It almost always costs you more to acquire new customers than it does to get your current customers purchase more. This quintessential truth must guide your business’ growth strategy.

The first step in that quest is to learn as much information as possible about your customers, the products they typically purchase, the value of their average orders, and the frequency of their purchases.

With this data in hand, you can now focus on increasing your business’ average order value, so to say the average amount customers spend on each order. As certain costs are relatively fixed such as shipping, your profit margin increases with order size (since those fixed costs are now being spread over a larger amount of revenue.)

Let’s now explore several strategies to increase your average order size using the example of a shaving supplies store.

Increase your Free Shipping Threshold

One of the simplest ways to increase your average order value is to set the threshold for free shipping above your current average order amount as your customers will try to purchase more to take advantage of free shipping. However, be strategic in selecting your new free-shipping threshold based on the price of your different products. Remember, you are trying to encourage your customers to purchase more to meet your higher threshold, so figure out what additional products they are likely going to be buying. If your business doesn’t currently have many product offerings which would bring customers over your new free-shipping threshold, consider creating new product offerings for that purpose. For example, if the average customer purchases some shaving soap and aftershave, push your free shipping threshold to also cover the cost of some cologne.

Bundle Products Together

If your customers sometimes buy certain products together, consider offering a discount if those products are in fact purchased together or, alternatively, sell them as a ready-made bundle. Ready-made bundles normalizes the customer’s desire to purchase all of those products instead of only some of them.

Bundles often sell better if there is a matching characteristic between their different items such as a common colour, scent or flavour. For example, bundle shaving soap and aftershave with the matching scent. A special travel-size bundle with a carry case could also be offered.

Cross-sell Complementary Products

Another technique to take advantage of common product pairings is to automatically suggest at checkout a complementary product based on the products already in your customer’s shopping cart. For example, if a customer adds a shaving brush to their shopping cart, suggest that they also purchase a brush stand or travelling storage container. The goal is to bring these complimentary products to your customer’s attention in particular if the customer’s order is currently below your free-shipping threshold.

Upselling

Offer customers the opportunity to purchase a higher calibre product before they checkout. Consider also offering the upsold version at a slightly discounted price. For example, if the customer has a synthetic hair shaving brush in their shopping cart, offer a checkout to upgrade it to a badger hair brush. Alternatively, customization options for additional cost may also be offered at checkout, just make sure to keep these limited to avoid decision paralysis.

Subscription Purchases

As certain products often need to be purchased repetitively, consider trying to lock in your customers for their future purchases through subscriptions. This greatly increases your customer’s lifetime value and provides recurring revenue for your business. For example, the customer can sign up to receive some shaving soap and aftershave every two months or at some other frequency of their choosing.

Avoid falling into the trap of sending your customers more product before they have just about finished their last purchase. Unused product piling up, in addition to being wasteful, will eventually lead your customers to pause their purchases which they may never again restart.

Purchase Reminders

Similar to the subscription model, another option is to have customers advise you of the desired frequency of their orders, so that you can send them a reminder to purchase as they are approaching their next perspective order date. Combining that email reminder with a discount code and potentially an announcement regarding new complimentary products further strengthens the impact of that reminder. This email reminder option could also be presented initially to your customers as an alternative after they refused to sign up for a subscription model pricing.

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So give these techniques to go and see if you can increase the value of your current customers and help grow your business one larger order at a time. Best of luck!