[Product Bundling] How to group your e-commerce products to increase sales

Abigail Bosze

Content Writer

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Would you like to increase your average checkout price? I bet you would! Who wouldn’t like their customers to buy 3 or 4 additional products each time they make place order.
Well, that’s easier to achieve than you may think.
This post is about product bundling, which is a way of selling packs of different items that will help you boost your earnings.
Don’t worry about the strange word – we guarantee it’s much easier than you think. 😉
Here we go!

What is product bundling?

Here’s a definition for you:

Product bundling is a marketing strategy that consists of selling different products together as if they were only one to create a deal that drives more sales.

In general, the more products offered in the package, the higher the perceived value.
This will increase their purchase intent and, in turn, your sales.

✅  What are the different types of bundling?

You can choose from two different product bundling strategies:

• Pure bundling: The customer can only buy the different items together as a pack. For example, Microsoft Office is a full pack – it’s not possible to purchase just Excel or Word.
• Mixed bundling: The customer can buy one single item from the pack. For example, T-We Tea’s e-commerce allows you to create your own bundle with 3 infusions plus a bottle to carry your tea around with you, but you can also buy everything separately. Of course, the pack is cheaper, as you might expect.

Have a look at the pic.

What option should I choose for my e-commerce?
According to a study from the Harvard Business School, bundling is more profitable if you also allow your customers to buy the items separately.
Now you know. 😉

Why you should implement product bundling into your online store

The goal of every online shop is to sell as much as possible, which is precisely what product bundling gives you since selling more products with each purchase increases your average checkout price.
That’s the main advantage, but there are more:

• You simplify the purchase decision: By making purchases simpler and quicker, you improve the customer experience. 
• The profit margins increase: More items are sold to each buyer without increasing shipping or operating costs.
• You speed up your stock rotation: You can find an outlet for products that have been in stock for a while by combining them with others that sell quicker. Would you like to learn to manage your stock better? Check out this post.
• You set yourself apart from the competition: A pack gives you more opportunities to offer added value.
• You get more loyal customers: More products at a lower cost means happier customers, so why not go a step further and create a loyalty program? Learn more about that here. 

In short, there are many advantages to bundling items together in an e-commerce.
However, product bundling will not be effective if articles are not properly grouped. The package must be advantageous for your customers.
Let’s take a closer look at how to make it work to drive more sales.

What you must consider to correctly implement product bundling into your e-commerce

Remember: Your clients must see the advantages of your packs in order for product bundling to work. There are essentially three things that should be clear:

✅ 1. The pack must be cheaper

This might seem obvious, but it isn’t. 
It must never be more expensive than buying the products separately because saving is the most essential incentive for this kind of purchase. If the pack is more expensive, the client has no good reason to go for it.

✅ 2. Create packs that are more valuable than the single product

On top of this, there’s another important concept you shouldn’t overlook: the perceived value by the customer.

The perceived value refers to how useful a product is according to your customers considering what they get in exchange for what they pay.

It’s one of the key elements of every purchase because if your customers think the item isn’t worth the price or doesn’t bring any benefit, they won’t buy it.
So how can you address that?
By knowing your buyer persona to perfection.
If you know their problems and how to solve them, it will be easier to design good product bundling that meets your customers’ expectations and needs.
Making bigger packs by adding uninteresting items isn’t a good idea. Everything you offer must be useful and advantageous for your perfect client.
Let’s imagine that you have a sports shop, for example.
If you sell sports clothes, you can create a pack that contains running shorts, socks, and shoes. On the contrary, grouping those items together with a basketball or soccer boots would make no sense because your client is after running equipment.

✅ 3. Group complementary products.

Lastly, bear in mind that product bundling works best when you group articles together that are generally used together or that complement one another. For example:

• A toy and the batteries that make it work
• Nespresso coffee makers and capsules
• Cell phones and screen protectors

This should give you an idea.
Check out your orders from the last few months. If you find recurring items in shopping carts, then those are the ones you should consider including in your packs.

Product bundling ideas you can implement into your shop (and some examples)

There are several ways to design your packages of grouped products. Let’s check out a few of them:

✅ 1. Offer related products

As we’ve said, the essential idea behind product bundling is to group together items that are used together or that complement each other.
Once again, we must take a look at Amazon since they’ve mastered this art: when an item is viewed, at least two other complementary items are suggested.

A simple way to sell phone accessories to offer items such as cases or protective screens to customers looking for a phone since they are more likely to buy them.
Even though Amazon is the King, they aren’t the only company that’s adopted this strategy. 😉 Check out how ITS, one of our British clients, has done it.

By grouping these items that are typically used together, the average checkout of this purchase is likely to increase.

✅ 2. Highlight how much customers save with the bundle

Since you know that saving money is the main reason why product bundling works, why not highlight it?
Take a look at HP, another client of ours from the UK: 

When you search the price of a PC tower:

• It recommends a screen for that particular tower.
• It informs you of how much money you save by buying them as a pack.

And it makes it easy for you with a big call-to-action button so that you can add the pack directly to your cart.

✅ 3. Bring the packs to the payment page

It’s the same idea as when you go to the supermarket’s checkout and the cashier offers you an item on sale.
In an e-commerce shop, the moment when you are about to pay is when a customer clicks on the cart to make the purchase.
An advantage of selling on the Internet is that you already know what the cart contains (unlike the cashier ;)) and you can offer products related to what they’re buying.
That’s how La Redoutte does it on their eCommerce product listing.

Highlighting how much the customer is saving is also important at this point since it encourages them to add items to the cart by making them feel like it’s a really good deal.

✅ 4. Use social proof

We’ve already talked about the “power” of social proof (testimonials or reviews from other buyers) to persuade potential buyers. 
These reviews are equally as valuable when it comes to selling bundled products.
This is what Hello Fresh does, an e-commerce shop that chose pure bundling: it sells shopping baskets for the week and doesn’t offer products separately
That is, you choose a food plan and they send you a basket of fresh products so you have all the necessary ingredients to cook the corresponding recipes (which are shown once the payment is complete). 
It’s an appealing product, but it may sound risky to buyers since they don’t know if what they’re ordering will be enough to cook with or if the products will be fresh…
But all those uncertainties fade away when they read the customer reviews.
 
Make sure to publish them to increase product bundle sales. 

✅ 5. Make your bundled items more visible

If you place the packs on your homepage, they’ll sell more easily since the offer will be seen by more potential customers.
For example, Jazztel, a Spanish telecommunications company, shows Fiber Optic + 2 mobile phone lines on their homepage so that clients choose the full package instead of two lines separately.

As you can see, that’s mixed bundling, because the options to buy the items separately –  “Only fiber” or “Only phone lines” – are available right beside the bundle. Of course, buying them separately is more expensive. 😉 

Ready to apply product bundling to your online shop?

We hope that you’ve found our ideas inspiring and that you’re already thinking about which items you can start bundling together.
Putting some of these product bundling ideas will help you increase your average checkout price as well as your revenue.