This is lever 4 of 5 in the How To Optimise series. The five levers run in order: Traffic, Content, Conversion rate, Average order value and Retention. If you missed the last one, start with The Conversion Lever.
Order value is the quickest profit lever
You and your team have already paid to win the customer. They're in the checkout. Every extra item they add costs you nothing more to acquire, so most of it drops straight to margin.
Take a £1m brand. That's 1,000,000 visitors a year, converting at 2%, with a £50 average order value. Say the traffic and conversion work from the earlier levers takes you to 24,750 orders a year. Lift average order value from £50 to £55 across those orders and you add about £124k a year.
The trap is reaching for a discount. Discounts train customers to wait for the next offer. They also eat the margin you were trying to grow. The aim is more value in every order.
And the brands that get this right don't set it once and walk away. They test. The threshold, the bundles, the post-purchase offer. Each one is a small experiment, and the data tells you which to keep.
Signs order value is holding you back
Most orders contain a single item.
Average order value has been flat for months.
Your free delivery threshold was set years ago and nobody has tested it since.
Discounts are the only thing that lifts basket size.
Nothing relevant is offered in the basket or straight after checkout.
Customers regularly email asking to add something to an order they've just placed.
You don't know which first purchase leads to your most valuable customers.
How to find the opportunity
Your order data already shows what customers want to buy together. You just have to look. Start with these questions.
What's my average order value, and which way is it heading? Lifetimely or Shopify analytics, over the last 90 days.
Which products do customers already buy together? Your Shopify order history, grouped by product pairs.
Is my free delivery threshold in the right place? Compare it with your average order value, then test it.
Which upsells actually make money? Lifetimely's upsell reports, judged on margin as well as revenue.
Which first purchase leads to the most valuable customers? Lifetimely's cohort reports, split by first product bought.
How often do customers want to change an order after checkout? Your support inbox.
How to optimise it
Know your number. Your average order value over the last 90 days, and the trend.
Test your free delivery threshold. Start a little above what people normally spend, then try a second level. Watch order value, conversion rate and margin together. The right threshold is the one that earns you the most profit.
Test bundles, upsells and cross-sells against each other. Build one bundle from the pair customers already buy together. Run an upsell and a cross-sell alongside it. Judge each one on margin as well as revenue, then keep the winner.
Test your post-purchase offer. Straight after checkout, the decision to buy is already made. Try two or three offers on the thank-you page and in the order confirmation, and see which one customers take.
Add value with sets and gifting. Multipacks, gift options and build-your-own boxes raise order value and protect the brand.
Follow your best first purchases. Some first orders lead to customers who come back again and again. Find them in your data and feature them in your bundles and offers.
Measure profit per order. A bigger basket built on a heavy discount can earn you less. Profit is the number that matters.
The tools from the toolbox
These come from The Optimisation Toolbox. Smart data and technology do the heavy lifting. You and your team bring the human touch: knowing which offers fit your brand and your customers.
Fast Bundle: fixed, mix-and-match, multipack, build-a-box and AI-powered "frequently bought together" bundles, plus volume and BOGO offers. Useful for testing one bundle format against another.
OrderEditing.com: lets customers edit their own orders before fulfilment, and adds upsell offers at checkout, post-purchase and on the thank-you page. A simple way to test post-purchase offers.
Lifetimely: keeps it honest. It shows whether a bigger basket actually means more profit, and which first purchases lead to your most valuable customers.
Do it yourself this week
Export your last 90 days of orders from Shopify: order number, products and order value.
Note your gross margin and your current free delivery threshold.
Paste them into Claude or ChatGPT with this prompt:
"Here are my last 90 days of orders, my gross margin and my free delivery threshold. Work out my average order value. Find the products most often bought together. Suggest three bundles that would lift order value without a discount that hurts margin. Then suggest two free delivery thresholds I could test, and tell me what to measure to pick the winner."
Build the strongest bundle on your bestseller's page and set up a test of your threshold.
Run it for four weeks and compare profit per order with the four weeks before. Keep what wins. Then test the next idea.
Read next
A bigger first order is good. A customer who comes back for a second is better.
The full process: The Optimisation Toolbox
The mindset behind it: Why Optimise?
Next lever: The Retention Lever
Not sure which lever to start with? Take the free Optimisation Audit to find your biggest marginal gain. Or if you'd like a hand putting this into practice, work with Ian.