A/B Testing Framework
Pott Candles
July 2026
Conversion Programme

How we test, what we test first, and why

This is the testing plan built from June's storefront audit. It covers the four experiments worth running, the fixes that come first, and, importantly, the honest maths of what a store at Pott's traffic level can and cannot learn from a split test.

Pott is not broken. Around 45% of visitors who reach the cart go on to purchase, which beats the typical DTC store. Nothing in this plan is triage. This is a programme for compounding gains on a store that already works.

Storefront sessions / day
~1,694
90-day average
Storefront conversion
~2.72%
sessions to purchase
Cart to purchase
~45%
beats the DTC median
Subscriber lifetime value
£725
vs one-time buyers
Part 1 · The Why

Why we cannot simply test everything

An A/B test splits visitors between two versions of a page and waits until the difference is provably real rather than luck. The rarer the action being measured, the more visitors it takes. That single fact shapes this whole plan.

Out of every 100 visitors to the store

100 visit the store
~22 click into a product
Clicks are common, so click-based tests gather evidence quickly.
<3 purchase
Purchases are rare, so purchase-based tests need months of traffic to prove anything.

Click-based tests

2 to 8 weeks

Homepage and collection tests read on clicks into product pages. Plenty of signal, fast answers. These are the workhorses of the plan.

Purchase-based tests

13+ weeks

Tests that read on actual purchases only work on the busiest pages, and only when chasing a big lift. Small lifts are mathematically out of reach.

The flagship product-page test, by detectable lift size

How long the flagship test would take to give a trustworthy verdict, depending on how big an improvement we ask it to detect:

5% lift
over 2 years
Not possible
10% lift
~28 weeks
Too slow
15% lift
~13 weeks
This is the plan

This is why the plan is honest about three things: we read clicks wherever we can, we run purchase-based tests only on the highest-traffic pages while chasing big lifts, and some improvements simply ship without a test because pretending to test them would produce noise, not knowledge.

Part 2 · The Golden Rule

Subscription value counts, always

The single most important rule in this framework. Pott's subscription programme is where long-term value lives, and one of our tests deliberately touches it.

Subscribers who purchase again
86.6%
One-time buyers who purchase again
36.0%
£725
subscriber lifetime value

A subscriber is worth several times a one-time buyer. Any test that touches the subscription offer is judged on total value, not just the first order.

The trap this rule exists to avoid

A page variant can lift one-time sales while quietly cutting subscription sign-ups, and look like a winner on raw conversion while losing money overall. So the verdict metric for subscription-touching tests is revenue per visitor including subscription value: each new subscriber is counted at expected lifetime value at the end of the test, and the result is re-confirmed after a full subscription cycle. A variant that wins on conversion but craters sign-ups is a loser, full stop.

Part 3 · The Method

Not everything deserves a test

Every finding from the audit was sorted into one of three buckets before anything else.

🔧

Fix it

Clear bugs and unambiguous improvements: broken overlaps, duplicate URLs, contradictory copy. Testing these wastes months proving the obvious. They ship, and we monitor before and after.

⚖️

Test it

Genuine trade-offs where reasonable people could argue either way and being wrong is expensive. These get a real experiment with a pre-agreed verdict rule.

🔍

Validate it first

Real signals sitting on thin or noisy data. We capture proper evidence before designing anything, so we never build a test on a mirage.

Part 4 · Fix First

Four things ship before any test starts

Each one either removes a real hazard or makes the tests possible in the first place.

Fix 1

One product page, not three

Paid traffic is currently split across duplicate copies of the Starter Pack page. Roughly half of Google product spend lands on the duplicates. We consolidate to one page and repoint the ads. Until this is done, the flagship test cannot produce a valid answer.

Unblocks Test 1
Fix 2

Loyalty widget overlap

The floating rewards widget overlaps the Checkout button on mobile cart, plus option cards on product and collection pages. It sits on top of the single most important tap on the site. A small CSS fix, shipped immediately, no test needed.

Straight fix
Fix 3

Two quick questions for you

First: is the current homepage permanent, or a temporary launch takeover? Second: was £82.50 a genuine recent selling price for the strike-through "Save 16%"? Both answers change what we build. Details in the decisions section below.

Needs your answer
Fix 4

The measurement layer

A dedicated Shopify testing tool, a revenue metric that counts subscription value (not just the first order), and a clean 30-day pull of on-site behaviour data. Every test below reads through this layer, so it gets built first.

Unblocks all tests
Part 5 · The Tests

The four experiments

Each test changes exactly one thing, holds everything else constant, and has its verdict rule agreed before launch.

Test 1 FLAGSHIP

Product page: purchase default + cleaner pricing

~13 week read · Biggest prize: ~£1.4k / month (estimate)
What we believe

The Starter Pack page currently pre-selects the £65 subscription over the £69 one-time price, inside a busy first screen showing four prices and a low-contrast buy button. We believe defaulting to the one-time pack with a cleaner price stack will earn more per visitor and cut accidental subscriptions.

What changes

Version B defaults to the one-time pack with a simplified price stack and a high-contrast add-to-cart button. Everything else (product, price, photography, shipping copy) stays identical.

How we judge it

Revenue per visitor including subscription value. Each new subscriber is counted at expected lifetime value (£725), then the result is confirmed after a full subscription cycle. Raw conversion alone is never the verdict.

Guardrails that can veto a win

Subscription sign-up rate, refunds and chargebacks, accidental-subscription support tickets. If the variant wins on one-time sales but craters subscriptions, it loses.

⛳ Starts after Fix 1 and Fix 4 are live.
Test 2

Collection page: product-first layout

~8 week read · Estimated £500 to £1k / month
What we believe

On mobile, the Outdoor collection opens with a full screen of editorial copy and zero products. The Tomato Vine collection leads with products and holds attention noticeably longer. We believe showing product sooner moves more visitors from the collection into a product page.

What changes

Version B applies the product-first layout to the Outdoor collection. The copy is relocated, not rewritten; the products themselves do not change.

How we judge it

The rate at which collection visitors click into a product page, then add to cart.

Guardrails that can veto a win

Scroll depth, bounce rate, and text readability over photo backgrounds.

⛳ Runs in parallel with Test 1 (different page, no overlap).
Test 3 FASTEST

Homepage: storefront vs article

2 to 4 week read · Estimated £2k to £4k / month
What we believe

The homepage currently renders as a published article: headline, byline, body text, comment form, and no shop button, product grid, or price above the fold. Around £119k of tracked revenue landed on this page in the audit window. We believe a real storefront homepage will move more visitors into products.

What changes

Version B is a storefront homepage: hero with a clear Shop button, a collection grid, and visible pricing.

How we judge it

The rate at which homepage visitors click into a product page, plus revenue per visitor.

Guardrails that can veto a win

Bounce rate and scroll depth.

⛳ Only built if the homepage is confirmed permanent (decision 1 below).
Test 4

Cart: express payment buttons

~6 week read · Incremental: cart already converts well
What we believe

The cart already converts at roughly 45%, which beats the typical DTC store, so this is polish rather than repair. We believe surfacing express payment buttons (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal) at the cart nudges that rate higher.

What changes

Version B surfaces express payment buttons prominently at the cart. Cart logic and shipping thresholds stay identical.

How we judge it

Cart-to-purchase conversion.

Guardrails that can veto a win

Average order value (express checkouts can shrink baskets).

⛳ Starts after the widget fix (Fix 2), so results are not muddied by the overlap bug.

Weeks to a trustworthy answer

T3 Homepage: storefront vs article
2 to 4 wks
click-based
T4 Cart: express payment buttons
~6 wks
purchase-based
T2 Collection page: product-first layout
~8 wks
click-based
T1 Product page: purchase default + pricing
~13 wks
purchase-based
Part 6 · The Sequence

Order of operations

1

Ship the fixes

URL consolidation, widget fix, and your two answers. Same engineering pass, no waiting.

2

Build the measurement layer

Testing tool, subscription-aware revenue metric, clean 30-day behaviour data. Nothing launches without it.

3

Launch the flagship (Test 1)

The moment its two prerequisites are live. A 13-week commitment, read on subscription-aware revenue.

4

Run the fast tests alongside

Test 2 on the collection page and, if the homepage is permanent, Test 3. Different pages, so they cannot contaminate each other.

5

Cart test + investigate the option pages

Test 4 after the widget fix. In parallel, we capture and review the two "options" router pages where visitors bounce back unusually often, so a future test is designed on real evidence.

Part 7 · Over To You

Four decisions we need from you

None of these are big time commitments, but each one changes what we build or when.

1

Is the current homepage permanent?

It renders as an article rather than a storefront. If it is a temporary launch takeover, we drop Test 3 entirely. If it is permanent, Test 3 is the fastest and one of the most valuable tests we can run.

2

Was £82.50 a genuine recent selling price?

The Starter Pack shows "£82.50, Save 16%" as a permanent strike-through. Under UK pricing rules, a "was" price that was never genuinely charged is a legal liability. If it was real, nothing changes. If not, we fix the label before it becomes a problem.

3

How much subscription sign-up are we willing to trade?

Test 1 needs a pre-agreed line: the maximum acceptable dip in subscription sign-up rate before a variant is rejected, whatever it does for one-time sales. Our suggested starting point is a 20% relative drop.

4

Start the flagship now, or after Q4?

Test 1 is a 13-week commitment. Starting mid-July means it reads in mid-October, just as Q4 traffic ramps and the audience mix shifts. Starting now also freezes the product page against other changes through that window. The alternative is running the fast tests now and starting Test 1 in January on stable traffic.

Part 8 · House Rules

The rules every test follows

One change per test

If two things change, we cannot know which one worked. Each test isolates a single treatment.

The verdict is agreed before launch

Success metric, guardrails, and the shipping decision rule are written down first, so the result cannot be argued with after the fact.

No peeking

Checking results early and stopping at a good moment produces false winners. Every test runs its planned course, minimum two full weeks covering both weekends.

Guardrails can veto

A win on the main metric that trips a guardrail (subscriptions, refunds, order value) is not a win.

Tested pages are frozen

While a test runs on a page, that page does not change. Photography updates and restructures are scheduled around tests, never during them.

No pretend tests

If a page does not have the traffic to give a trustworthy answer, we ship the improvement and monitor it honestly instead of dressing it up as a test.

Figures and revenue estimates come from the June 2026 storefront audit and 90-day trading data; monetary opportunity sizes are estimates, not guarantees. Test durations are calculated from current traffic levels and standard statistical practice (95% confidence, 80% power) and will be re-confirmed once the measurement layer is live. Where behaviour data was thin (the option router pages), this plan says so and gathers better evidence before acting.