How Businesses Can Use Product Bundling To Reduce Inventory & Boost Revenue

eCommerce revenue is expected to increase from $409 billion to $638 billion by 2022, according to data reported by Statista, with apparel and accessories taking the lion’s share. This trend represents the continued growth of online shopping. One of the strategies eCommerce retailers are employing more is product bundling, which increases average order value (AOV) and helps move inventory.

For example, Amazon saw year over year sales increases exceeding 19% in 2017. Amazon offers direct customers and resellers bundling services to maximize their margin on shipped merchandise, and this counts for some of the online giant’s success. Here are several ways your eCommerce business can benefit from bundling products.

Why You Should Implement Bundling

For the best results, don’t prebuild bundles when the customer places an order. Instead, let the shopper choose additional products and accessories before they complete the order.

For example, to increase the AOV, you can encourage customers to build a set of products while checking out a single item. Add-ons during checkout can double or triple the order total. Promote custom bundling with a pop-up generated by order automation software. The pop-up should contain related items or products customers typically buy together. This is also a great way to reduce order abandonment.

Order management software can even trigger a popup detecting user behavior. This allows you to keep the customer on the site and increase the possibility of a sale. This is a great place to display bundles and discounts to your customers at the exact opportune moment.

Introduce A “Buy More & Save” Offer

Promoting a “buy more and save” offer is a great strategy to increase your AOV. Set a threshold over which a discount kicks in. Customers will often buy more products in a bundle to save money.

Managing inventory is one of the least desirable parts of owning an eCommerce store. However, bundling helps you manage inventory by getting rid of old stock. Combine a popular item with a so-called dead item that’s been in inventory for a long time. Set the price low enough to push the deal and move the merchandise.

You can also bundle the same dead item that hasn’t been clearing out of inventory in sets of multiple units at a discount that still allows you to make a profit. If you have previous order knowledge of customers who bought the item, you can contact them with exclusive offers for the bundled items.

3 Industries That Should Adopt Bundling

Building bundles for services is not new. Think of your employee benefits, which are bundled together in a package so that it’s cheaper if you go with a single provider. When used correctly, bundling services let your business grow, and this is true of almost all industries. They are a huge win and a major draw for prospective customers. Many industries already use bundling successfully, but there are a few that have room for growth. Here are three examples:

#1 Meal Delivery

Planning meals and going grocery shopping are things of the past for many families. Delivery services such as Blue Apron, Plated and HelloFresh have changed dinner time forever. Bundled products make the process less frustrating and monotonous, and getting a bundle of ingredients delivered make preparing healthier meals easy. This is a great example of how bundling can revolutionize an entire industry.

#2 Travel

Travel sites are already taking advantage of this industry’s penchant for bundling. However, there’s still a lot of room for improvement because booking tickets, airfare, hotel rooms and dinner reservations all at one time is still far from a seamless process.

A better model would be for businesses to allow the client to select from a list of nearby activities and then offer a deal on the entire order. This would be easier for travelers who could do more things at one time and go on to enjoy an affordable, stress-free vacation.

#3 Home Maintenance

How great would it be if you could pay your mortgage, electricity, heat, cable, security system and parking in one bill? Taking the time and trouble away from paying these items separately would be well-received by homeowners who would rather spend their time doing other things.

There are endless possibilities for bundling products and services, and the number of e-commerce stores offering bundles increases every day. To keep up with competitors, you need to learn the art of the bundle with your own products.

How To Implement Product Bundling

Here are three steps to identify bundling opportunities:

• Look for behavior patterns. Your sales data may reveal products that people are more likely to buy together.
• Bundle less-popular products with hot sellers at a friendly price. If you have items that just don’t seem to be moving, bundle them strategically with your best-sellers to get aging inventory and overstock items out the door.
• Use your expertise to recommend products. Don’t shy away from making recommendations. Many customers find the number of choices online overwhelming and actually appreciate curate suggestions from merchants.

If you have the technological capability, personalizing bundles is the best way to entice buyers to buy more products. You can use their demographic information, browsing history, and past purchases to customize offers. Smart inventory software can adapt to dozens of different configurations of the same product.

How Do You Determine If The Bundle Is Profitable?

Now that you know the benefits of bundles, how do you decide what products to bundle? You can calculate the return on investment for bundled products the same way as single items. The formula for determining ROI is:

ROI = [(Financial value – Product cost) / Product cost] x 100

The two components, financial value and product cost, simply combine all items in the package. If this is in alignment with your profitability goals, allow those items to be bundled together.

Conclusion

Product bundling increases the average order value and increases your revenue. It can help you to manage and clean out inventory by getting rid of old stock. Use the tips above to learn how to bundle your own products profitably.

 

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