What Is AOV & How Can You Increase It?

Every brand needs to constantly increase the revenue it generates from its customers over time. Otherwise, you’ll never make enough money to scale your online store, open up new facilities, and offer new products.

One of the best ways to grow revenue is to prioritize AOV or average order value. Today, let’s explore how you can increase average order value and maximize revenue growth.

What Is AOV?

AOV stands for “average order value.” The average order value is a necessary KPI (key performance indicator) since it measures the average amount of money a customer spends at your online or retail store. Alongside other vital metrics, AOV can tell you much about your customer base, profit margins, and whether your pricing or marketing strategy is suitably effective.

Say you made $2000 in revenue from customer purchases over the last month. When you dig deep into the data, you find that you had 100 customers, meaning that, on average, your customers spent around $20 per purchase. In other words, your average order value is about $20.

Why Is AOV Important?

AOV is highly important because it measures, on average, how much money a regular or standard customer spends on your website or at your store. Because most customers are typical by definition, this can tell you:

• How much do people initially plan to spend at your store when they visit
• How much do people value your store’s products
• Whether people find it valuable or cost-effective to purchase many things at once from your brand

Your revenue will increase if you can increase your average dollar amount spent per customer. More importantly, the value of your eCommerce business will increase because it tells you customers are more willing to spend extra money at your store than they were willing to pay before.

How Do You Calculate AOV?

Calculating AOV is relatively straightforward with the below formula:

• Average order value = total revenue / total number of orders

Let's look at an example. Say that you generate $2500 in revenue overall. Your customers purchased 200 products. Plug those numbers into the AOV formula, and you get:

• Average order value = $2500 / 200 = $12.50 or 12.5

You now know your average customer spends about $12.50 on a purchase from your store.

Increasing Your AOV: 8 Guaranteed Ways

1. Reward your customers’ loyalty
2. Bundle and discount products
3. Special/LTO offers
4. Create a shipping threshold
5. Upselling
6. Cross-selling
7. Focus on customer experience
8. Branded packaging

Reward Your Customers’ Loyalty

Starting a loyalty program may yield a higher AOV in the long run, mainly if your brand sells consumable products, such as shaving cream, razors, or food and snacks. When you set up a reward or loyalty program, you forge a better relationship with your target customers and increase their CLV or customer lifetime value.

But how does a loyalty program assist with your AOV? You can offer special perks, like a $5 discount on all purchases for members, to inspire those members to spend more money on average at your store than a new customer who stumbles onto the site for the first time.

Alternatively, you can offer things like free shipping and personalized products. Bottom line: use loyalty programs to make shopping at your store a sweeter deal for those engaged, and your AOV should increase.

Bundle and Discount Products

Alternatively, you can make product bundles to inspire customers to purchase many items at once. For instance, say that you have a handful of similar items themed with the same graphics, use cases, or other elements. Separately, the things would cost $150.

To increase the AOV for your store, you can offer all those items together for $120. Hopefully, this will inspire more customers to buy the bundled items altogether rather than deciding to purchase just one of them separately for, say, $60.

Of course, product bundles only work if you have multiple products you can reasonably or thematically put together in a batch. Don't try to bundle random or non-connected items, as very few customers will purchase bundles of things they don't need or want.

Special/LTO Offers

Special or limited-time-only offers, of course, can also increase AOV. Limited time only offers drives fear of missing out or FOMO. If you advertise that a particular product is 50% off for another week, you might increase your AOV for that timeframe since customers don’t want to miss out on that big discount.

Create a Shipping Threshold

You can inspire your customers to place higher orders by incentivizing higher order minimums via shipping discounts. For instance, you can offer free or cheaper shipping to each customer who places an order above a specific monetary amount.

Say that you do some calculations on your revenue and shipping costs. You discover that you don’t make a profit when shipping products to customers unless they order over $25. Therefore, you can incentivize customers to spend more than this amount by offering free or reduced shipping for customers who order $40 or more. That will theoretically net you a healthy profit with each purchase, even accounting for shipping costs due to the free shipping threshold.

Note that this is a fine line to walk. You have to set the order minimum at a reasonable enough price that customers will entertain the idea without dismissing it outright. If you set the order minimum too high, your AOV won't increase, and customers will accept the higher shipping cost (or not make a purchase whatsoever).

Upselling

To increase your AOV, you can upsell better versions of products or higher tiers of services once someone puts something in their shopping cart. For instance, if a customer signs up for a one-month subscription for a service you offer, you can try to upsell them with a three-month offer at a slight discount, increasing their order value overall.

Upselling products can increase your company’s AOV, but the products have to be worth it/affordable to your target site customer.

Cross-Selling

Similar to upselling, you can cross-sell related products once a customer makes a purchase or puts something in their cart. Cross-selling relies on selling products that people might use in conjunction with their core purchases.

For example, say you have a back-to-school store. If a customer puts a binder in their online shopping cart, you might try to cross-sell a bag of pencils, erasers, and other school supplies since they are all related.

Focus on Customer Experience

Emphasize the customer experience for your store as much as possible. If a customer has a great time at your online shop because it is easy to navigate and offers personalized products, they’ll be more likely to buy more products.

To that end, make sure your online store:

• Is intuitive and easy to navigate through
• Has excellent products to offer
• Loads quickly, so it doesn't lag
• Has an easy checkout experience without many fields to fill in

Branded Packaging

Lastly, don’t forget to consider branded packaging and how it impacts how much money people spend. The right branded packaging can make your products seem more worthwhile, higher-quality, and better overall.

Well branded packaging, such as custom boxes designed for each product or your brand, can also forge emotional connections between your customers and your products, making them more likely to pick up more stuff from your store than they might otherwise.

The Bottom Line

All in all, the average order value is only a tiny part of your eCommerce revenue stream. But it's essential in one of the most radical KPIs to target as you grow and scale your brand. By following the above tips, you’ll see more revenue as your conversion rate increases, plus be able to rely on more consistent income from your current customers.

With that extra revenue, you can invest in better products, more streamlined shipping services, and even highly customized packaging to impress your customers and boost their loyalty to your brand. Check out Box Genie’s custom packaging solutions today.

Sources:

10 Ecommerce Average Order Value Statistics (Updated 2020) | Grow Code 

Average Order Value (AOV) - Definition, Formula, How To Increase | Corporate Finance Institute

What Is Average Order Value (AOV)? (And How To Calculate It) | Indeed.com