The Saleroom is one of the art & antique auction marketplaces under Auction Technology Group. Sellers can hold auctions on our platform, and buyers can place bids and pay online.
We saw 49% of organic users start their journey on an item page where the item has been sold. But only 35% would view another page, well below the site average.
We aimed to understand why users drop off and explore design changes that could encourage them to stay and browse.
Key metrics include:
• Link clicked
• Account created
• Item saved
Because we know buyers are very interested in the sold price, and we've been using it to increase the signup rate: In order to see the sold price, the user needs to create an account. This flow has been very successful.
Old sold item page
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New users need to sign up to see the sold prices
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I took a look at the sold item pages on other websites and tried to find out how they balance the info ratio between the sold item and available similar items.
In the image below, green area is the info of the sold item, pink area is the info of available similar items.
To validate this, we planned to test different balances between sold and available item content.
We understand the value of the sold item info, but we also want to test if we can improve the retention rate by surfacing the available items without hurting the signup rate.
Before jumping into design, I consulted him about the best SEO practices on this type of page and how we could track the impact of any design changes.
In the new design, I still keep the sold item content at the top, but made it more concise. And I moved similar available items above the fold, increasing their click potential.
• Primary metric: Click rate
• Secondary metric: Signup rate, GMV, bidding rate
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Old design vs New design
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This project is currently in the backlog due to shifting priorities, but we believe it has high potential to improve organic retention.
If we run the test and we see the new design can boost conversion, we'd like to try a more extreme layout, where we minimize the sold item info, to see how far can we push this ratio.
Another test to push the ratio even further
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