The Playbook For Increasing Average Order Value (AOV)

AOV is the average amount of money each customer spends per transaction. It’s a fundamental metric that can help boost revenue without necessarily having to spend more money acquiring new customers. Think of it this way: if your current customers each decide to spend just a few more dollars per purchase, it can add up to a lot of extra revenue by the end of the month or quarter.

Increasing AOV is a game-changer because it leverages your existing traffic and customer base. Rather than investing heavily in advertising to reach brand-new audiences, you’re focusing on the people who are already in your store or on your website. These customers have already shown trust in your brand or product by deciding to shop with you in the first place. It’s often much easier (and cheaper) to encourage them to spend a little bit more than it is to convince a total stranger to open their wallet.

But how exactly do you get your customers to spend more per transaction? That’s what we’re going to uncover in this comprehensive playbook. We’ll talk about tried-and-true methods like product bundling, upselling, and cross-selling. We’ll also explore more nuanced strategies, such as personalization tactics and seamless checkout experiences. You’ll learn about common hurdles you might face along the way—like getting your team on board or figuring out the right tools for implementation—and discover detailed solutions that work in real-world scenarios.

Master the Art of Product Bundling To Increase Average Order Value

Product bundling involves packaging related products together and selling them as a single unit—often at a slightly discounted price. This strategy works because it appeals to the customer’s desire for both convenience and savings. They feel like they’re getting a deal while also having an easier time choosing complementary items.

One of the biggest challenges you might encounter when implementing bundles is striking the right balance between discounting and preserving your profit margin. You don’t want to slash prices so deeply that you lose money, but you also need to make the bundle attractive enough to persuade customers to spend more. Another challenge can be deciding which products to bundle together. If the items aren’t truly complementary, you risk overwhelming or confusing the customer.

Proven Strategies

1. Research Customer Behavior: Before finalizing your bundles, take a look at your sales data. Which products are often bought together? This data-driven approach ensures that your bundles make sense and appeal to real-world purchasing habits.
2. Emphasize Savings: While you don’t want to eat into your profits, a small discount can go a long way. Sometimes even a 10% savings is enough to push your customers to spend more than they originally planned.
3. Create Themed Bundles: Seasonal or thematic bundles (e.g., “Summer Essentials,” “Back to School,” or “Holiday Survival Kit”) can capture interest in a way that feels timely and relevant.

Example: A skincare brand might bundle a cleanser, toner, and moisturizer together, branding it as a “Daily Essentials Kit” and offering it for a price slightly lower than if the items were bought separately. This positions the bundle as both a value deal and a convenient one-stop solution for daily skincare.

Upselling and Cross-Selling with Personalization

According to some industry reports, upselling and cross-selling can account for up to 30% of a business’s eCommerce revenue. These strategies involve recommending higher-priced or related products during the shopping journey. It’s a direct approach that leverages your understanding of a customer’s needs and preferences.

A major hurdle is ensuring that your recommendations are genuinely relevant. Overly aggressive or irrelevant upselling can annoy customers and drive them away. Additionally, if you don’t have the right data or analytics in place, you might not know enough about your customers’ behaviors or preferences to offer meaningful suggestions.

Proven Strategies

1. Smart Recommendation Engines: Using AI-driven solutions can help you analyze customer behavior, past purchases, and browsing patterns. These insights can generate personalized suggestions that align with each shopper’s unique interests.
2. Segment Your Audience: Not all customers are the same. Segment them by purchase history, location, or even demographic factors so you can tailor your upsell approach. For instance, a high-spending customer might be more receptive to premium products, while a budget-conscious segment could respond better to small add-ons.
3. Timing Is Everything: Place your upsell and cross-sell recommendations at strategic points of the customer journey. If you push them too early, it can feel intrusive. If you wait too long—like after they’ve already checked out—you miss an opportunity.

Example: If you run an online camera store, someone buying a DSLR camera could be shown a lens upgrade at checkout. For cross-selling, you might recommend additional memory cards, tripods, or camera bags based on what other customers with similar buying habits purchased.

Leverage Loyalty Programs and VIP Tiers To Increase AOV

Loyalty programs incentivize repeat business by rewarding customers for their purchases. When customers anticipate rewards or perks, they’re more inclined to add an extra item to their cart. A well-structured loyalty program can become a virtuous cycle: the more people spend, the more rewards they earn, which encourages them to spend again.

One common barrier is making sure your loyalty program is truly compelling and easy to understand. Complicated rules or rewards that aren’t exciting can fail to motivate customers. Another challenge is deciding which perks to offer to ensure you’re not giving away too much value without seeing a return.

Proven Strategies

1. Tiered Rewards: Create multiple tiers (e.g., Silver, Gold, Platinum) so that your best customers receive bigger and better rewards. This approach gamifies the shopping experience, encouraging them to spend more to reach the next level.
2. Exclusive Access: Instead of just offering discounts, think about offering exclusive early access to new products or members-only items. The feeling of exclusivity can significantly increase a customer’s willingness to spend more.
3. Personalized Offers: Surprise your loyal customers with personalized coupons or free gifts on their birthdays or “membership anniversaries.” Personalized gestures show you appreciate them and can encourage them to splurge a bit more than usual.

Example: A coffee shop chain might offer a free bag of specialty beans once a customer spends a certain amount over six months. This makes the customer more likely to visit that chain regularly to accumulate points.

Create Urgency with Limited-Time Offers and Flash Sales To Increase Customer AOV

Humans are wired to respond to scarcity and time-sensitive opportunities. When you present an offer with a deadline—like “24-hour flash sale” or “Only 10 items left at this price”—it triggers a psychological need to act quickly before missing out. This often leads customers to add extra items to their cart to maximize the value they get while the deal lasts.

Overusing urgency tactics can make your offers seem gimmicky or misleading. If every day is a “last chance sale,” your audience will catch on and become less responsive. Another challenge is striking the right balance between a compelling offer and preserving your profits.

Proven Strategies

1. Flash Sales: Run short, targeted sales on specific product categories. Announce these events to your email list or through social media to create excitement.
2. Countdown Timers: Display a countdown clock on your website during the sale period. Visual cues like a ticking clock amplify the sense of urgency.
3. Tiered Discounts: Offer tiered discounts based on the cart total (e.g., “Spend $100 to get 10% off, or spend $200 to get 20% off”). This encourages customers to spend more to reach the higher discount bracket.

Example: If you run a fashion eCommerce store, you could offer a 15% discount for orders over $75 and 25% off for orders over $150—but only for 48 hours. This time-limited incentive can push a customer to add an extra item or two to their cart in order to get the bigger discount.

Optimize the Checkout Process to Increase AOV

The checkout process is where the rubber meets the road. You can have the best offers in the world, but if your checkout is slow, confusing, or cluttered, you’ll lose sales. Worse yet, a bad checkout experience can discourage customers from adding extra items to their cart at the last minute. According to Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate is around 69%. Improving checkout flow can significantly decrease abandonment and increase AOV when done correctly.

The biggest hurdle is often the technical side. You might need developer resources to streamline forms, payment options, or incorporate additional upsell modules in your checkout. If you’re operating on an older platform or a custom-built site, these updates can be costly and time-consuming.

Proven Strategies

1. Fewer Clicks, Fewer Fields: Minimize the number of steps it takes for a customer to complete their purchase. Offer guest checkout options and reduce the amount of personal information required.
2. Multiple Payment Options: Accepting digital wallets, buy-now-pay-later services, and various credit cards can remove friction. The easier it is to pay, the more likely customers are to proceed with the transaction.
3. Checkout Upsells: Offer a final upsell or complementary item before the payment is processed. Keep it simple, with a clear “Add to Cart” button right there. This tactic can be particularly effective for small add-on products like gift wrap, accessories, or warranties.

Example: A tech retailer might show a short message at checkout, like “Add a screen protector for just $9.99?” along with a convenient button to add it. This doesn’t feel pushy—rather it feels helpful, and it can bump up the average order value without derailing the purchase flow.

Enhance the Post-Purchase Experience to Encourage Future Spend

Increasing AOV isn’t just a one-time play—it’s about encouraging repeat purchases that keep your revenue healthy over the long haul. Once a customer has bought from you, they’re significantly more likely to do so again if you’ve delivered a great experience. This opens the door for bigger orders over time, as trust and loyalty grow.

Many businesses overlook the post-purchase phase because they’re too focused on getting the sale in the first place. Ignoring this part of the customer journey can mean missing out on major revenue opportunities. You also have to be careful not to bombard customers with emails or promotions right after they’ve made a purchase; it can come off as too salesy or pushy.

Proven Strategies

1. Thoughtful Thank You Message: Immediately after a purchase, send a personalized thank-you email. This is your chance to reinforce the customer’s good feeling about their choice. Include a hint about future promos or loyalty rewards without being too pushy.
2. Follow-Up With Personalized Recommendations: After a customer has had time to use your product, follow up with additional product suggestions based on their purchase. For instance, “You might like these matching accessories” or “Check out this complementary product that other buyers have loved.”
3. Request Feedback and Reviews: Show customers that their opinions matter to you. When they feel valued, they’re more likely to return and even spend more. Plus, positive reviews can attract new shoppers.

Example: An online pet supply store might send an email a week after a dog food purchase, thanking the customer and suggesting treats or supplements that pair well with that particular brand of food. This not only adds value but also gently nudges the customer to spend more in the near future.

Overcoming Internal Hurdles and Implementation Roadblocks When Trying to Increase AOV

Even the best strategies for increasing AOV can fail if your team isn’t on the same page. Whether you’re a large business with multiple departments or a small venture with a handful of employees, clarity of purpose and clear communication are vital to ensure these tactics are executed consistently and effectively.

Resistance to change is common. Your sales team might worry that customers could perceive upselling as pushy. Your marketing team might be concerned about saturating emails with promotions. On top of that, you might face technical constraints—like an outdated ecommerce platform or limited budget—that can make implementing new features a steep climb.

Proven Strategies

1. Cross-Department Communication: Hold meetings with key stakeholders—sales, marketing, customer support, and IT—to outline how the new strategies benefit each team. Highlight the win-win scenario and address any concerns upfront.
2. Start Small and Scale Up: Test one or two tactics, gather data, and present the results. A pilot program that shows a clear lift in AOV can go a long way in winning internal support and budget approvals.
3. Training and Scripts: If you have a customer-facing sales or support team, provide them with scripts and training on how to politely upsell or cross-sell without appearing aggressive. Clear guidelines keep everyone aligned with the brand’s tone and customer-centric values.
4. Use the Right Tools: Investigate software platforms or plugins specifically designed for upselling, cross-selling, and product bundling. Many modern ecommerce solutions have these features built-in or offer easy-to-integrate add-ons.

Example: A medium-sized electronics retailer might implement a pilot program for checkout upsells on a select category of products. After seeing a 15% increase in the AOV for that category, they can scale the tactic to other categories and share the data with the entire team, building enthusiasm and getting buy-in for further experimentation.

Cheat Sheet To Increase AOV

Strategy	Benefits
Product Bundling	– Encourages customers to buy multiple items at once – Increases perceived value – Boosts convenience for shoppers
Upselling & Cross-Selling with Personalization	– Leverages customer data for relevant suggestions – Increases order size without being pushy – Builds stronger customer relationships
Loyalty Programs & VIP Tiers	– Encourages repeat purchases and brand loyalty – Increases long-term AOV – Creates a sense of exclusivity
Limited-Time Offers & Flash Sales	– Triggers urgency to prompt immediate action – Attracts bargain hunters – Boosts short-term revenue
Optimized Checkout Process	– Reduces cart abandonment – Allows last-minute upsells – Provides a seamless user experience
Enhanced Post-Purchase Experience	– Encourages repeat purchases – Builds brand loyalty – Increases customer satisfaction
Overcoming Internal Hurdles & Implementation	– Fosters cross-department alignment – Simplifies adoption of new tactics – Ensures consistent, brand-friendly execution

Conclusion

Boosting your Average Order Value doesn’t happen overnight, but with a consistent approach and the right tactics, you can make significant strides toward higher revenue and better profit margins. Think of this playbook as a toolkit. Each strategy—whether it’s product bundling, upselling, loyalty programs, or checkout optimization—can be adapted to your brand’s specific challenges and goals.

Remember that your customers are at the heart of all these efforts. When you position your strategies as ways to offer them more value, rather than just a sales gimmick, you’ll earn their trust and loyalty. It’s not about pushing them to buy more than they need; it’s about curating a shopping experience that genuinely enhances their life—while benefiting your bottom line in the process.