BUNDLES COME FROM BASKETS

A bundle is the cheapest way to raise value without cutting price, when it’s the right bundle. The wrong bundle is a clearance box with a bow on it, and customers can tell.

Find the bundle in the baskets

• Frequently bought together, on first orders. Pull pairs of products that appear in the same first order. If people who buy the bracelet keep adding the same earrings, that’s the bundle. The affinity is proven, not assumed.
• Ask the warehouse. The people packing orders know which items keep going into the same box.
• Bundle for the job, not the margin sheet. The extra item should finish what the customer is buying the main one to do: the refill with the device, the second short with the first, the cleaner with the shoes. Slow-moving stock that needs clearing is not a job.

The AOV ladder

When one unit can’t clear your economics, put quantity into the offer: 1, 2 or 3 units at falling unit prices, with 2 selected by default. It’s the decoy from chapter 3 again: the 3-pack makes the 2-pack look sensible. The page has to match. Sending a multi-unit offer to a single-unit product page makes the customer do the math you should have done.

What a mechanic really costs

A buy-one-get-one sounds like 50% off. It isn’t. The second unit adds its product cost and a pick fee; it doesn’t add a second shipment or a second payment fee. Put the options side by side before you pick one:

With these example numbers, buy-one-get-one leaves more per order than 30% off a single unit, while looking like a bigger deal to the customer. That’s the bundle’s advantage when product cost is low against price. It flips when product cost is high: a $40 item that costs $25 to make can’t afford to give a unit away. Run your own numbers.

Do this

• Pull the top five product pairs on first orders. If one pair shows up far more than the rest, test it as the first offer.
• Run the tool with finance’s real costs before choosing between a discount, a bundle and a gift.