Average order value (AOV) is the average amount of money a customer spends per order on your store. It’s calculated by dividing your total revenue by the number of orders in a given period.
If your WooCommerce store generated €12,000 in revenue from 400 orders last month, your AOV is €30. That single number tells you a lot, and improving it is often one of the highest-leverage moves available to an eCommerce business.
Key takeaways
- AOV = total revenue ÷ number of orders
- AOV is independent of traffic volume. A small store can have a high AOV
- Increasing AOV by 10% has the same effect on revenue as increasing conversion rate by 10%, but often costs less
- Segment AOV by traffic source and product category to find what’s actually driving it
- Unusually high or low AOV outliers can skew the average. Look out for them
How AOV is calculated
The formula:
AOV = total revenue ÷ total number of orders
It applies to any time period: daily, weekly, monthly or annually. The period you choose should match how you’re using the number.
Monthly is the most common for ecommerce reporting. Daily AOV is noisy and can swing dramatically based on a single large order. Annual smooths out everything too much to be actionable.
A quick example: in Q1 your store processed 850 orders with total revenue of €34,000. AOV = €34,000 ÷ 850 = €40.
What AOV tells you (and what it doesn’t)
AOV answers one question: how much are customers spending when they buy?
It doesn’t tell you:
- How often they buy. A customer who buys once a year at €100 AOV isn’t more valuable than one who buys four times at €40 (their annual value is higher).
- Who is buying. High AOV could be driven by a small number of large orders. If those accounts disappear, the average collapses.
- Whether you’re profitable. A high AOV means nothing if your margins are thin or you’re spending too much to acquire those customers.
AOV is most useful when tracked over time and alongside conversion rate and customer lifetime value. Those three together give you a much fuller picture of store health than any one alone.
Average order value benchmarks
AOV varies enormously by industry, price point and what you sell. A useful rough comparison:
| Sector | Typical AOV range |
|---|---|
| Apparel and fashion | €50–€150 |
| Electronics | €100–€500 |
| Beauty and cosmetics | €30–€80 |
| Digital products | €20–€60 |
| Food and subscription boxes | €25–€70 |
Don’t benchmark against these too literally. Your realistic AOV is set by your product prices. A store selling €15 items will never have a €200 AOV without upsells. The more useful comparison is your own AOV trend month over month.
How to increase average order value
There are a few proven approaches, all of which work best when you understand your current product mix and buying patterns:
Order minimums for free shipping. “Free shipping on orders over €50” consistently increases AOV for stores where the threshold is slightly above the current average. If your AOV is €35 and you set the threshold at €50, a meaningful share of customers will add something to qualify.
Product bundles. Grouping complementary products at a slightly lower combined price than buying separately increases both perceived value and order size. This works especially well for consumables or accessories.
Post-add-to-cart upsells. Showing a relevant upgrade or related product after a customer adds something to their cart, not on the product page, converts better because the customer is already in buying mode.
Quantity discounts. Offering a small discount for buying 2 or 3 of the same item moves customers from single-unit to multi-unit orders. Works well for consumable or replenishable products.
The trap to avoid: AOV optimisation that reduces conversion rate. If your upsell popup annoys customers into abandoning their cart, you’ve increased theoretical AOV while killing actual revenue. Test changes and watch both metrics.
Tracking AOV in WooCommerce
WooCommerce doesn’t surface AOV prominently in its default reports. You typically need a dedicated analytics integration to track it cleanly over time.
Burst Pro’s WooCommerce analytics calculates and displays AOV alongside revenue, order count and conversion rate. You can see it by date range, filter by traffic source and spot the moments where AOV spikes or drops, which often correlates with a specific campaign or a change in product mix.
Because Burst stores all data locally on your WordPress site, your customer purchase data never leaves your server. It doesn’t flow into Google’s systems or any third-party advertising platform.
FAQs
Revenue = AOV × number of orders. If you increase AOV by 15% while holding order count steady, revenue goes up 15%. That’s why AOV improvement is attractive. It doesn’t require more traffic or more customers.
Including. Net revenue (after refunds) divided by net orders (after cancellations) gives you a truer picture of what customers are actually paying. Gross AOV is easier to calculate but can flatter your numbers if your refund rate is significant.
There’s no universal answer. The only meaningful benchmark is your own historical data. If your AOV was €45 six months ago and is now €38, something changed, e.g. product mix, traffic source, promotions. That downward trend is the signal, not the absolute number.
Consistently, yes. Multiple studies put the uplift at 10–30% when the threshold is set just above the current average. The key is setting the threshold correctly. Too high and customers don’t bother reaching it. Too low and you’re giving away margin you didn’t need to.
See what your customers are actually spending
Average order value is one of the fastest levers you have to grow revenue without growing your ad budget. Burst Pro tracks AOV, revenue and order trends directly inside WordPress, with your data staying on your own server.
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Related definitions: what is conversion rate, what is customer lifetime value and what is cart abandonment rate.
