An A/B test conducted by a Finland-based hardware eCommerce store has shown that contrary to popular notion, removing social sharing buttons boosts conversions.

According to a report published in Visual Website Optimizer, Jani Uusi-Pantti of Taloon.com, which sells plumbing, electrical, gardening and other construction materials, removed Google+, Pin it and Facebook share buttons from its product pages to see if it will have any impact on the site’s main CTA or call to action button.

Much to the surprise of Jani Uusi-Pantti, the change, which ran for a week, recorded an 11.9% increase in CTA clickthroughs compared to when the site had social sharing buttons right below the product photos.

Click here to read the article in full.