A/B testing
Camel doesn't run tests of its own. It is built to work with the testing tools Shopify merchants already use, so your store stays correct in every version a test shows.
What works
- Shopify Rollouts and theme-testing apps. Tests that copy your theme and send part of your traffic to the copy, whether Shopify's own Rollouts or apps such as Shoplift, see Camel's sections as ordinary theme sections. Colours, text and layout are theme settings, so whatever you change in the copy is what that group of shoppers sees.
- Price-testing apps. Every product price Camel prints is labelled with its product and variant, in the format price-testing apps such as Intelligems read, so a price test changes Camel's prices along with the rest of the store. That includes the buy box, quantity-break and subscription rows, product grids, search results and the cart's recommendations. Prices on the lines already in the cart are left to Shopify, as these apps expect.
- Other apps that change the cart. Camel's cart and buy box announce what they do with Shopify's standard storefront events, and they listen for the same events from other apps. If another app adds something to the cart, Camel's cart drawer updates.
Discounts in a rollout
Camel's upsells advertise discounts you created in Shopify. If you put one of those discounts into a Shopify Rollout that gives it to only some shoppers (a 50/50 test, or a gradual rollout), Camel stops advertising it, because it can't promise everyone a saving that only some of them will get at checkout. The upsell editor shows the discount greyed out with the reason. When the rollout ends or reaches every shopper, Camel advertises it again without you doing anything.
The same applies when you pause, change or delete a discount in Shopify: Camel's buy box and cart follow within moments.
Testing your upsells
Upsells are configured in Camel, not in the theme, so they are the same in every version of a theme test. To test an upsell offer, test the discount behind it with Shopify Rollouts, or switch the upsell on and off between test periods.
What Camel doesn't support
Template tests that rearrange or swap whole pages are not something Camel prepares for. Camel designs each page as a sequence, so its colour bands alternate in a rhythm and each section is chosen for the ones around it. An arrangement Camel never designed still works, but it may not look the way the store was meant to.
For developers
Every price is marked data-camel-price="price" or data-camel-price="compare", alongside data-product-id, data-variant-id and, for a figure that is a multiple of the product's price (a "buy 3" total, a deal price), data-price-multiplier.
Reading this with a machine? This page is also at /docs/ab-testing.md, and every page is indexed at /llms.txt.