The cheapest revenue in your store is hiding inside the orders you already get.

Raising your average order value takes visitors you already paid for and makes each of them worth more. Same traffic. Same conversion rate. Bigger orders.

That's why AOV is one of the first levers we pull on the brands we work with. We've generated €88M+ in additional revenue across 190+ brands, and the fastest wins almost always come from order size.

It's also no coincidence that the hottest DTC brands lean on the same moves. Gruns, Olipop, AG1, Magic Spoon, Ridge, HexClad. Different categories, same playbook.

It comes down to three moments. The cart. Your pricing and bundling. The checkout.

Nine plays across those three moments, with a real example for each one.

People in your cart are fully in buy-mode. They already said yes once. This is where you offer the items that make their order complete.

Gate free shipping just above your current AOV. Then render a live progress bar in the cart. "You're €20,00 away from free shipping."

True Classic does this well. Open the cart with one t-shirt in it and the bar reads "Add €44,01 more to get Free Shipping", filling up as you add items.

Paying for shipping feels like a penalty. Most shoppers would rather put that money toward a second product than hand it to a courier. The bar gives them the exact number and turns it into a game (watch how often orders land a few euros above the threshold).

One rule. Set the threshold just above your AOV. Too low and you give away shipping on orders you'd get anyway. Too high and nobody plays.

The free-shipping bar has a ceiling. Once someone crosses it, the nudge is gone. So build a second rung above it.

Lemme runs this: "Add $61 to unlock 1 Free Lemme Immunity Gummies Pack." The moment you cross the free-shipping line, a new target appears on the same bar.

A physical gift outperforms a discount here. A gift carries full perceived value while costing you a fraction of it. A discount just costs you the discount.

Two thresholds turn your cart into a ladder. Free shipping first, free gift second, basket climbing the whole way.

The easiest yes in ecommerce: a €17,95 pair of socks under a €189,00 sneaker.

Low-ticket complements, sitting directly under the cart items. Bloom does it with single-serve hydration sticks and a "we think you'd love these too" carousel.

The add-on needs to be cheap relative to the cart, obviously useful next to what's already in there, and addable in one tap. No variant pickers, no detour to a product page.

These small items fill the basket and your margin at the same time.

This is where you set the size of the order before it ever hits the cart. The right tiers and bundles make buying more the obvious choice.

A per-unit price ladder where the bigger pack is labelled the smart buy.

Tabs chocolate: one box $29.99, two boxes $27.90 each, three boxes $25.20 each, with a "Most Popular" flag on the middle tier. True Classic runs the same ladder on t-shirts, with the 6-pack flagged and priced down to €19,99 per shirt.

Most buyers don't calculate. They look for the flag. You're doing the choosing for them, so put the flag on the tier you want sold.

For consumables and anything people buy in multiples, this is the strongest AOV play on this list.

Bundle the obvious combo and show the crossed-out separate total.

Our Place sells the Titanium Always Pan on its own for $129. Right under it: the 6-piece cookware duo at $245 with "$414 value" next to it, flagged "Best Seller". The math does the selling.

A kit answers the question the customer already has: what else do I need for the full result? Answer it for them and the order jumps from one product to a system.

Never make people assemble the bundle themselves. Pre-build it, price it visibly under the separate total, give it its own name. I wrote a full breakdown on building offers strangers want to buy if you want to go deeper on this one.

Take play 4 and pour fuel on it. On the highest tier, stack 2 or 3 free, low-cost products, each with its crossed-out value shown.

Meroda does this with foundation. The 2-piece offer saves 55% and comes with a free lip tint, a free mini mascara, and free shipping. Skincare brands run "3+3 free" tiers with two free serums attached, every freebie listed with its price struck through.

The top tier stops being a bigger purchase and starts being the deal of the page. That's the point where picking the small option feels like the mistake.

By checkout the decision is made. The plays here ride along without adding a single step, because the one thing you never do is put friction between a buyer and the payment button.

A small paid add-on for delivery protection or product condition, opted in at checkout. Sneaker Ask charges €2,95 to insure against damage, theft, and loss. HappyBed does insured shipping for €3,95.

It sounds like nothing. Across thousands of orders it's real money, and the buyers who toggle it on genuinely wanted the certainty (make sure you actually honor it, this is a trust product).

One-tap add-ons on the checkout page itself, framed with social proof. A car care brand we've seen does it with one line above the offers: "72% of our customers add this for the best results."

Keep it to 2 or 3 cheap, relevant items with a single Add button. No links away from checkout, no variant choices. The proof line does the heavy lifting.

The easiest revenue you will ever add.

Payment is stored. The customer just bought. One tap adds a complementary product to the order, without re-entering card details or a second checkout.

David sells protein bars and puts it perfectly on their post-purchase page: "You chose David once. Choose us again." One tap, 10% off, a five-minute timer. Fashion brands like Meshiki let you add a discounted second item straight from the confirmation page.

This play cannot hurt your conversion rate because the sale already happened. Worst case, they ignore it. Best case, the order grows after checkout. No other spot in your funnel has that risk profile.

One warning before you go stack all nine.

An AOV play that adds friction can quietly cost you more in lost conversions than it adds in order size. A checkout stuffed with upsells converts worse. A cart drowning in widgets converts worse.

So judge every test on revenue per visitor. AOV up and conversion flat: ship it. AOV up and conversion down: the math decides, and usually it says roll back.

Test one play at a time. It's the only way to know which one did the work.

What is a good average order value? There is no universal number. A good AOV covers your CAC and product costs with margin left over. Benchmark against your own last 90 days, and judge changes on revenue per visitor.

Where should I set my free-shipping threshold? Just above your current AOV. The average customer should need exactly one extra item to reach it.

Don't quantity discounts kill margin? You only give the per-unit discount when someone buys more than they otherwise would have. Price the ladder so every tier makes more absolute margin than the tier below it, and check the blended number monthly.

Every play in this article works on visitors you're already paying for. No extra ad spend. Not even a higher conversion rate. Each order is simply worth more.

Stack a few and your revenue per visitor climbs. That's the number that decides how hard you can scale.

Q4 traffic is expensive. Walk into it with a store that makes every click worth more.