22 Ways To Increase Your Average Order Value

Most retail store owners are constantly looking for ways to sell more. While bringing in new customers is great, it’s not the only way to increase your monthly sales. By increasing your average order value, you can make much more money with the same number of customers. 

Increasing your average order value also indicates that your store is providing more value to your customers. If people are spending more at your business, that means they’re finding more of what they need, and are more likely to become a return customer. 

As you make these small tweaks in your store, add them one by one and make sure to track your statistics closely. You’ll want to know which changes are having positive effects on your sales. 

22) Label Your Best Sellers

There’s no question that reviews are a hugely important part of online shopping. You can use this phenomenon in your own brick and mortar retail store by labeling your best sellers. Either label them throughout the store or create an area where they’re all together. Having them clearly marked will give people the opportunity to validate their decisions. Purchases feel a lot less risky if you know lots of other people have enjoyed the products. 

21) Pack Your Checkout Area With Impulse Buys

This is one of the most classic ways to increase your average order value, and every store owner should be utilizing it. Just like how grocery and big box stores line their checkout areas with candy and magazines, you should pick out low price point, treat items to feature by your cash register. If you have best selling items that don’t take up too much space, consider putting them up by checkout as well.  

20) Utilize Price Anchoring

Price anchoring is the psychological effect of always associating a product’s value with the first price you hear. Like the old adage says, ‘How do you sell a $2,000 watch? Put it next to a $10,000 watch.’ If you have items you know people love, but the price is a bit high, create an even more expensive version of the item and sell it in the same spot of your store. People will automatically start to view the original item’s price more favorably. 

19) Have A Flexible Return Policy

For some shoppers, nothing is scarier than feeling like they’ll be trapped with an item that doesn’t work for them. Even though shop owners don’t like the idea of being stuck with a ton of returns, it’s been proven that lenient return policies actually increase sales. 

18) Offer Personalization

If your store sells anything with sentimental value, such as jewelry, home decor, or even luxury office supplies like leather bound notebooks, consider offering a personalization service. By monogramming or engraving your products, you can charge more for the same items. If personalization takes off, you can even allow people to bring in items that didn’t come from your store to create a second income stream for your business. 

17) Offer Future Discounts

There are all kinds of discounts you can offer, but many shops overlook the future discount offer. These can be in many forms, including the sandwich punch card model, and discounts that are only good if the customer returns within the next 30 or 60 days. 

16) Offer A Discount If Customers Spend A Certain Amount

Just like online stores offer free shipping if you spend enough, you can also offer incentives for customers that hit a certain threshold. Be sure to check your profit margins before you set up a system like this, but it may be worth it to offer something like a 10% discount on any purchases over $100. 

15) Get Involved With Charity

People like to do business with businesses that do charity work. The easiest way is to announce that you’ll be making donations, but if you don’t have the wiggle room to donate money, you can find other creative solutions. By having a toy or food drive, you’ll encourage people to stop by your store and spend more than they would have otherwise. 

14) Give Free Gifts After Certain Spending Thresholds

People love feeling like they’re earning prizes. Another alternative to offering baseline amount discounts is to offer a free prize instead. The gifts can range from completely unrelated and silly, to giving away hard-to-get-rid-of inventory, or anything else you feel your customers would like. 

13) Reward Your Loyal Customers

The 80/20 rule is just as true now as it was when it was invented in 1896. This means that generally speaking, 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers, so you really want to make sure that 20% is valued. By offering exclusive deals, and maybe even exclusive products and events to your most loyal customers, you’ll keep them engaged with your store. 

12) Bundle Relevant Items

Why just sell a comb when you could sell a comb, a brush, shaving cream, and a small bag to hold everything? By offering items on their own, as well as grouped together, you’ll give people a chance to upsell themselves when they realize they really could use the whole starter pack. 

11) Offer Gift Wrapping

Try as they might, one area online shopping really can’t compete in is gift wrapping. If you offer gift wrapping, you’ll encourage people to buy at your store. Plus, if you offer gift wrapping for items whether or not they’re from your store, you can make extra money and get new people in your store.

You can double down on your new upselling techniques by offering a basic wrapping service as well as a luxury wrapping option.

10)  Have Limited Time Offers

The fraternal twin of future discounts, limited time offers have a similar effect on customers. By publicizing that you’ll be having a discount until a certain time, you motivate people to come in store and make a purchase. 

9) Offer Financing For Larger Purchases

If your store has higher priced items, financing can be a great way to ease the burden of purchase. By allowing people to pay over 3, 6, or even 9 and 12 months, you’ll allow them to make a purchase they otherwise couldn’t. 

8) Find Add-Ons To Go With Large Purchases

Similar to bundling, add-ons work when you have one large item. For instance, if you sell laptops, you can create a variety of add-ons that enhance the laptop purchase. Since people are already making a large purchase, they’re more willing to increase that number a little more if you also sell cases, mice, adapters, etc.

7) Start A Cash Back System

Offering a cash back system is a great way to increase your average order value. By offering store credit if people spend over a certain amount, you blend the excitement of future offers with the discounts of spending a certain amount.

Simply making ‘Your Store Bucks,’ and then giving out $5 worth of them each time a customer spends a certain amount gives people a compelling reason to come back.  

6) Use Strategic Placement Of Your Best Sellers 

Every shop owner should know what their best sellers are, and use them to increase your average order value. Grocery stores have been using strategic placement for years, controlling how and what we think when we’re inside their stores. Highlight your best sellers in your windows to get people coming in, and place them next to products you need to get extra attention. 

5) Start A Loyalty Program With Different Tiers

Similar to rewarding your most loyal customers, a loyalty program gives people a distinct pathway to become one of those loyal customers. By creating different goals for different tiers, you make an incentive for people to achieve the highest tier. 

4) Stock Your Store With Expertly Picked Items

Sometimes the best way to increase your average order value is to stock your store with sure fire winners. At Abound, we only accept brands that are proven winners, each maker is hand picked by experts and has to meet rigorous sales goals before they’re allowed on the marketplace. 

3) Use Personalized Recommendations

They may have gone the way of Netflix now, but video tape rental stores that used to offer ‘Movies Recommended By Our Staff’ created a personal bond with customers as well as introduced them to things they hadn’t considered before. By creating an area of your shop that’s filled with similar recommendations, you can create the same bond and encourage people to shop outside of the box.  

2) Have BOGO Discounts

There may be some items that people aren’t considering at all, but once you offer them two for the price of one, they’ll jump on it. To personalize the offer, you can advertise the 2nd item being for their partner or child. 

1) Have Fun Games Like a Discount Wheel 

It may be cheesy, but people love fun carnival games. By letting every customer spin a wheel that offers various discounts or prizes, you’re creating an in-store experience that online shopping can’t compare with.