Top Shopify Apps to Connect with Customers and Increase AOV

Asutra by Venus Williams is a personal care site that uses Order Bump to suggest additional products in checkout

Most ecommerce teams want to connect more with their customers and motivate people to add more items to their carts. Often all it takes is the right offer at the right time. Thankfully, for retailers on Shopify and Shopify Plus, the platform’s app ecosystem continually offers new ways to boost average order value (AOV). 

The best tactics to increase AOV will likely sound familiar. These include upsells, cross sells, product bundles, subscriptions, and offering a gift with purchase. No matter which tactic you choose, the strength of your offer is key. The offer needs to be one (or more!) of the following:

• Valuable: The offer is for something the customer actually wants.
• Relevant: It makes sense with what they’re already planning to buy.
• Motivating: There’s an urgency to act now rather than later.
• Timely: The offer appears at the right moment to get someone to buy.

These are the four characteristics of a strong offer that increases the likelihood your customers will buy more.

Once this foundation is in place, it’s time to decide which apps to integrate with your Shopify site to showcase these offers. Here are some important apps to consider.

For Upsells: ReConvert and Bold Upsell

Upsells come in a few different forms. A true upsell is when a customer can add a duplicate item and get a bulk discount. For example, someone is looking to buy a bottle of shampoo, and they get a deal where they can buy two bottles for 15% off. 

There’s also the upgrade version of the upsell. This is when a retailer offers a more expensive version of the product in consideration. Apple is a master of this technique. When customers browse the Ipad PDP, for example, Apple offers several different versions ranging in features – and price.

You can upsell in multiple places on your store: product page, cart page, post purchase funnel, or the thank you page. “Upgrade” style upsells are best for the product page, as it’s hard to get someone to replace an item in their cart or checkout. 

Bold Upsell facilitates upsells by allowing retailers to suggest higher value products for purchase. On the product page, after a visitor adds to cart, a modal can appear to showcase a higher priced item to replace the item they just added. 

ReConvert is a Shopify app that lets merchants customize your Thank You page to allow for upsells and cross sells. It takes the friction out of the process. Customers just have to click once and add an offer to their order, making it more likely they will do so, especially if that offer is too good to pass up. 

For Cross Sells: Order Bump (and Bold Upsell is Great for This, Too)

Retailers use cross selling when you offer a complimentary product with the item your customer is already planning to buy. These additional products can be something that will work with the purchase, such as a bag of coffee beans with a coffee maker. Or it can be a product warranty. Or even a product membership or subscription. Personalization can be a great way to cross sell, too, as you suggest people customize products for an additional price.

Order Bump is a Shopify app and cross selling tool that allows merchants to make offers right on the checkout page. In the example above, when a customer starts to checkout with the Essential Eye Serum in the cart, Asutra offers their Aromatherapy Eye Pillow in the process. Further, if they add the eye pillow to cart, Order Bump will pop up another item to cross sell. 

Bold Upsell, mentioned above, also promotes cross sells, as well as cross sell funnels. For example, these can be on the product page after someone adds to cart or goes to the checkout or on the thank you page. 

For Post-Purchase Upsells and Cross Sells: CartHook and One Click Upsell

Post purchase upsells and cross sells are a powerful way of getting a customer to easily add more items to their order. Remember: it’s all about the right offer at the right time.

In these examples, someone has just bought from you. If you provide them the right offer, they can add it to their current order with zero friction. These post purchase funnels can work so well because if the offer is strong enough, customers feel a sense of “FOMO” about not taking it. They are already in buying mode, so they feel justified in adding a $20 item, especially if that item is discounted and complements their current order. 

CartHook: After someone buys from your Shopify store, the CartHook app presents them with a customized offer for another purchase. Retailers can tailor these offers to be time-sensitive (the urgency we mentioned!) and with a discount. In CartHook’s own words, “You give your customers offers they accept with one-click—in between your Checkout page and Thank You page—making it easy for them to accept without having to re-enter any payment or shipping info.” With that friction removed, it gets more appealing to buy again.

One Click Upsell: This app is also a great tool for post-purchase offers. Additionally, it has built-in testing features to help merchants fine tune your promotions. It has strong reviews, too. One user wrote that it’s an “Amazing app to increase your conversion rate. The support team is also amazing and always here to help. Highly recommended.”

For Product Subscriptions: ReCharge, Bold Subscriptions, and Upscribe

Subscriptions make a lot of sense for buyers is because it takes the friction out of needing to remember to replenish their stock. For stores, it’s a way to get customers to continue spending on a purchase that they might have only done once, had it not been for the offer to set up recurring orders.

Subscriptions tend to do well with consumables like food, makeup, supplements, and personal care (lotion, hair care, sprays). But just because you have a more durable good like apparel doesn’t mean you can’t test out subscriptions. 

But keep in mind that subscriptions are nuanced. Before your company launches in head first, make sure your operations team answers the five key questions for subscription success.  Once you have your subscription strategy in place, these apps can help your team administer them well.

ReCharge: At Command C, we’ve integrated this app with Shopify stores on more than one occasion – and we’re fans. It has a portal to help retailers manage your subscription offers on the backend. Plus it offers a great customer portal to let people update their own preferences.

Upscribe: The big news here is that Upscribe has recently integrated into Shopify’s new Subscription API, giving merchants an even more seamless checkout experience. They pledge that their product also “drives subscriber growth, increases customer LTV, reduces churn, and optimizes operations.”

Bold Subscriptions: In our opinion, it’s always good to review the offering from Bold. They have been in the Shopify app business for a long time, and their products do a great job of answering retailer needs. With the case of Bold Subscriptions, you also get a customizable subscription service with all sorts of additional features.

As you can see, there is a lot of potential in boosting AOV through cross selling, upselling, subscriptions, and more. Take some time to analyze your data. See what people have bought together and what items are complementary. Then when you know how you want to proceed, work with your development team to ensure smooth integration with your Shopify site. With the right app network in place, your company can gain increased AOV.