Are you struggling to increase your average order value (AOV)?
A great conversion optimization strategy will not only help you increase your average order value but will also allow you to set a price range for the discounts you communicate. If you’d like to know how to make your visitors buy those extra products from you, read our case study.
We’re going to show you how to increase your average order value without much effort using the example of a wine shop. Are you ready?
Results
As a startup, the Winelovers Webshop had to build up its customer base from scratch. Selling wine online was further complicated by the fact that according to statistics, only 13% of wine consumers order drinks either regularly or occasionally online. As a result, the Winelovers Webshop team needed a marketing tool to persuade their visitors that they don’t necessarily need to go down to the nearest market to buy a good bottle of wine, because it could also be ordered straight to their door.
Statistics
+ 130% order in only 3 months
+ 40% leads
The Winelovers Webshop team has been communicating different gifts and giveaways since the beginning to increase their average order value.
In spite of the fact that they have been trying different solutions to catch the attention of their visitors with these gifts, unfortunately only a few noticed them. This was the time when they decided to try OptiMonk as suggested by one of their acquaintances (who saw the positive effects of the software previously on his own website).
With OptiMonk, they have built up a 4 step campaign strategy which resulted in increasing the AOV by 130% in 3 months.
Additionally, their campaigns were so popular that nearly 40% of their visitors who saw them were interested and clicked for browsing further in the store (this has increased the chance of placing some more products into their carts).
Meet the Winelovers Webshop
The Winelovers team has been organizing walking wine tours in Budapest since 2013, nearly 30 times a year.
Besides wine tastings, they facilitate 3 different wine portals as well. These portals are targeting those visitors who are just getting familiar with the world of wines, those who are already advance wine consumers, and those who are working in the wine industry.
The Winecollege wine school is also managed by the Winelovershop, organizing wine and gastro courses for those who are interested in the topic. Since they have had several years of experience in the field, after a long preparation period they have decided to launch an ecommerce store, called the Winelovers Webshop and join the online market of wine sellers.
The ecommerce store sells nearly 2000 wine types nationally but also on the international market. They also supply wine accessories, magazines, and textbooks as well. In order to support online wine ordering, the Winelovers Webshop decided to offer free shipping. This way, they could help quality wine consumption develop and become more popular.
Challenges
Building up an enterprise from scratch is not an easy job and investment. This was also realized by the Winelovers Webshop team and although they had several years of wine school and wine event experience, selling wine online is an entirely different market.
Generally speaking, online wine selling is still very new to Hungary. Therefore, the greatest challenge was to build trust and a stable customer base.
When it comes to selling, building a customer base is not an easy job. You spend a lot of money on ads in the hope of collecting more visitors and then you watch them leave with an empty cart, buying the same product from your competition instead… shortest horror story of every ecommerce store owner 🙂
As an ecommerce store owner, you should always have the following uppermost goals in mind: converting your visitors into customers, always being one step ahead of your competition, and persuading your visitors to buy that +1 product that they weren’t planning to purchase.
Let’s think about it…
It might sound like a cliche but think of your own buying habits. Let’s suppose that you’d like to buy a bottle of expensive wine for a special occasion – what would be that +1 reason why you have finally decided to order it online? “Why buy online, It’s just as expensive offline as online”, you say.
What makes a difference is that if you order online, you have the option to order the wine right to your doorstep 🙂 The only advantage of buying offline is that we can get help from the shop workers, right?
This was in the past! Nowadays, we can get the same help online as well! Ecommerce stores try to make their visitors become repeat buyers with on-site messages by providing them great value offers during their visit on the site, and in real-time.
The importance of this was realized by the Winelovers Webshop team, and as a result of which they have created their own, 4 stage campaign strategy.
Now let’s see the details 🙂
Solution
The main goal of the Winelovers Webshop was to increase the average order value and their customer base. To achieve this goal, they have been communicating different gifts and giveaways since the beginning. In spite of the fact that they have tried various methods to catch the attention of their visitors with these gifts, unfortunately only had limited success.
When they started to use OptiMonk, they made a quick research to communicate gifts based on price ranges. Finally, they decided to pick 4 price ranges and communicate 4 types of gifts depending on the price range. This way, they could persuade their visitors to put that extra product into the cart to get one of the free gifts.
To illustrate the free gift, they used a simple upsell template, called Milan:
The popups were setup to appear on all of the pages as soon as the cart value reached the 10,000 HUF value and was approaching one of the 4 price ranges.
As the goal was to generate repeat buyers and persuade the visitors to add extra products to their carts upon their next visit, they didn’t limit the number of times that the popup could fire. They only setup 1-hour timeframe between the two appearances.
We have interviewed Rita Kiss, the Head of Marketing and Development of the Winelovers Webshop.
Hi Rita, can you tell us more about your main responsibilities as the Head of Marketing and Development?
My main responsibilities include increasing the visitor numbers on 23 sites and bringing more customers to the the Winelovers Webshop, to the Wine College and to the 30 the Winelovers Events being organized each year.
Who is the target audience of the store?
Generally speaking, the target audience of the Winelovers Webshop is consumers who are interested in buying wine, let that be for own consumption or as a gift. As a raving fan of quality wine culture, we are trying to persuade our customers about the importance of consuming quality wine by offering them various gifts and discounts.
What was the main goal that you wanted to achieve?
Our main goal was to build an email list, to increase the number of customers, conversion and the average order value, decrease cart abandonment and successful cross-promotions.
How did you get in touch with OptiMonk?
I came across OptiMonk approximately 5-6 years ago through one of my acquaintances who already used the software to increase his customer base and to improve conversion rates on his site.
To be honest, at first I didn’t like popups as most people associate them with being annoying. However, from the moment I analyzed the results they brought I have instantly realized their potential, so this wasn’t even a question for me: I’ve been using them ever since, and successfully on nearly 10 different sites for both promotions and cross-promotions.
What type of campaigns did you use to achieve your goals? (which templates did you use?)
I usually run more campaigns parallelly to align with our goals. I use the lucky wheel template to collect more email subscribers, nanobars to remind visitors of prize contests, the ‘Milan’ template to increase AOV and the ‘Madrid’ countdown template to decrease the cart abandonment rate.
How did you find the setup process?
OptiMonk is pretty easy and simple to use. I consider myself an accomplished user, however, after using the system for 5 years already before, it took me some time to get accustomed to the new administration interface 🙂
How do you measure the effectiveness of OptiMonk?
With Google Analytics.
How long did it take you to see the first results?
This was almost instant – if I’d have to name 1-2 campaigns, I’d say the lucky wheel and the upsell campaigns offering free gifts brought the first instant results.
How did OptiMonk impact your core metrics? Did you experience any increases in revenue or growth after starting to use OptiMonk?
Thanks to the 4 step campaign and giveaway strategy, we have managed to increase the average order value by 130% in only 3 months and managed to grow our email database with no less than 1000 contacts.
Which is your favorite OptiMonk function and why?
The cart monitoring function. It’s very useful because based on cart value, we can decide whether the visitor is a simple wine-lover or a regular wine consumer – this way, we are able to increase conversion by showing them the help of the most relevant offers.
What would you tell those ecommerce store owners who didn’t yet start conversion optimization on their store?
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If you don’t believe the results shown in the case studies, try out OptiMonk yourself and watch the results.
Templates and campaign settings
Now let’s take a closer look at the 4 step campaign strategy that was specifically created by the Winelovers Webshop to increase the average order value. This 4 step campaign is a real proof of how important it is to segment your visitors. ‘Cuz when it comes to income and expenses, the value of the giveaway does make a huge difference!
The idea behind the strategy is that the value of the gift is tied to the price range previously set, so one can only get the product for free if the cart value reaches this range. 🙂
1. Giveaway between 10,000 – 19,990 HUF cart value:
Those visitors who placed products into their carts in 10,000 – 19,990 HUF value and completed their orders in 20,000 HUF value, received a bottle of wine in 1,000 HUF value as a gift to their order. The campaign was shown to visitors arriving from both PC and Mobile, 5 seconds right after the product in the given price range was placed into the cart.
As the ultimate goal was to generate repeat buyers and make them increase their order values during their next visit as well, they didn’t limit the number of times the popup could fire. They only setup 1-hour timeframe between the two appearances.
In order to show the offer to the relevant visitors only and in order not to ruin the browsing experience, they excluded the subpages where the message wasn’t relevant. Here, they have specifically excluded the checkout pages not to disturb the ordering process:
The results were forwarded to Google Analytics as well.
2. Giveaway between 20,000 – 24,990 HUF cart value
The campaign created in the next price range was only shown to those visitors who placed products into their carts in 20,000 – 24,990 HUF value and completed their orders in 25,000 HUF value. The value of the gift grew with the price range so those visitors whose cart value reached the 20,000 HUF limit and completed their orders could receive a bottle of wine in 1,500 HUF price range for free:
The campaign was shown to visitors arriving from both PC and Mobile, 5 seconds right after the product in the given price range was placed into the cart.
The ultimate goal here as well was to generate repeat buyers and make them increase their AOV during their next visit as well, so they didn’t limit the number of times the popup could fire here either. They only setup 1-hour timeframe between the two appearances.
The campaign settings were the same as in case of the first campaign, only the cart rules differed.
Those pages where the offer was not relevant were excluded here as well, and of course all the data was forwarded to Google Analytics:
3. Giveaway between 40,000 – 49,990 HUF cart value:
The next price range picked was 40,000 – 49,990 HUF. Similarly to the previous two campaigns, as the price range grew, the gift became more expensive as well 🙂
This campaign was shown to those visitors whose cart value exceeded 40,000 HUF but haven’t yet reached 50,000 HUF. The gift here was a bottle of wine of 2,500 HUF value:
The campaign settings were the same as in case of the first campaign, again, only the cart rules differed:
4. Giveaway between 50,000 – 100,000 HUF cart value:
The last price range was between 50,000 – 100,000 HUF value. As here the visitor had to buy a considerably more expensive product to get the ‘Aszú’ (hungarian sweet wine type) for free, the value of the free wine was not communicated on the popup:
The campaign settings were the same as in case of the first campaign, only the cart value differed and the way the cart rule was used. Here, instead of the ‘doesn’t equal rule’, the ‘doesn’t contain’ rule was used, with the help of all of the cart pages could be excluded under one setting:
And now let’s see some common characteristics of the campaigns:
- When clicking on the ‘Continue shopping’ button, the popup closed so visitors could continue browsing and adding extra products to their carts easily.
- Next to the pictures the highest price range was always displayed to make visitors buy the extensive one from the products – as the ultimate goal was to increase AOV, the lowest price ranges were omitted deliberately
Summary
The well-working and thoroughly planned campaign strategy of the Winelovers Webshop is the proof of how important planning is.
In order to communicate the best possible offers to visitors, it’s extremely important to know their buying habits. We’ll only be able to communicate relevant offers to them once we know these habits and interests.
As the campaigns of the Winelovers Webshop prove, to increase AOV, we don’t necessarily have to communicate the same offer to each visitor. On the contrary! 🙂
We and our wallet as well will be much happier if we tie our offers to a certain cart value. This is proven by the fact that this strategy helped the Winelovers Webshop increase their AOV by 130% in only 3 months, which is an amazing result!
During this time, almost 40% of visitors were interested in the offers and clicked to continue shopping. Congratulations on this unique strategy and provided wonderful results 🙂
“To be honest, at first I didn’t like popups as most people associate them with being annoying. However, from the moment I analyzed the results they brought I have instantly realized their potential, so this wasn’t even a question for me: I’ve been using them ever since, and successfully on nearly 10 different sites for both promotions and cross-promotions.”
If you as well would like to achieve such great results, why no try OptiMonk? You can easily create a free account. Or if you already have an account, just sign in.
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