Why it matters to a buyer
Revenue grows from three levers, more visitors, a higher conversion rate, or a higher average order value, and the third is often the cheapest to move because it does not require any new traffic or a single additional buyer, only getting existing buyers to spend a bit more per order. For a buyer, a CRO plan focused only on conversion rate while ignoring AOV is leaving a real, low-cost lever unused, particularly for a store where shipping and fulfilment costs make small orders comparatively less profitable.
How it is measured or applied
AOV is calculated as total revenue divided by total number of orders over a chosen period, and it is raised through tactics like product bundling, a free-shipping threshold set just above the current average, upsells at checkout, and cross-sells based on what a customer is already buying. It is tracked in the store's own analytics or ecommerce platform reporting, segmented by channel and by new versus returning customer, since AOV can vary widely between those groups. It is watched alongside conversion rate, since a tactic that raises AOV but suppresses conversion rate can still reduce total revenue.
