O’Neill increases conversions across Europe by A/B testing the search experience

About O’Neill:

O’Neill is a leading sportswear fashion brand renowned for its high-performance and stylish collections. With a commitment to delivering exceptional online shopping experiences, O’Neill partnered with Nosto to refine its search merchandising strategies using A/B testing rules. The focus was optimizing search results to drive conversions and better align with shopper behavior.

The Challenge:

O’Neill faced the challenge of balancing branding priorities with data-driven strategies to maximize ecommerce performance. Their existing search merchandising rules prioritized full-price items and current seasonal collections. While this approach aligned with their brand image, it did not account for regional shopping behaviors or variations in sales performance metrics.

The key challenge was determining whether shifting the search merchandising focus to sales-driven metrics, such as order volume and sales per view, would yield better results across their diverse European markets.

The Solution:

To address this challenge, O’Neill implemented an A/B testing strategy across multiple regions, comparing two search merchandising rules:

Variation A (their existing rule): Focused on promoting product views, inventory, full-price items, and the current season’s collection. For example, it showcased jackets from the Fall/Winter 2024 collection for winter-related searches.

Variation B (the new rule): Prioritized orders and sales per view while reducing the emphasis on full-price items, and adjusted the conversion rate weight to 15% to mitigate skewed data from low-traffic, high-conversion products. Focused on higher order volume, avoiding distortions from multiple sizes ordered by the same shopper.

“A/B testing empowered us to make data-driven decisions that directly impacted our conversion rate. By experimenting with personalization and tailored experiences, we were able to fine-tune our approach and deliver more relevant products for the customer. Moving forward, together with Nosto we plan to continue A/B testing to further optimize and improve our conversion rates even more.”

Shabnam Yosefzay, Digital Visual Merchandiser

The Results:

The A/B test was conducted across several regions, including their Netherlands, Germany, and the UK stores. Results were measured based on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as conversion rates (CVR) and total orders.

After running the test, the O’Neill team found that Variation B outperformed Variation A across all regions and implemented that strategy demonstrating the importance of data-driven experimentation.

The Netherlands and Germany stores saw a 21% increase in conversion rate
The French store saw a 15% increase in conversion rate

By leveraging A/B testing to inform search merchandising rules, O’Neill successfully aligned its ecommerce strategy with shopper behavior, enhancing customer experiences and driving revenue growth. The variation in conversion rate increases between regional stores emphasizes the need for localized testing.

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