Learning how to increase the average order value of a Shopify store is crucial for sustainable business growth. If your store has a decent amount of traffic and a conversion rate, yet you are still not satisfied with the sales and want the numbers to go up, focusing on Shopify's average order value can help bridge the gap between your current sales and the benchmark that you have set up for the sales target.
Understanding the average order value on Shopify is straightforward, it's the average amount that a customer spends buying from your website. Let us suppose you own a clothing brand and the store specialises in high-end dresses with an average price per dress being £180, and you receive around 1,200 visitors per month, with a conversion rate of 2%. On average, customers buy one dress per order, resulting in an average order value of £180.
Here’s the breakdown:
Conversion rate: 2% of 1,200 visitors = 24 customers per month
Average order value: £180
Monthly revenue: 24 customers × £180 = £4,320The Shopify average order value directly correlates to your revenue. Higher average order value leads to higher revenue. In simple terms, when customers buy more, the store sells more!
Before focusing on AOV optimisation, ensure you have:
Since the nature and purpose of different businesses are different. Choosing the right set of strategies that matches your store and your business could be an iterative process of figuring out which strategy or combination of strategies works best for your business.
Although there are a number of strategies that can be used to increase the AOV, the core principle remains the same, directing the attention of the customer towards the potential purchase opportunity. Keeping the core principle as base here are some of the best proven strategies that work for almost all types of business.
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Upselling is the art of persuading customers to upgrade to a higher-priced product, whereas cross-selling involves suggesting complementary products after a customer has shown intent to buy the product already.
The cart acts as the final review point before purchase, it displays essential information like estimated total, cart items, and checkout button making it one of few places where customer attention is high. Using the cart for placing product recommendations is something that isn’t likely to go unnoticed. This area could be used to display related products, complementary products, or maybe some of your best-selling products that a customer is very likely to purchase.
Implementing effective product recommendations in the cart drawer can help recover potential upsell opportunities and assist customers in discovering products they may be interested in.
Frequently bought together involves suggesting complementary products that are recommended to be purchased at the same time. Always keep in mind that customers don't like products to be sold to, make sure the recommendation appears helpful, and consider selecting the products that actually pair well with the product like bread and butter.
Shopify has this related products section on all the themes that usually appear on the product page. Apart from home, product and collection pages there are many pages that rarely get utilized for product display, consider implementing this on the other content-driven pages like blogs, collaborations etc.
Product bundling is selling multiple products as a single product usually at a reduced price.Bundles often present a higher perceived value, making customers feel they’re getting more for their money.
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Offering a small discount on bundled items acts as a motivation for the customers to spend more than they might have planned for individual products. This also reduces the effort buyers need to put into choosing complementary items.
A fine way to increase average order value is to incentivise the customer when they go for a purchase. It could be a gift card, sale on collections, discount code or perhaps a delivery threshold based on cart item price, above which they are getting free delivery!
Suggested Reads - How to Use Shopify's Discount Features to Increase Sales
Announcement bars are a great way of letting visitors know what is current and ongoing in your store, consider utilizing this space for displaying information regarding discount coupons, occasional or seasonal sales, free delivery etc.
A progress bar often acts as a visual motivation for customers and helps reduce cart abandonment by tapping into the psychological desire for completion. Implementing a progress bar either on the product page or inside the cart with a message like "You're {Price} away from free shipping!" or “Add {Price} more to get Free Shipping!” helps customers understand what they need to do and motivates them to add more to their cart.
In Shopify, the default checkout page is functional but a plain checkout page without brand colours, or typography breaks the continuity of your brand's essence, making the experience feel generic and thereby reducing the emotional engagement that customers feel with your store.
The checkout page, usually the last point of contact as 90-95% of the customers leave the site after checking out, is one of the crucial pages which can be leveraged by the store. Shopify experts generally emphasize the importance of customizing your checkout page with consistent colours, typography, and design elements to maintain brand consistency throughout the customer journey.
If you are a Shopify Plus user, then an upsell or cross-sell implementation based on order items can help influence the customer's buying decision at the last moment on time.
Working on improving Average Order Value can help improve the revenue for your store. Improving AOV is an iterative process of figuring out which strategy or combination of strategies works best for your store. The above strategies focus on the core principle of directing the attention of the customer towards the potential purchase opportunity and are applicable to most stores.
It is important to note that implementing the strategies without the prerequisites can often lead to results less than expected, so make sure to work on improving website traffic and conversion rate first.
Our Shopify Experts at F22 Labs specialize in AOV optimization, custom theme development, and store enhancements to boost your Shopify store's performance. Contact us to learn more about maximizing your store's potential
Average Order Value (AOV) is the average amount a customer spends in a single transaction on your Shopify store. It’s calculated by dividing total revenue by the number of orders.
Product bundles encourage customers to buy multiple related items together at a discounted price. This not only boosts the perceived value but also increases the overall order size and spending.
Yes, AOV strategies like upselling, bundling, and free shipping incentives are versatile and can benefit most Shopify stores by encouraging customers to spend more during their shopping journey.