How to Increase Average Order Value (AOV): 32 Tactics

Last updated on September 17th, 2024 at 09:30 am

Understanding how to increase average order value (AOV) is crucial for boosting revenue and maximizing customer lifetime value. While acquiring new customers is important, it’s often more cost-effective to focus on the ones you already have. 

Below, we discuss a variety of ways your brand can effectively increase the average order value, from leveraging loyalty programs and mobile POS systems to personalized clienteling and interactive in-store displays. By implementing these tactics, you’ll create a seamless shopping experience that encourages customers to spend more each time they shop with you.

What Is Average Order Value (AOV)?

Average order value (AOV) is a key metric for retail businesses that measures the average amount customers spend each time they make a purchase from your brand from any channel. This can include purchases made online, via a mobile app, or in-store. 

Calculating AOV is straightforward: simply divide your store’s total revenue by the total number of orders. For example, if your store generates $100 in revenue from four orders, your average order value is $25. 

Retail brands recognize that understanding and increasing AOV is essential for growing annual revenue. Often, they’ll pursue low-hanging fruit to make it happen.

For example, if your AOV is $25, you might consider adding an offer for free shipping on orders over $30. The idea is to encourage customers to spend past a certain threshold. And it can be effective, in the short term. However, it’s not the best tactic for sustainable revenue growth. 

Continue reading for a detailed list of tactics to boost AOV, enhancing both immediate sales revenue and long-term profitability. 

32 Ways to Increase Average Order Value 

Loyalty Programs

1. Seamless Buyer Journey: Consumers are mobile-first and more informed than ever before. Integrate mobile loyalty within your shopping app, making it easier to send personalized messages and provide timely promotional coupons at checkout. With discounts and rewards available at their fingertips exactly when they need them, it makes spending a little more per order much easier and justifiable for customers.
2. Personalized Rewards: When you use the data from your loyalty programs to better understand buying behaviors, rewards can be personalized. And personalization is everything. When personalizing to increase average order value, it’s all about the individual and leveraging data on things like past purchase history. You might consider sending special occasion discounts or vouchers as well, making the shopper feel special and celebrated. While events such as birthdays are once per year, the aim here is to help enhance loyalty.
3. Tiered Loyalty Programs: Brands have been hugely successful with offering rewards based on how loyal or engaged customers are. This approach adds depth to loyalty by creating engagement levels or tiers that offer benefits such as priority access to limited edition products or exclusive invitations to in-store events. It’s letting customers know that they’re so special, they deserve more than regular customers. For your brand, the “more” might be priority access to limited edition products or maybe exclusive invitations to in-store events. Whatever the benefits are, they build trust and long-term attachment and foster a like-for-like mentality. 

Mobile Point of Sale (POS)

4. Effortless Checkout: The shopping process must be seamless, convenient, and enjoyable. Use a mobile POS to allow checkout anywhere in-store, reducing wait times and bringing the point of sale to the customer.
5. Real-Time Inventory Visibility: A mobile POS gives associates access to enterprise-wide store inventory in the palm of their hands. With this real-time inventory visibility as well as access to the customer’s purchase history, associates can make targeted upsell and cross-sell recommendations.
6. Post-Purchase Communication: Associates can communicate with customers after the sale through the app, SMS, or email, providing additional opportunities to recommend complementary items. Further, if a customer isn’t ready to purchase in-store, associates can send them links to the items they were pondering so they can purchase online when it’s convenient.

Clienteling

7. Personalized Shopping Experience: Although luxury brands have been showing us how effective clienteling can be for many years, modern clienteling goes beyond even traditional luxury levels of service. Your brand can build customer profiles to offer hyper-relevant products and services. Personal information, notes, and a “look” into the person’s closet can be leveraged to serve customers with personalized offers.
8. Real-Time Data Utilization: A crucial aspect of clienteling is access to real-time inventory information. With rich product information, you’ll never have to turn a customer away for not knowing an answer or not having what they want.
9. Endless Aisle: Offer items from any enterprise location, not just in-store, to complete customer purchases. Think that a particular item would go great with what a customer is about to buy? Offer to order the item for a customer from another location and have it delivered directly to their home.
10. VIP Treatment: Convert average customers to high-value ‘VIPs’ by capturing more personal information on the spot, such as upcoming occasions and style preferences. This information can be used to convert your seemingly average customers to high-value ‘VIPs,’ boosting AOV.

Mobile Interaction

11. In-App Live Chat: Live chat engagement is a powerful means to help customers convert. In fact, customers who use mobile chat functions are more likely to convert than mobile users who don’t. However, scripted, impersonal responses are a real turn-off for customers. This is what makes live chat in-app with real store associates a differentiator; it’s a conversation with a real human. One of the top benefits of live chat in-app is that associates can answer customer questions quickly. This is especially useful for expensive items that require consideration. It also helps build relationships which can encourage repeat sales. 
12. Impulse Buying: Use QR codes and App Clips to facilitate spontaneous purchases in-store. Eliminating any friction during these spontaneous buying moments with a mobile app makes your mannequin displays highly effective for increasing average order value. Capitalizing on spontaneous discovery is invaluable for increasing AOV.

Experiential Retail 

13. In-Store Interactive Displays: Interactive displays captivate customers by allowing them to explore products hands-on, fostering a deeper understanding of features and benefits. By integrating technology like AR or VR, retailers can create immersive experiences that increase customer engagement and encourage additional purchases. These displays also serve as educational tools, helping customers make informed decisions and elevating the overall shopping experience.
14. Demonstrations: Live demonstrations offer customers the opportunity to see products in action, showcasing their functionality and practical applications. By highlighting key features and benefits through interactive presentations, retailers can effectively demonstrate value and quality, prompting customers to consider complementary products or upgrades. This hands-on approach not only educates but also builds confidence in purchasing decisions, translating into higher average order values as customers see firsthand the benefits of products.
15. Community Events: Hosting community events within the store creates a social hub where customers can engage with each other and the brand. These events could include product launch parties, workshops, or themed gatherings that align with the store’s offerings. By fostering a sense of community and belonging, retailers can deepen customer loyalty and encourage repeat visits.

Traditional Tactics

16. Upselling: Suggest higher-end versions of the products customers are considering. For example, offer a premium version with additional features or higher quality.
17. Cross-Selling: Recommend related products that complement the customer’s current purchase. This can be anything from accessories to service packages.
18. Product Bundling: Create bundles of products at a discounted price. Bundling encourages customers to buy more items together, increasing the total order value.
19. Volume Discounts: Offer discounts for purchasing in larger quantities. This can be effective for consumable products or items frequently bought together.
20. Free Shipping Thresholds: Provide free shipping for orders over a specific amount.
21. Limited-Time Offers: Use urgency to drive higher purchases with time-limited deals. Limited-time offers can create a sense of urgency, encouraging customers to buy more to take advantage of the deal.
22. Exclusive Memberships: Offer memberships with special perks for higher spenders. Membership programs can include benefits such as exclusive discounts, early access to sales, or members-only products.
23. Gift with Purchase: Provide a free gift when customers spend over a certain amount. This can incentivize customers to increase their order value to receive the gift.
24. Email Marketing: Send targeted promotions to past customers. Use data from previous purchases to send personalized offers and discounts.
25. Enhanced Product Descriptions: Use rich media to showcase the benefits of premium products. High-quality images, videos, and detailed descriptions can help convince customers of the value of more expensive items.
26. Testimonials and Case Studies: Highlight success stories and positive reviews to build trust in more expensive products. Customer testimonials and case studies can be powerful tools to demonstrate the value and effectiveness of your products.
27. Seasonal Promotions: Align special offers with holidays or seasonal events. Seasonal promotions can create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to buy more during these times.
28. Subscriptions and Recurring Purchases: Encourage customers to subscribe for regular deliveries of consumable products. This can ensure repeat business and higher lifetime value. Offer discounts or perks for subscribing to products, such as a 10% discount on each delivery.
29. Flexible Payment Options: Provide options for installment payments or financing for higher-ticket items to make them more accessible to customers.
30. Gift Wrapping Services: Offer gift wrapping for a small fee to incentivize customers to include this service with their order, thereby increasing the overall value of their purchase.
31. Social Proof and Reviews: Display customer reviews and social proof on product pages to build trust and encourage customers to make larger purchases. Highlighting popular or high-rated items can lead to increased sales of those items.
32. Checkout Impulse Buying: Place low-cost, high-margin items near the register for easy addition to customers’ purchases, encouraging impulse buys.

The Takeaway

Increasing your average order value is helpful in more ways than one. While of course it will result in more revenue, what you’ll also gain is a deeper understanding of which customers buy, what they buy, and how much they are willing to spend. 

Everything you can do to try and improve AOV circles back to one, crucial factor: customer experience. So, if there’s any one thing you can take away from this article, it’s that the more you focus on customer experience, the better off you will be when trying to increase the average order value of your customers. 

Want to see for yourself how a mobile POS and mobile shopping apps can help boost your AOV? Reach out for a demo today!