There are three levers you can pull to boost your revenue: 

• You can grow the number of people coming to your site (traffic) 
• You can increase the percentage of them that make a purchase (conversion rate) 
• And you can increase the amount they spend each time (average order value) 

Improving any one of these metrics by 100% would translate to doubled revenue.

If you’ve ever researched ways to raise your average order value (AOV), you’ll notice that the advice often focuses on optimising how your products are displayed together, and maximising the potential of upselling, cross-selling, and bundling products. 

While these can all be incredibly effective strategies (especially when they lean on smart data on what your customer might also like to buy), much of the work is done before your products are even added to your website. Here’s how to optimise for average order value right from the start.

Review your assortment strategy

Your assortment strategy is essentially the business logic behind your mix of products. 

“There are three levers you can pull to drive up your average order value: get your customer to buy more units per transaction, increase your retails, or balance your retails with a pricing architecture strategy. While it may come down to a mix of all of the above, I recommend starting with a strategic intent behind your assortment strategy”, advises Kristin Fisher, a retail consultant and former retail buyer.

The first step is to understand what type of assortment strategy you currently operate: 

• Do you niche down, stocking multiple different types of the same product so you become your customer’s go-to for that niche? That’s a deep assortment. 
• Or do you aim to be your customer’s convenient go-to for lots of different things? That’s a wide assortment. 

Both have their merits. It’s fairly common for a brand’s assortment to start deep and widen over time. Amazon is the classic example, starting as a books-only e-commerce store, and offering a convenient way to buy anything and everything under the sun. 

You may also find your current assortment strategy falls somewhere in the middle. 

From an average order value perspective, the issue with a deep assortment comes if the product you sell is something people typically only buy one of. If you’re an established e-commerce store with a deep assortment, it’s worth exploring complementary products for this reason alone.

Seamlessly combine push and pull products with smart merchandising

Your pull products are your staple products. They’re likely to be year-round bestsellers, and what you’re known for. 

Push products, by contrast, might be newer products, seasonal stock, something different to what you normally sell, or something with a better margin or higher price point. 

In a physical store, you’d place your pull products at the back of the store so your customers would have to walk past your push products on the way there. 

With an e-commerce store, you have to get more creative with your merchandising: 

• Feature push products on your homepage (the equivalent of your shop window), and refresh this often
• Build cross-category collections to mix push and pull products together
• Make it easy for your customers to stumble upon push product lines by featuring them prominently in your menu

Whether you’re sorting your push products from your pull ones, or your bestsellers from your slow-sell-throughs, FERO is here to help. We plug straight into your e-commerce store to add an extra layer of analytics, and help you understand who is buying what, and what you should focus on next. Try it free for 30 days.