Raising order value, without buying more traffic.

Store revenue has three levers: more visitors, a higher share of visitors who buy, and more value per order. The first costs ad money. The second costs testing time. The third — average order value — is the one you can usually move this week, with settings you already have.

This guide walks the three levers that reliably work, and the arithmetic behind each.

Know your number first

Before touching anything, work out where you stand: revenue for a period, divided by orders in the same period. Shopify shows both under Analytics → Reports, or you can use our AOV calculator to see what a ten, fifteen or twenty-five percent lift would be worth to you per year.

Write the number down. Every tactic below is judged against it.

Free-shipping thresholds that actually work

The most dependable lift in ecommerce is a free-shipping bar set just above your current average. If your AOV is $62, free shipping at $75 gives most carts a reachable reason to add one more item. Set it at $150 and nobody stretches; set it at $60 and you are giving away shipping on orders you would have had anyway.

The rule of thumb: threshold ≈ AOV × 1.2, then round to a price that reads cleanly. Show progress toward it in the cart — “you’re $13 away” does the selling for you.

Bundles and the buy-more math

A bundle is a pair of products priced slightly under the sum of its parts. It works because the shopper reads it as a deal while your revenue per order climbs. The metric that moves is units per transaction: same shopper, more things in the bag.

The buy-X-get-Y family belongs here too — but know what you are really giving. Buy two, get one free is a 33% discount across the basket. Run that math against your gross margin before the promotion goes live, not after.

Tiered discounts, done honestly

Spend $80, get 10% off; spend $120, get 15%. Tiers work because the discount itself becomes the reason to buy more. Two rules keep them honest:

• Put the first tier within one added item of your current AOV, or nobody reaches it.
• Cap the top tier where your margin still survives — a discount that outruns your margin is a donation.

What not to do

Sitewide percent-off promotions raise AOV rarely and erode price trust often. Urgency theatre (“only 2 left” on everything) reads as noise to the customers you most want to keep. And do not chase order value at the cost of conversion — a heavier cart that abandons is worth less than a light one that pays. Watch your cart abandonment for a week after any change.

Measure it like you mean it

Give each change two full weeks before judging, compare like-for-like periods, and read AOV next to UPT: if AOV rose but UPT did not, price mix moved — not behaviour. Quiet, boring measurement is what separates a lever from a lucky month.