How to Increase Your Average Order Size
Looking to increase the bottom line? There’s no better way than to increase your average order size. There are several simple ways to go about this.
Bundling to Build Profits
Bundling is the act of offering several products together for a lower price than if the products were purchased separately. With bundling, the customer is buying more than they intended, but the deal is too good to pass up. The key is to only lower the price a little, that way you are still making a profit on all the items in the bundle.
By Ed Yourdon under CC BY-SA 2.0
During different times of the year, try themed bundles. For example, during the summer you could offer a sun protection pack, a pack beach themed movies, a three-pack of swimsuits, you get the idea. No matter what your inventory, you can always come up with one themed bundle per year. For example, if your site sells software, you can sell a back-to-school bundle in the fall.
Use Free Shipping to Your Advantage
The wide use of free shipping by many online retailers has taken a bit of a toll on overall profitability, as users have become more and more accustomed to this offer and almost expect it when purchasing. On the positive side, it can be used to your advantage in terms of providing an incentive for your users to increase their overall spend on your shopping cart. By giving shoppers a discounted or free shipping option above and beyond a certain spending threshold, you’re encouraging them to spend a little more on your website. Just make sure that the shipping discount fits well with the context of your overall order fulfillment and shipping fees. Because the free shipping option is such an important factor in online purchasing, it might just be enough encouragement to get shoppers to increase their order size and boost your sales.
Rack Up Reviews
Reviews are great for encouraging your customers to buy product. Getting written reviews from customers is hard. A better way is to add a suggestion box to each product page. The box should populate item suggestions that relate to the product based on what previous customers ordered along with the product. With a headline like, “Other customers who purchased this item also liked,” customers will get the feeling that they are being recommended a product, even if the previous customer left no feedback other than what they purchased.
Up-Sell Like Crazy
Up-selling is probably the best way to increase your average order size. It is as simple as offering accessories or other items that will enhance your products experience. For example, say you sell DSLR cameras on your site. You wouldn’t just sell someone a camera and be satisfied. Add links on the camera’s page to lenses, filters, straps and camera bags that would make the camera even better or protect the camera. Promoting them as must-haves would make the customer load up their shopping cart.
Another example, say you sell beauty products. Don’t just aim to sell one product. Convince the customer that they need to buy the whole line of products to get the best, full-body experience. Use three or four cross-links to achieve this on each of your product pages.
Don’t Forget About User Experience
Sometimes online merchants, in trying to implement every tactic to increase sales, make the overall experience cumbersome and difficult to complete. Try to avoid this potential trap by keeping your pages simple and implementing best practices for user experience. Furthermore, keep in mind that the mobile and tablet market is growing more and more each year, so ease of design and use within this context is critical to winning more business online.
If you employ just one of these tactics, you are sure to see an increase in purchases. One technique may be more successful for your type of business, so you may want to try each of them.
