9 ways to increase average order value

If you’re looking for ways to grow your business and increase average order values, you’re in the right place. Keep reading to learn how to increase AOV with 9 strategies.

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Why you need to increase average order value

Average order value is an important metric to consider for your business. It helps to inform your marketing, spending, and pricing strategies so that you can maximize profitability and grow your business over time.

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When the amount of money your customers spend increases, that means that you can spend more on advertising to reach more customers. As your business grows, you’ll have more opportunities for referrals, an improved market share, and more organic income that you don’t have to pay for with pay-per-click advertising.

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Growing your average order value is also straightforward - you just need to know how to build your store, products, upsells, and cross-sells for conversions.

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9 best strategies for how to increase AOV

There are a lot of different ways to increase your average order value, including upsells, cross-sells, and other strategies that convince your customers to spend more.

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Here are 9 of the best:

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BOGO offers

What’s better than getting one product? Getting the second at a discount - just for buying one! 

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Buy one, get one (BOGO) offers can be a great way to encourage customers to spend more. Depending on the product, you may offer a second of the same product for a discount or the customer’s choice of a similar product at the same discount, allowing them to build their own “bundles”. 

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However, “buy one, get one free” is more of a conversion rate strategy than a way to increase average order values because they don’t pay for the additional product, so stick to discounts.

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Increased quality

Do you want an iPhone from 5 years ago, or the latest model?

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Upselling your products by offering upgrades to things like storage space, newer models, more features, improved performance, and others is one way to increase AOV. You can accomplish this through effective on-page optimization and sales strategy, or by creating upsell offers that provide meaningful upgrades at a discount that’s good enough to convince customers to upgrade.

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Upgraded quantity

“Less is more” doesn’t apply to customer purchases - everyone wants more for their money.

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When you sell food, drinks, office supplies, or any other consumable product that customers may run out of, increasing the quantity of your products through an upsell can help you secure more money upfront instead of hoping they return later to buy again. This strategy is especially effective when you include metrics like cost per unit to help demonstrate the increased value you’re offering.

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Complementary products

Does “you may also like…” sound familiar? If so, you’ve seen complementary product recommendations.

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Cross-sells revolve around offering products that make sense alongside the primary product being purchased. You may offer chargers for electronics, cases for a phone, matching clothing, another item in the set, or any other separate product.

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By increasing the number of products your customers buy, you’ll raise your average order value and provide a more complete buying experience to raise customer satisfaction.

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Discounted bundles

You’re the expert of your business, so you know what your customers need.

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Bundles are a form of cross-selling that allows you to put the idea of buying multiple products into customers’ minds. Whether you create pre-built bundles with all the essentials a customer may need or allow users to make their own bundles, you can increase the number of products you sell to help grow your AOV.

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Highlighted higher-priced options

Sometimes getting customers to spend more is as simple as your website design.

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When you offer products or services in multiple tiers, you have a straightforward method of upselling. By using web copy that highlights the benefits of your higher-tier offerings and design that draws customers to consider them over the basic products, you can increase the chances of customers spending more.

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Discounted annual subscriptions

While subscriptions are a great way to potentially generate some ongoing revenue for your store, they don’t guarantee it.

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If your store sells memberships or subscriptions, you can use annual plans to increase your average order value. By making the annual plan pay-ahead and offering a discount, you’re more likely to get customers to commit to paying upfront without needing to worry about them coming back to renew at a later date.

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Free shipping minimums

Customers have come to expect free shipping - but they’re usually willing to earn it.

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Depending on your average product cost and order values, free shipping may not be a viable option for your business. But because charging for shipping can be a major turn-off for customers, offering the option to get free shipping for spending a certain amount can help encourage customers to spend that extra cost on a product instead of shipping. Free shipping is especially valuable if your shipping costs are low to begin with, as the additional amount they spend is likely going to exceed your costs.

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Free gift minimums

Who doesn’t like free stuff?

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Similar to free shipping, a free gift for spending a certain amount of money is a low-risk strategy for convincing customers to spend more money. It won’t always work - especially if the customer is far away from the minimum amount - but if they’re close, there’s a good chance that they’ll consider your offer as a discounted product.

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Implement upsells and cross-sells to increase AOV with UpsellPlus

When it comes to increasing average order value in your Shopify store, upsells and cross-sell strategies are an essential element. From subscription management to bundling and recommendations for cross-sells to BOGO, the right upsell and cross-sell strategy will allow you to implement our top strategies for how to increase average order values - and UpsellPlus makes it easy.

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UpsellPlus is an all-in-one upselling and cross-selling tool that helps you create offers that increase AOV by improving conversions. It uses an algorithm based on real customer data to help you find the right offers to make for different products in your catalog so that you’re always capitalizing on your checkout process. You’ll easily build flows that use custom logic so that your offers make sense, A/B testing to see what works best, and in-depth data that helps you refine your strategy for optimal results.

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Don’t leave money on the table - start your 7-day free trial of UpsellPlus today.

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