The AOV Growth Secrets That Helped Us Unlock Millions In Revenue for 40+ Brands —And How You Can Do the Same

I’m about to reveal the exact AOV-boosting tactics that have helped us generate millions in extra revenue across 40+ client brands.

These strategies have been formed by analysing simple consumer psychology and testing different approaches and angles in multiple niches.

But firstly, let’s get into why AOV is actually important:

AOV is the second most important metric when it comes to profitability, right next to CVR (Conversion Rate).

The entire goal of boosting your AOV is making your customers spend more money on orders they’ve already decided to make.

Meaning, if you have already convinced someone to buy your product, you’ll have a much easier time convincing them to spend a bit more with you.

Let’s imagine a brand with a great CVR (ideal scenario).

Monthly stats:
Store sessions -> 90,000
Conversion rate -> 6%
Average order value -> $50

Orders: 5400
Revenue: $270,000

Now, let’s imagine we implement new CRO strategies or hire a new agency to work on upsells & other ways we will go into later, and next month, the AOV increases by $5.

Store sessions -> 90,000
Conversion rate -> 6%
Average order value -> $55

Orders: 5400
Revenue: $297,000

The larger the numbers, the larger the impact. By increasing your AOV by $5, the monthly revenue increased by $27,000.

But, you already knew all that, so let’s cover the 8 main ways you can increase your average order value.

DISCLAIMER: All suggestions and advice is to be taken as inspiration. The only proper way to do CRO is to test changes and gain insights into your audience.

1. Optimize your cart and checkout process

This is by far the simplest way to increase your AOV.

I’m not saying you should blindly upsell or implement new strategies inside the cart, but you should test what works on your audience and what doesn’t.

For cart optimizations, I recommend using an app like Rebuy, or custom coding the changes (use a developer for this).

1.1. Upselling inside the cart

Here are a couple of points to take into consideration when upselling inside the cart:

• Find products that are frequently bought together, or, if you don’t have that data yet, look into products that can be used well together in pair.
  
  • If you see that a protein bar and orange juice are most frequently bought together, then you set up an orange juice upsell for every person who has “protein bar” inside their cart, and the other way around.
    
    Example we made for All Better Co.
    
    
  • You can also go by pure logic, meaning if you sell toothpaste, you can also upsell a unique matching toothbrush on every order.
    
    Optimization we’ve made for SMACKIN Sunflower Seeds, where upselling different flavors makes sense.
    

• You can also upsell products that customers have already seen go well together. Here’s an example from Boden:
  
  

• If your brand has a subscription model, I always recommend upselling a subscription inside the cart.
  
  • An easy way to do this is to have a “On and Off” toggle for subscriptions with the clear offer right next to it. Here’s how we did it for Le Pois.
  • 
    
  • Another way to do it is to have a simple button under each product with a subscription offer, simple and easy.
  • 
    
• If you currently have bundles or any type of quantity offer, you can also upsell that inside the cart.
  
  • Aim to upsell a larger bundle that gives you more profit on your order. Show which extra items are included in that bundle.
    
    Example we’ve made for Alya Skin:
    

1.2. Free shipping and free gifts

It’s very unlikely for an upsell to work properly if there is no motive or incentive supporting it.

People love free gifts and additional value they can receive if they do something. You can use this to your advantage and pair it with the upselling process to get customers to actually click on your upsells and add them into cart.

The usual thought process of a customer would be something along the lines of:

“If I can get free shipping and a mini gift, just by adding another product that I can give to my friend or use in the future (or even immediately), then it makes sense to do that”

Here’s how to properly use free shipping and free gifts inside the cart:

• Use tiered or multi-step progress bars to show customers how “far away” they are from a free gift or free shipping.
  
  • You really have to test your free shipping and gift thresholds here to ensure that the offer actually makes sense profit-wise.
    
  • We’ve seen some great performance with a free mystery gift as the final step of the progress bar, usually at thresholds over $150+
    
    Optimization we’ve made for Le Pois:
    
  • An easy way to avoid free gifts and still use a tiered progress bar is to split “free shipping” into “free standard shipping” and “free exclusive shipping”
    
    Example we’ve made for Nuleaf Naturals.
    
    
• You can also use cart page banners to promote your free gift offer. This works wonders because it’s catchy and immediately gets noticed.
  
  • You can use it to promote free gifts
    
    Example we’ve made for All Better Co.
    
    
  • Or promote an ongoing limited-time offer, like season discounts or new product launches
    
    Example we’ve made for Nuleaf Naturals
    

1.3. Unlock bundled price promotion

It’s very unlikely for an upsell to work properly if there is no motive or incentive supporting it.

If you want to push people to go for bundles at a discount, you can use a progress bar and cross sells to display a potential “discounted” price on bundle offers.

LovePop does a great job at promoting their bundle offer and 33% discount by pushing people on higher quantity orders.

Given the nature of their industry, I’m sure it’s in their ideal to even have a lower CVR with a higher AOV, to save costs of production.

2. Product Bundling

This is where you combine numerous complementary products into a single bundle and give the customers a discount for purchasing all of them together.

2.1. Pre-set bundles

You can create whole, pre-set bundles for customers based on products that go well together and are frequently bought together.

Here’s an example from Hey Bud Skincare.

The goal is to push people to get a bundle instead of a single product, and the best way to do it is to show them products they’re already looking for, all bundled up and discounted.

You don’t want your customers to buy a toothbrush from you and a toothpaste from a competitor. You want both those sales to be attributed to your brand.

So? Give them a discount on purchasing the same products. You’ll lose a bit of your profit margins, but it’s better than losing the sale completely.

The psychology behind upsells and bundles is very similar, and the goal is always to give some sort of free value to your customer in exchange for them making a sale with you instead of another brand.

2.2. Build-Your-Own-Bundle

Another common strategy is to let customers build their own bundle.

I like this strategy a lot more because it’s much more customizable and personalized to the exact customer’s needs and wishes.

This can be achieved by BYOB landing pages or product pages.

Here’s an example we’ve made for Balance Coffee:

Another great example from Hey Bud Skincare, where they have a banner featuring the discounts on each bundle quantity.

2.3. Promoting your bundles

Once you have a bundle offer, you need to do a good job at promoting it to your customers. One great way to do it is to switch out a single product card inside your collection pages with an offer banner.

We’ve tested this numerous times with many different offers. You can switch out a single product card for an offer and display it in your collection pages.

The main components of this offer banner should be:
-> Catchy headline that makes people stop scrolling
-> Description + discount code
-> Ideally a timer if it’s a limited-time offer
-> A CTA button that leads to the landing page.
Here’s how we did it for D. Franklin:

Another way to promote your bundles is to upsell single products to bundles inside the cart or the product page.

Since we’ve covered the cart, here’s an example of how to upsell bundles on a product page. We’ve done this for Glowxie:

3. Post-Purchase Upsells

Post-purchase upsells are very effective and really easy to set up (using an app like Rebuy).

They’re effective because this is when the buying intent is the highest and the customer has a lot of dopamine from their current purchase, so they’re more likely to say “fuck it” and accept a limited-time offer they’re presented with.

What matters is how limited the offer is, how exclusive it is, and most importantly, what they’re actually receiving.

You need to convey that they’re not getting this deal anywhere else.

Add this as a step between the checkout page and the thank you page, ensuring you don’t miss out on sales that need to happen.

4. Effective Product Imagery

You can use images of your products in a way to incentivize people to buy more than 1 of your product.

This is a subconscious-level trick you can use on your customers.

One of the most effective ways to go about this is to show large, high-quality images of your product being used by multiple happy customers.

Point is to match it with the target audience you’re selling to.

If you’re selling family clothing, then show a happy family wearing it while enjoying an activity together.

The best part about this is you can use it at any step of the funnel, since it isn’t a very noticeable trick.

Here’s an example from The Oodie:

Another from PetLabCo.

Another example from Javy Coffee:

Another example from True Classic:

5. Quick AOV tips and tricks

This is a list of quick AOV tricks you can implement on your store. These aren’t categorized or sorted in any specific order.

5.1. Product-Level Variant Selectors on the PDP

If you’re selling a product with multiple variants, of course you’ll display those on the product page.

However, if you’re selling products with different flavors or types, but the nature of the product is the same, you can also show all these different types on the PDP.

Here’s an example we’ve made for Floura, where we show different product types as variants, even though they’re not direct variants.

These “variant” options allow people to explore different flavors or types you have, and even if they don’t decide to buy multiple products right away, they’re going to remember that you have variants.

For example, if a customer buys a protein bar from you, and they really like it, they’re much more likely to go in again and try out other flavors, or buy multiple options.

Another example we’ve made for Saucy Lips

And another we’ve made for Work Water

5.2. Choose model size feature

This is a feature we’ve seen CRUSHING lately.

It’s pretty simple. Here are two ways to achieve it:

1) Add model details near your carousel images.

-> Display info like height, size, and name

-> Make sure not to take up too much space

-> Be 100% sure all info is accurate

2) Add a “change model” feature with model details

-> Have at least 3 different models

-> Make sure the feature is easy to use & understand

-> Be minimalistic, the simpler the better

The 2nd is the more expensive choice since you need a ton more photography and resources to get it.

It works well not only for CVR but for AOV since people aren’t going to have trouble deciding their size, which will lead them to exploring more products that they know are going to fit.

Savage X Fenty has a great example here.

They’re using a dropdown with 3 different model sizes, and they display the height and wear for each model.

5.3. Display collections on the homepage

This is something we’ve been testing a lot.

The reasoning behind it is that people will naturally want to search collections once they land on your site, and being able to navigate things easily will not only impact the CVR, but also the AOV.

Here’s an example of a homepage redesign we’ve made for BOOM Beauty, also incorporating some CRO features.

We’ve helped 40+ eCommerce brands increase CVR & AOV using our proven CRO process.

Click here to book a call with Arijan

In the call, we will:

-> Review your current DTC funnel and deep dive into your data
-> Identify what might prevent you from having a higher CVR/AOV
-> Simply see if there’s a possibility of us working together

Or, click here to see our website or portfolio.