The experts didn’t elaborate on what kind of content or, at least I didn’t catch it as I was making my notes. Perhaps they meant they’d rather see content than graphic clutter, or that content was more usable/valuable to conversion.

It seems like the key is relevancy. Are the carousel options relevant to what I’d to browse? Am I browsing based on a particular style, brand, or price? The better they’re able to target, the better the carousel will be.

When you mentioned that the experts preferred more content on the page (as opposed to more product choices), what did they mean by that?

I work for otto.de, one of Germanys bigger ecommerce sites. We’ve ben tinkering around with carousel like navigation elements. We mostly used them a promotion instruments using the carousel as a way of showing styles that fit into the promotion theme in a nicer designed way than the usual product list.
However for a carousel to really be a benefit I think you have to integrate presonalization data and link the carousel navigation to a specific communication (e.g. “more similar shoes”) to let the user know what the carousel is about.
Another perspective on the carousel may be that you don’t need the tool if you have a good working product list which already cannibalizes a product detail view where the carousel would be located ;)

Best regards,
Denis