We keep seeing the same pattern: merchants pour budget into traffic while leaving money on the table with every single order. The fix isn’t more visitors. It’s making each basket worth more.
Average order value (AOV) is just total revenue divided by number of orders. Lift it by 20% and – everything else staying equal – revenue rises 20%. No new ad spend. No algorithm dependency. Most clients see measurable movement within two to four weeks of implementing even one of the levers below.
There’s a specific reason this matters more in Switzerland than almost anywhere else: Swiss Post shipping costs are among the highest in the region. A low AOV doesn’t just slow growth – it actively kills margins. Fixing that is usually faster, cheaper, and more impactful than buying more traffic.
| “The shops that grow fastest aren’t always the ones spending most on ads ; they’re the ones making every basket count.” Lucas Stebler, Shopify Lead at what. |
Bundles are the single biggest lever you’re probably underusing
Bundles work because they shift the mental frame from “buying a product” to “buying a solution.” And here’s the thing – they often don’t even need a discount. Perceived value and a simpler decision do the heavy lifting.
In our project experience, cosmetics and sports nutrition respond extremely well. Large appliances barely move – the main product is already price-intensive, and accessories don’t shift the needle. But for consumables and repeat-purchase categories, the uplift is real and consistent.
We saw measurable AOV gains with one of our clients, a large German chocolate manufacturer. The key wasn’t just bundling – it was reframing the offer. Instead of selling individual products, we helped them sell routines. Complementary bundles, multi-packs, and “complete the set” blocks all contributed, especially when paired with a clear value anchor showing what the bundle saves versus buying separately.
On the tooling side: Shopify offers a free native bundle app as a no-cost starting point. For more complex logic – build-your-own bundles, ERP-connected inventory – apps like Fast Bundle or Bundler work well across all plans. Shopify Plus adds the Cart Transform Function, enabling true build-a-box experiences with merged line items. Useful for advanced setups, but absolutely not a prerequisite. Bundles work without Plus.
Upsells and cross-sells: placement decides everything
The same offer can perform very differently depending on where it appears. This is the detail most stores get wrong – they add a cross-sell widget somewhere on the product page and wonder why it doesn’t convert.
Based on our project experience, here’s the honest ranking:
- Post-purchase (email or flow): Works very well for services and add-ons – payment is already captured, and the customer is still engaged
- Checkout: Converts strongly for low-hesitation products. For a home décor and furniture brand, we built a custom Checkout UI Extension that lets customers add gift wrapping and a personalised greeting card directly in the checkout – a natural fit given the high gifting share of their orders. This is a Shopify Plus capability.
- Cart: Worth using, but don’t rely on it exclusively – the cart is often skipped entirely.
- Product page (PDP): Converts worst for upsells; useful for discovery, not for converting add-ons.
One important clarification: post-purchase upsells (the page after payment, before the thank-you page) work on every Shopify plan. One-click upselling in the checkout itself requires Shopify Plus. Smaller merchants aren’t locked out entirely – they just have a different placement to work with.
For dynamic product recommendations triggered by cart contents, Klaviyo is the stronger tool. Native Shopify notification templates support Liquid-based personalisation, but for rich, real-time cross-sells, Klaviyo does the job better.
Related: our article on Shopify Plus Checkout Extensibility covers the technical possibilities in depth if you’re considering in-checkout upsells.
Free shipping thresholds: the simplest lever you might be skipping
A free shipping threshold set just above your current AOV is one of the most reliable nudges in e-commerce – and it costs nothing to implement. Yet many Swiss shops either skip it entirely or set the bar so low it’s already priced into every order.
The sweet spot: take your average product price and add 25–50%. Round CHF amounts tend to work well – CHF 50, 100, or 200 depending on your category. For one client – an innovative manufacturer and distributor of motorcycle protective apparel with a small team, whose shops we have set up – CHF 200 works well as a free-shipping target.
Here’s the thing though: the threshold only works if customers can see it. A cart progress bar – “CHF X to free shipping” – turns a passive incentive into an active nudge. That’s where the actual impact comes from. Without the progress indicator, you’re leaving half the value on the table.
A free shipping threshold with no visible progress bar is like a sale with no signage.
Volume discounts: reward bigger orders, but show the next tier early
Tiered pricing – “buy 2, save 10%; buy 3, save 15%” – works best for consumables, B2B ranges, and repeat-purchase products. The behaviour-driving detail is showing the next tier on the product page itself, not hiding it at checkout where purchase decisions are already locked in.
One clarification worth stating clearly: Shopify Functions for discount logic are available on all plans, not just Shopify Plus. Only specific Function types (Cart Transform, Payment, Delivery, Order Routing) are Plus-exclusive. And with Shopify Scripts being shut down – editing locked since April 15, 2026, execution ending June 30, 2026 – tiered pricing logic now needs to live in Functions anyway. If you’re still running Scripts, this is worth addressing sooner rather than later.
We’re currently trialling volume discounts with a Swiss fashion retailer that runs over 20 stores and carries 22,000 online products, and will have direct data to share soon. The mechanic itself is well-established in consumable and B2B categories.
The best volume discount is one the customer sees before they’ve already decided how many to buy.
UX is an underrated AOV driver – not just a conversion tool
This doesn’t fit neatly into the lever framework, but it’s worth saying: UX improvements influence AOV, not just conversion rate.
Working with a small Swiss cosmetics retailer, we found that navigation and product findability are central to both. Product recommendations – substitutes, complementary items, “others also bought” – perform best when a customer already has some trust in the shop or perceives the purchase risk as low. That context matters more than the widget itself. A recommendation engine on a shop the customer doesn’t trust yet is largely wasted.
Better navigation leads to more discovered products. More discovered products leads to larger baskets. It’s not glamorous, but it’s real.
How to measure what’s actually working
Native Shopify Analytics tracks AOV out of the box. The simplest approach is a straightforward before/after comparison – implement one lever, wait two to four weeks, read the result.
One critical rule: don’t test multiple levers simultaneously, especially around peak periods like Black Friday. When several things change at once, you can’t attribute impact correctly. Change one thing, measure it, then stack the next.
Smaller clients tend to underuse analytics, and that’s a real limitation. You don’t need a data team. You need a baseline and patience.
Where to start
AOV is the lever you fully own. No new traffic, no higher cost-per-click, no dependency on algorithm changes.
For most Shopify stores, bundles and free shipping thresholds are the lowest-effort, highest-impact starting points. Checkout upsells and volume discounts layer on top once the basics are working.
Pick one. Ship it. Judge it with a simple before/after comparison. Then stack the next one.
Running a more complex Shopify setup – or considering Shopify Plus to unlock checkout upsells, advanced automation, and higher API limits? Our team at what. has built and optimised over 200 Shopify stores across Switzerland and the DACH region. Get in touch with our Shopify Plus team and we’d be glad to take a look at yours.
