How to build a DTC store experience for increasing AOV?

‍Why should you care about Average order value? 

Let’s say you run a women’s clothing online store and have assigned a budget for acquiring one customer as $10. 

You are faced with three customers Stephanie, and Jane who are all women, and Nick who is a man who comes to your store. 

• Stephanie lives in Miami and likes wearing summer clothes, therefore she checks out the “trending” sundresses section of your website, hovers over a few products, adds one dress to the cart of $20 value, and drops it off.  
• Jane, a mom who lives in New York has come to quickly order a dress for a party tomorrow and wants a very nice outfit for her. Checks out a dress in the “New Arrivals” section, but it's $40, so she drops it off. 
• Nick wants to gift his wife a full-fledged look for that dinner surprise party he wants her to wear. Visits your store and adds in a dress worth $50, a necklace worth $30 in the cart, and drops it off. 
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1. By understanding customer behavior in different sections and basket values of their shopping session, you can drive abandon cart emails personalized to each customer by segmenting them.
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Example: Stephanie can be segmented into categories “Users who visited trending section” and “Users with minimum basket value of $20”. You can either throw Stephanie with a limited offer along with products recommended for her similar to one she was looking for in the trending section. 

2. You can email Jane with more dresses in the new arrivals section, which she can order and can get delivered for free along with recommending some similar options for her kids with a minimum cart value of $120 and get Jane to complete shopping with a $120 order value. With this, you get a clear understanding of marketing campaigns you can run for customers similar to Jane and make better profits. 

3. Since you know Nick is a man and is having cart of two different product categories and is able to spend on premium-priced products, you can create a bundle of a dress, necklace, and shoes which is actually worth $200 but available for $150 just for a day and hence closing the deal. This will enable you also to create a good pricing strategy for high-paying clients. 

What are some of the tactics to increase AOV? 

1. Creating minimum order free shipping campaigns ( Ex: Add $30 more worth of SKU to cart and get free shipping for products ). Do this across your website and abandonment cart emails. 
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2. Cross-sell similar products in sections of the store customer visited ( Ex: Offer Coke and Chips to customers who were looking into Mountain Dew in your store ) 
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3. Up-sell products to customers who looked into high-priced products ( Ex: Offer a hiking pole and good quality shoes to customers who added wind cheater trekking jackets to their cart ) 
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4. Small add-ons ( Ex: For anyone who added $89 worth of pants and shirts, you can offer them an $11 worth bundle of 6 different colored socks and a belt suiting their look )

What causes AOV to decrease? 

1. Lack of personalization 
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   Without understanding customer needs and behavior, you may end up creating broadcast communications that won't be relevant to users and their needs. This might create an effect of users never coming back to your store. 
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2. Huge shipping costs 
   
   If a user is buying a product worth $50 but the shipping cost is $25 dollars, most likely you are bound to lose the user.  
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3. Lack of store features 
   
   Users are used to experiencing search options, filters, product reviews, multiple SKU images, product recommendations section, and minimum store incentives while shopping online. Make sure you provide these. 
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4. Lack of choices in size, color, and variety in SKUs 
   
   If you lack an understanding of customer data and end up not giving a variety of choices, you are losing out on more orders. 

‍Let's dive into real-time examples of how brands have designed their stores 

1. Gourmet Jar 

The Gourmet Jar is an India-based woman-run brand founded by Apeksha Jain ex French teacher and food blogger turned-Entrepreneur. The Gourmet Jar offers a range of premium condiments in unique flavor combinations, that are handmade in small batches, from scratch, using all-natural ingredients and no preservatives or additives. TGJ products are fresh & full of flavor, made with 100% pure ingredients, and with much love and care. 

The Gourmet Jar is currently available in all metros and major cities across India

Right off the hook, they have an all-time offer of 20% for minimum orders above Rs.500 along with a coupon code and free shipping. Goes back to what we talked about earlier on free shipping campaigns. 

 On the main landing page, they have shared their best-selling product followed by the best sellers section giving first-time customers to try what works with others and reducing the time to choose a product to add to the basket.

Choice of testimonials to nudge users to understand what others have brought. If you read the testimonial below, you understand that their strawberry jar is tasty and they also have pasta sauces. 

2. Smart sweets 

Based out of USA and Canada, Smart sweets are the place to go if you are on a mission to kick sugar, and still want candy for all the gummy bears and candy lovers out there.

Since each bag cost is approx just 3$ each, their pricing strategy is towards either “6 Bags” or “12 Bags” to increase the basket value. This pricing strategy would work for them from making some margins on orders.

They have established well-segmented categories with a featured product when you click on “Shop” in the navigation bar enabling a customer to choose products based on ingredients, texture, and taste. 

They have enabled the option for the customer to build their own candy boxes.

3. The Sill

The Sill offers ceramic planters potted with houseplants. It was created with a simple ambition, to inspire people to bring more of the outdoors in.

Since their SKU’s are definitely high quality and premium, they provide a 15% incentive on your first-purchase enabling customers to consider adding products to cart.

Upon realizing customers’ pain points and data, they also upsell fertilizers, moisture meters, and message pops which go well with the main product. 

They have built a dedicated page for “bundles” customers can explore. With huge amounts of order history and AOV values of different segments of customers, setting out a build “bundles” for your DTC store is a way to start hitting great profits.

‍What are our recommended DTC apps and tools for designing your store for higher-order values? 

• Swiper Js : Slider for showcasing products 
• Infinite options : Let your shoppers select the product options for items they purchase with dropdown menus, image swatches, text, number inputs, checkboxes, calendars, radio buttons, and much more. 
• Moda: Customer Data platform + Marketing Automation engine. 
• Free Shipping Bar: Promote free shipping with progressive messages to motivate customers to buy more, and increase sales. 
• Yieldify: All-in-one website personalization platform 
• FriendBuy: Get more out of every customer with best-in-class Referral and Loyalty Programs

Hope you loved this drop and can find your way into increasing your AOV.  If you loved this, feel free to share it on your social profiles and communities and tag us.

Also refer to Dan Siepen's blog on AOV