Last month, Amazon ran a weblab that moved the navigation bar in desktop SERP from side-left placement to top placement. On the surface it appeared to be a minor UX test. But, here's what I think Amazon was *really* testing...
👉 More search results on Page 1
You see, Amazon nerds like me know that there are typically either 48 or 16 search results on Page 1 (and on subsequent pages), depending on the browse node and search query.
When Amazon ran this weblab last month, the number of search results on Page 1 exploded to...72!
My hypothesis:
âž¡ Amazon ran this weblab to see if showing more results on Page 1 (i.e., more selection) would lead to a statistically significant increase in site GMV.
Looks like the weblab just ended recently (I haven't been able to replicate since last Friday), so Amazon is presumably evaluating the results.
We'll see soon enough if top-nav comes back!
h/t to Haider Ali to be one of the first people to spot this change to the SERP navigation experience
