10 Simple Ways to Increase your Average Order Value

Yes, this is one of the most underestimated and underused strategies to make more money.

The Average Order Value (AOV) is calculated by dividing your revenue by the number of orders in a specific period of time. If you sold $3000 with 100 orders in January, your average order value was $30.

The problem: ecommerce entrepreneurs keep focusing on the most expensive task (increasing traffic to the website), when upselling or increasing the amount of products purchased by order is absolutely FREE of charge – it costs nothing! Asking is all you need to do.

So, in this 2 blog post series, I will analyse 10 different, simple and smart ways to boost your average order value. Implementing just 1 tactic could increase your revenue by 5, 10, or even 30% – no excuses!

1. Set free shipping threshold

Tell me you shopped online in the past and never tried to add a few products to your cart in order to reach the “free shipping threshold”?

“Get free shipping on orders over $50” makes you want to order $50 worth of products so that you can get free shipping.

Yes, NEVER offer free shipping for “free”, offer free shipping when a certain threshold is reached.

Some companies charge just as much for their shipping as they do for their products (mostly here in the US), which means that shoppers have to make some serious decisions about what they can and can’t get – and an expensive shipping might totally put them off.

So, set a free shipping threshold today.

This will encourage your customers to buy more products from your website and therefore increase your average order value.

2. Offer discount on big orders

The amount people spend each month on shopping depends on their budget, and while some people don’t have to worry about limiting this number, others have to be very cautious with how much they spend.

When your products are in demand, and a customer is more likely to buy several items every time she orders, then you should definitely offer a discount of at least 10% on orders over $100 (for example).

In the same way online shoppers would want to reach the free shipping threshold to get free shipping, this additional threshold increases your average order value dramatically.

Psychologically, showing your customers how to SAVE money is the key. It doesn’t matter that in order to save 10% they need to spend more, they’re still – technically – saving 🙂

3. Offer volume discount

This is slightly different from setting discount on big orders, but it works in a similar way.

Volume discount involves offering discount on multiple orders of the same product. “Order 10 and get 10% off”, “Order 50 and get 15% off” are the most common examples.

Once again, it’s the psychology of the offer that entices shoppers to order more. This tactic is highly recommended when your prices are quite low and customers are likely to purchase multiple products, in the same way a wholesale business works.

4. Provide Up-sells & Upgrades

One of the quickest ways to increase your average order price is through up-selling, or selling additional products to customers at the time they are placing an order.

There is a lot of confusion about up-sells and cross-sells (the 2 most typical product “add-ons” in ecommerce software), as they’re often considered the same thing.

In my opinion, up-sells are product “upgrades” while cross-sells are product “alternatives”.

For instance, if you sell PCs, a common up-sell could be a 24 months warranty, additional PC accessories, or a more powerful PC version.

If you’re not doing this already, then you should provide up-sells right now! It costs you absolutely nothing to provide up-sells, and customers expect this anyway (in the same way bricks-and-mortar shop owners always try to give you suggestions or specific up-sell instructions.

5. Provide Cross-sells

This is a great tool that online businesses use to make customers look for similar or alternative items from the ones currently in their carts.

If customers are shopping for a PC, they might also like Tablets. If customers are looking to buy jeans, they might want to take a look at your casual-wear products as well.

Don’t get me wrong: we don’t want your customers to change their mind. We’re only suggesting alternatives in case that product is not exactly what they are looking for.

Remember: the more pages/products they visit, the more likely they will buy.

Suggesting different products or alternatives gives your online business the option of constructing more net income easily and at the same time providing what the customers want.

Tips #6, #7, #8, #9 & #10?

Don’t worry.

I just didn’t want to write them all here in one single, long, blog post 🙂 Here is the rest: https://ecommerceandbeyond.com/10-simple-ways-increase-average-order-value-part-2/