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Test Idea #9: Anchoring bias

    TEST IDEA #9: ANCHORING BIAS

    INTRO

    Make your prices more acceptable to your customers by first showing them the highest ones. A lot of businesses already do this: the first offer you see is usually the one that costs the most but gives you the least options and features. By doing this, they set your expectations or give you an ??anchor?? price against which you will be measuring all others. And you can do the same for your visitors, which can help make other offers on your website much more appealing.

    HYPOTHESIS

    Show your customers an ??anchor?? price first, which is significantly more than your main offer, and this will make the rest of your prices more acceptable. As a result, your customers will look more favorably at your main offer and be more eager to buy it.

    SCIENCE BEHIND THIS IDEA

    This cognitive bias states that we tend to grasp onto the first piece of information we are given and then use it as a benchmark for everything else. Let?s say you?re looking for hotel rooms in some city. If the first hotel room you see costs 500$ per night, then a room that costs 300$ won?t seem as bad and will in fact be more acceptable.

    If you first present your visitors with a higher price, which is the ??anchor??, they will then compare the rest of your offers to the initial one and be more likely to react to the lower priced packages that offer them more. Put your most expensive product right next to your main bargain and you will trigger an ??anchoring bias?? in your prospects.

    What to test

    On your current pricing page, or Variant A, the first offer on the left is the cheapest one, while the most expensive one is in the center. To target this bias in Variant B, reverse this order: the first one the left should be your ??anchor?? price, then the bargain or your main deal, and then another option that is less expensive than the initial price your customers saw, but more expensive than the main offer.

    NOTE: Keep in mind that we designed this A/B test for a market where the majority of the people read from left to right. That is why the ??anchor?? price is the first one on the left. If your market is dominated by readers who lscan the text from right to left, then your highest price should be on the right.

    Examples

    Crazy Egg

    6

    Crazy Egg

    2

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