Boost your basket size as an online retailer

As more and more Americans rely on online shopping for their daily needs, and uncertainty remains about when traditional brick and mortar stores will be able to fully reopen in parts of America, online retailers are putting a renewed focus on increasing basket size. Today, it is more likely that someone will visit your website; now all you need is to ensure that they fill up their online basket with your products before going to another website. 

Here are three tips for increasing basket size. 

1. Add a pay-over-time option.

Allowing customers a flexible payment option where they can pay for your products in installments instead of all upfront — commonly referred to as buy now, pay later (BNPL) — has a proven track record of increasing basket size. It is why the BNPL model increased by 162 percent in use between 2018 and 2019, according to PYMNTS.com. Being able to break up purchases into monthly installments makes it more likely that consumers will add an extra $20-$50 at checkout because paying an extra $5-$12 a month over a four-month period is way more reasonable than splurging an extra $50 upfront at checkout.

As an example, our merchant, I AM Becoming (IAB MBG), dramatically increased average order volume through the use of ViaBill as a payment method.

2. Recommend accessories at checkout.

Brick and mortar retail stores increase the size of shopping carts by presenting customers with impulse purchases as they wait in line to checkout. Candy, soda, and tabloid magazines surround consumers for the specific purpose of encouraging an additional spend of $5-$10. Online retailers do not have the opportunity to generate extra revenue from these types of additional cart fillers, but they can actually do one better because they already know what is in their consumer’s shopping cart. 

Since online retailers already know what their customers plan on buying it is easy to recommend any accessories or items that would enhance their overall purchase, instead of frivolous knick-knacks they don’t need. For example: if the customer is buying a pair of shoes, the online retailer could recommend also purchasing shoelaces, insoles, shoe cleaner, deodorizers, and socks. These recommendations help increase the size of online shopping carts and also let customers know more about the variety of products you offer.

Pairing recommended accessories with a BNPL  option can dramatically increase the size of online shopping carts.

3. Provide bundle options

All customers love to get a deal and this holds true whether they are buying online or in the store. Offering customers a discount when they combine products is a great way to increase cart size. These discounted products can also be the recommended items they learn about prior to checkout. Providing a discount to help customers buy additional products that you recommend based on their intended purchases is a great way to save customers money and increase basket size. And again, adding a BNPL option helps too.