Increase AOV by A/B Testing Product Bundling Offer [+ Ideas]

Why aim to sell just one item when you could sell 3-4 or even 5 items in one go!

Product bundling is a great strategy to boost your sales and revenue by selling multiple items in a single order. However, nailing your product bunding strategy might take some experimentation.

Creating a strategy powered through A/B testing is the ultimate master plan that not only increases the conversion rate but also the average order value (AOV).

So, in this blog post, we’ll walk you through a complete guide on how to increase your AOV by A/B testing a product bundling offer.

Let’s get started with some basics first!

What is Product Bundling in eCommerce?

Product bundling is a strategy where multiple products are combined and offered as a single package (bundle) — usually with a discount offer or other incentive — to increase the AOV and overall revenue.

This is one of the most popular and proven eCommerce strategies, and that’s why it’s adopted by many brands worldwide.

For example, Derma E — a skin care brand — offers this “AM Glow Skincare Routine Set” bundle offer, which includes eye patches, eye cream, face oil, and moisturizer.

Keep in mind — there are various ways to create bundle offers. The above example we saw is a fixed product bundle, meaning, customers can’t change the items in it. However, some brands also offer a “Build Your Own Bundle” offer where customers can choose what items to add to the bundle.

Learn more: How to Create a Shopify Build Your Own Bundle Strategy

What is A/B Testing in eCommerce?

A/B testing (also known as split testing) is a technique to compare two different versions of a digital asset (e.g., webpage, landing page, mobile app UI, etc.) to measure their performance and determine which one performs better for your business goals.

In a nutshell, A/B testing is a great method to enhance your digital assets and increase your store’s conversion rate.

Learn more: A Complete Guide to Shopify A/B Testing

Example of A/B Testing a Product Bundling Offer

Now, let’s understand how A/B testing works its magic in optimizing a product bundle offer. Let’s assume you’ve been offering a 20% discount with your bundle offer; however, the conversion rate has been much lower than your expectations.

So, here in this example, a variation of the offer has been created with a flat $20 discount. The total website traffic is split into 50% for each version of the landing page. The “Control” (original) version of the landing page achieves 5% conversion rate — whereas the “Variant” achieves a 10% conversion rate.

Thus, the result of this A/B test suggests that visitors are converting better when a flat $20 discount is offered instead of a 20% discount. This is a very simplified example; however, we’ll go through more details in the step-by-step guide later.

Why A/B Test a Product Bundling Offer?

Here are the reasons why you should consider A/B testing your product bundling offer:

Validate the product bundling offer

A/B testing can help you validate the best product bundling offer. Instead of creating product bundling offers based on assumptions or guesswork, A/B testing gives you data-backed insights on what the best offer is to convert your visitors.

Increase your conversion rate

A/B testing results help you understand which offer is better received by your customers. Thus, you can finalize a better offering and increase your conversion rate.

Boost your average order value

The whole idea behind creating product bundling offers is to increase the AOV. But if that offer is not getting sold, it won’t serve the purpose. Combining A/B testing with a product bundling strategy is a way to boost your AOV along with your conversion rate.

Enhance customer satisfaction

Offering a product bundle at a discounted price is a way to make your customers happy with the deal. But how do you know if your current product bundling offer is the best offer for them? A/B testing gives you an added validation for the same.

How to Conduct A/B Testing on Your Product Bundling Offer

Now, let’s go through the step-by-step guide on how to A/B test your product bundle offer.

Step 1: Define the Hypothesis for the Test

An A/B test must start with a hypothesis. 

That said, here, the scope of the hypothesis is different. Typically, a test hypothesis defines the variable or element you want to test, e.g., changing the CTA button design or headline copy.

However, in this case, you’re trying to figure out the best offer. So, your hypothesis should define the offer. Here’s the hypothesis for the A/B test we covered in the example earlier:

• Theory: Based on the low conversion and revenue metrics, we believe that offering a flat $20 discount instead of a 20% discount on the bundle offer to all customers will entice them to buy the bundle deal.

• Validation: We will know this when we see an increase in the conversion rate and revenue from the bundle offer.

• Outcome: This will be good for our business because it will help us validate the product bundling offer and increase our overall revenue.

Using this template, you can create your own hypothesis. Just change the colored text with your own specific details.

Step 2: Create Landing Pages for Both Offers

Let’s continue with the same example, i.e., “20% discount” vs. “$20 flat discount”.

You can use GemPages to create your landing pages and easily customize the offer or any other element of your landing page. GemPages is one of the most loved page builder apps for Shopify, with a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars from nearly 2,700 reviews.

Here’s an example landing page we created using one of the templates from GemPages:

Now, we’ll create a variant landing page, again, using GemPages.

Just click the three dots on your control (original) landing page and click “Duplicate” — and your variant page will be ready in just a second. For better reference, you can rename the landing pages with the keywords “CONTROL” and “VARIANT”.

Now, customize the offer on your variant landing page.

Important note: In most A/B testing experiments, we typically advise testing one variable at a time as a best practice. However, this is a different scenario. While you’re testing one aspect (i.e., bundle offer), you need to present the benefits differently. Thus, you may end up changing multiple elements, especially elements like CTA copy, product image, and headline copy — depending on the change in your offer.

Here, we’re changing the headline copy that specifies the new offer: “Save $20 with the bundle deal!”

Step 3: Set Up the Experiment Using GemX

Now, it’s time to begin the experiment using GemX — a CRO & A/B testing app for Shopify. Using our years of experience and expertise in Shopify CRO and A/B testing, we’ve built GemX specifically for Shopify merchants like you.

First, go to the GemX dashboard and click “Create new experiment,” and select the “Control” (original) landing page.

Next, select the “Variant” landing page. Since we’ve already created a variant landing page in GemPages, we’ll click “Select an existing template” — but if you haven’t, you can select “Create Variant based on Control”, and GemX will create a variant copy using GemPages.

After inserting the control and variant landing pages, configure the experiment settings as per your requirements. These settings offer different criteria to customize your test for the specific audience.

Here’s a brief overview of those settings:

If you’re finding it difficult to set up the test, don’t worry — you can click the Question/Help icon and you’ll find the options for “Setup guide”, “Chat with us”, and “Book a call with us”.

After setting up all the criteria for the test, hit the “Start experiment” button, and the A/B test will be initiated immediately.

Important note: Before starting the A/B test, analyze whether you’ve been receiving sufficient traffic on your original landing page. You must have enough traffic data to generate accurate A/B test results.

Once the test is live, you’ll find more options to pause, rename, and end the experiment. Also, you can click “View analytics” to monitor your A/B test performance.

On top of that, you can view a quick summary of the live experiment in the GemX dashboard. It’ll help you review the key data points, including Conversion, Revenue, and Visitors. Plus, you can click on the Analytics icon to expand more detailed data points.

Side note: Since this is a demo test, the graphic below doesn’t contain any data. It’s just for your reference to see what analytics would be available to you.

And that’s it, now just monitor the test performance and wait for the right time to end it.

Step 4: End the Experiment & Analyze the Results

Once the test is run for a sufficient timeframe and you’ve achieved statistical significance, you can end the experiment. Make sure to allow it the required time (minimum two weeks) before you end the test.

Also, it’s imperative to achieve the statistical significance of 95% (or at a minimum 90%) to ensure the result is reliable and not just a coincidence. To measure the statistical significance, you can use an A/B Testing Significance Calculator.

Analyze the A/B test results and see which offer attracts customers to go for the bundle offer.

Step 5: Publish the Winning Product Bundling Offer

If you’ve found your winning offer through the test, publish the landing page with the new product bundling offer.

By any chance, if the test fails — meaning, the variant isn’t able to outperform the control version, you can go for more iterations by creating new variants. For example, instead of a $20 discount offer, you can create a new offer with “$15 discount + free shipping”.

Keep iterating until you find the winning formula.

A/B Testing Ideas for Product Bundling Offers

In the above guide, we saw one of the examples of A/B testing a product bundling offer. However, there are various ways you can tweak your bundle offer.

Here are some more ideas to conduct an A/B test on your bundle offer:

Changing the Product Combinations of the Bundle

Is your bundle offer not selling as you expected? If yes, have you tried changing the product combinations? Customers might not be finding your offer attractive because the bundle doesn’t cover exactly what they want.

Analyze your historical sales data and identify what items are frequently bought together. Here’s an example of an A/B testing hypothesis:

• Theory: Based on the low conversion rate of the bundle offer and historical sales data, we believe that offering a product combination of “shampoo, conditioner, and body wash” instead of “shampoo, conditioner, and serum” to all customers will make a better product bundling offer.

• Validation: We will know this when we see an increase in the conversion rate of the bundle offer.

• Outcome: This will be good for our business because it will help us validate the product bundling offer and increase our overall revenue.

Fixed Bundle Offer vs. “Build Your Own Bundle” Offer

So, we discussed the idea of changing the product combinations. But what if you give the power of choosing what goes in the bundle to customers only?

Well, you can validate the idea with an A/B test. So, here’s your sample hypothesis for this test:

• Theory: Based on the low conversion rate and feedback received in the customer survey data, we believe that offering a “build your own bundle” feature instead of a “fixed bundle” to all customers will encourage customers to choose the bundle deal instead of buying individual items.

• Validation: We will know this when we see an increase in the conversion rate of the bundle offer and an increase in the number of items sold.

• Outcome: This will be good for our business because it will help us validate the product bundling offer and increase our average order value.

Flat Amount/Percentage Discount vs. Free Shipping Offer

Depending on what types of products you sell and where you sell them, shipping costs can be a great factor in customers’ buying decisions. For example, if you’re selling heavy items like furniture or electronics, the shipping cost would be huge.

Here’s a sample hypothesis for this test:

• Theory: Based on the high cart abandonment numbers and high shipping rates offered by our partners, we believe that offering free shipping instead of a $25 discount to all first-time visitors will encourage them to complete the purchase.

• Validation: We will know this when we see an increase in the conversion rate of the bundle offer.

• Outcome: This will be good for our business because it will help us increase our average order value and overall revenue.

Free Shipping Offer vs. Free Gift with the Bundle Offer

Apart from free shipping, offering a free gift item with the bundle offer is also one of the popular eCommerce strategies. Here’s the sample hypothesis for the test:

• Theory: Based on the high cart abandonment numbers, we believe that offering a free gift item instead of a free shipping offer to all first-time visitors will encourage them to complete the purchase.

• Validation: We will know this when we see an increase in the conversion rate of the bundle offer.

• Outcome: This will be good for our business because it will help us validate the product bundling offer and increase our average order value.

Pro tip: While we mentioned various examples of A/B testing ideas, you don’t necessarily have to test the same combination as given in the guide. You can combine a couple of offers and create a unique test. For example, offering “free shipping + gift” vs. “$25 discount” on the bundle.

Best Practices for Your Product Bundling A/B Test

Use Data and Customer Insights

Make sure to leverage the existing data and observations, not just before the test but also after the test. Before the test, you can check customer behavior or feedback to come up with a solid variant idea. After the test, you can use the insights for future improvements.

Create High-Quality Landing Pages

If your landing page design fails to impress your visitors, it’s going to negatively impact your conversion rate anyway. GemPages lets you create high-quality landing pages with professionally designed templates — and customize them with an intuitive drag-and-drop editor.

Ensure Smooth Functioning of Product Bundling

A product bundling offer is not just something you show on your landing pages. You need to set them up in the backend as well. You can install a product bundling app from the Shopify App Store to streamline your process of creating product bundles.

Make Sure to Clearly Highlight the Benefits

Customers must know how they’re benefiting by going for the bundle deal instead of buying individual products. That’s where website copy plays a crucial role.

Use the Best A/B Testing App

Your Shopify tech stack must have a reliable A/B testing app that can get the job done with precise results. Plus, it should be flexible to customize your test for a specific audience and other criteria, such as traffic sources, device types, etc. GemX is specifically built for conversion rate optimization and A/B testing — and it offers you all these features. 

You can simply start your first A/B test with a 14-day free trial — with no upfront payment.

Document Your A/B Testing Analysis

As we mentioned before, you can optimize your future marketing strategies around product bundling offers using the insights from your A/B test results. However, to leverage those insights in the future, you need to document them first. You can use a database tool like Notion to document your A/B tests.

Final Thoughts on Product Bundling A/B Test

Product bundling strategy is your magic tool to scale your business at a rapid pace.

Don’t give up on it if it’s not working as per your expectations right from the get-go. You always have the opportunity to enhance it. Apart from changing your offering, you can also cover other scopes in your A/B tests, e.g., enhancing the user experience.

Last but not least, use the combination of GemPages and GemX to build a solid product bundling offer and boost your conversions and AOV.

To learn more about other eCommerce marketing strategies, tools, and best practices — check out more resources on the GemPages Blog. Also, join the GemPages Facebook community to network and learn from like-minded entrepreneurs and experts.

FAQs About Product Bundling & A/B Testing