Insight of the Week

Add Borders or Backgrounds to Choosable Items

Retailers increased conversion rates by wrapping each item with a visual border or background.

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Nick Kolenda
Updated January 9, 2025
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Grid of yogurts that becomes more clickable with visual boundaries on each selection

How should catalogs look?

Try wrapping each item in a border or background. This style nearly doubled conversion rates in ecommerce catalogs (e.g., beverages, resorts; Jia et al., 2024).

Based on eye tracking, customers saw more unique features in these catalogs because they viewed features within products instead of viewing a single feature across products:

Two assortments of headphones, one assortment has a background which keeps attention within each product, whereas the other assortment has no background which spreads attention across products

Naturally, they saw more varied features.

But it also happened in retail settings: A restaurant doubled their drink sales when their signage wrapped each drink with a border (Jia et al., 2024).

A menu sign with drinks generated more revenue with visual boundaries on each item

Just be careful when comparisons are critical.

Pricing tiers are often evaluated with back-and-forth comparisons, yet rigid borders can hinder this motion by trapping eye gazes:

Pricing plans are more comparable without rigid borders

In these scenarios, discriminate each item with a solid background without any exterior fencing.

Stronger For

  • Small Catalogs. Large catalogs were unaffected by discreteness because they already possessed variety (Jia et al., 2024).
  • Contamination Worries. Visual borders feel like tangible borders that can protect food or luxury items from external touches. In one study, natural disasters seemed less likely to travel into adjacent regions when viewed on a map with darker borders (Mishra & Mishra, 2010).
  • Curved Backgrounds. Round corners converted better than sharp corners, presumably because round objects feel more touchable (Biswas et al., 2024).
Catalog of blenders with round backgrounds performing better than sharp backgrounds

Other New Stuff

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  • Recycling Increases Happiness - Environmental behaviors create a "warm glow" feeling within us (similar to donating). And this feeling increases dopamine.