) buttons to prompt user behavior. Experiment with "View Cart," "Checkout," "Continue Shopping," or even go for custom options like "Add More" or "Upgrade to Premium" to see what works best for your customers.

Product information

You could experiment with how product information is displayed in the mini cart, such as showing product names, prices, quantities, and variations (like size or color) in different formats or styles.

Cross-Selling and Upselling

Your mini cart is a great place to promote additional products or upgrades, such as displaying related items, offering bundle deals, suggesting complementary products, or showcasing items frequently bought together.

In most themes, adding a featured collection to your mini cart can be easily done through the Shopify Editor. We'll cover how to do just that in the test instructions below.

How to test your mini cart

Mini carts exist at a theme-level. Therefore, to test a new mini cart, you have to test two themes against each other, each theme with its own mini cart. Follow the below steps to test mini carts on Shoplift. If you or your developers have prepared the new mini cart on a staged theme, skip ahead to Step 3.

Step 1: Create a duplicate theme

In Shopify, navigate to your Online Store. Click on the ellipsis by your live theme, and select “Duplicate” to create the variant theme for your test. We recommend renaming this duplicate theme with “Shoplift Test” at the beginning, for clear communication within your team.

Step 2: Edit your duplicate theme

After creating a duplicate theme in Shopify, click on the “Customize” button next to the duplicate theme to enter the Shopify Editor. Be sure to not click the “Customize” button on your live theme.

If the changes you want to test cannot be made through the Shopify Editor, you might need to implement custom code on your duplicate theme. If you need help, reach out to your developers or customer support.

In the Shopify Editor, navigate to “Theme Settings” by clicking on the settings icon on the leftmost side of the page. Scroll to "Cart" settings, where you can view all of your customization options, and implement the changes you want to test. For example, you might want to add a featured collection.

When you’re done customizing your new mini cart, save your changes and head back to Shoplift.

Step 3: Create a test

In Shoplift, click “Create a Test” to enter the Test Draft page. In the Test Draft page, click “Test a theme or global element,” and select your live theme as your original theme.

To select your variant theme, click “Select variant theme” and select the theme that has your changes on it. From here, you’re ready to specify test parameters and launch your test! We recommend choosing Conversion Rate or Revenue per Visitor as your test goal, as these are most closely related to your mini cart.

Step 4: Analyze your test

After a few days, when your test has gotten a good amount of traffic, you can start analyzing the reporting metrics. One interesting area to observe is the difference between Add-to-Carts and purchasing behavior like Orders and Revenue. For example, if Add-to-Cart rate is similar for the original and variant, but the variant observed much higher Average Order Value, you might hypothesize that the mini cart encouraged customers to buy more items.