I know what you’re thinking —why make a post if there isn’t free shipping? For the past several days community members have come to EA to excitedly report that free shipping is in effect over $150. Or $100. Or that they see flat rate shipping of $8. These new rates even appear on the shipping information page for those community members.
Here’s the problem though: what these lucky community members are seeing on Anthropologie’s website is not showing up for everyone. Why not? Because Anthropologie is running a series of multivariate tests right now. A multivariate test means that a webpage is presented in different variations for each visitor. User 1 might see page version A, user 2 might see page version B and user 3 might see page version C. These tests are done for a variety of reasons with one end goal: see which version of the page is the most successful.
Let me give an example of a classic multivariate test. Some of you see product pages like the one below. Note the “size” box with no “quantity” box below it. Let’s call this Version A:
And here’s Version B. Note this version has both a “size” and a “quantity” box.
It seems like a small difference. But choices that may seem innocuous, like the color of a button, the order of information on the page, and what choices a user does/doesn’t have all may make differences in whether a customer completes a transaction or not. Companies pay marketing firms ridiculous amounts of money to build multivariate tests like this.
Companies run multivariate tests all the time, and Anthropologie is by no means the only company doing this. Major websites like Amazon.com run multivariate tests constantly.
Internet technology has come a long way in the past few years and the multivariate tests have become more complex. Used to be that websites tracked users with “cookies.” These cookies were relatively flat files that had some basic tracking information: your IP, your operating system (windows/mac/linux/etc) and maybe your screen resolution. But now marketers use something called an “evercookie” instead. An evercookie follows you from computer to computer. Ever notice how shopping websites seem to remember what’s in your cart whether you’re on your home computer, a laptop, your work computer, etc.? That’s because of an evercookie, which has way more information stored about you. In addition to your IP, operating system and your screen resolution, an evercookie knows additional tracking information that helps remember you even as you move across multiple computers. And when you clear your cookies or your browser session those evercookies might not get deleted. They are much harder to get rid of than regular old cookies.
Evercookies aren’t necessarily nefarious. During multivariate tests they can be used to show Users 1, 2 and 3 different versions of a web page, an element on a webpage, or a different version of the website altogether. When a user visits a website they start a “session,” which just means everything a user does between arriving on a website and leaving that site. Code is used to tell the website “when User 1 visits my website show them Version A…when User 2 visits my website show them Version B…etc.” The basic elements of the site (called “static content”) are the same for everyone. But all the dynamic elements may look different for a few of us, many of us, or all of us. You may see an extra color of an item, or text that other people don’t see, or maybe even a whole page that some of us can’t see.
For Anthropologie these tests are to see which version gets people to buy stuff most often. In web parlance this is called a conversion — a user comes to the site, adds something to their cart and completes checkout by placing an order. A higher conversion rate is good. So how does Anthropologie increase conversion? Well, free shipping sure seems to help. It doesn’t seem like Anthropologie is ready to commit to everyday free shipping yet though. By conducting these tests they can see what users like best. Is it free shipping over $150? Is it flat rate shipping? Etc.
I don’t need a marketing degree to tell me that free shipping all the time is the best answer but it may not be an answer Anthropologie is willing to bear. Over the next few months we can expect to hear about community members seeing many different changes and tests on the website. Our wishlists may look different, our shopping carts may change, some of us may get promotions while others do not. I have no issue with community members reporting what they see. We just need to be mindful that what you see on your page may not be what I see on my page. It’s tricky I know.
