eCommerce Titans · 2022-07-20 · 8 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
18 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
With inflation eroding consumer purchasing power, e-commerce stores face a critical choice: raise prices and risk losing customers, or find smarter ways to increase revenue. Quinton advocates for the latter through average order value (AOV) optimization. By bundling products strategically, businesses can increase transaction size while actually reducing the per-unit cost to customers. This approach creates a virtuous cycle: higher AOV means moving more volume, which allows you to negotiate better pricing with suppliers and manufacturers, offsetting inflation's impact on profit margins. Unlike simple price increases - which alienate customers accustomed to certain price points, especially for perishable goods - AOV strategies let you compete on value. Customers see they're getting more product for the same or less money compared to competitors who've raised prices. Marketing costs remain stable while revenue grows, and the approach compounds over time as increased volume justifies better supplier terms. This strategy is particularly effective for brands offering discretionary and impulse-buy categories, where price sensitivity is highest.
Increasing AOV through bundling and promotions moves more product volume per customer, allowing you to negotiate lower per-unit costs with suppliers. This offsets inflation's margin pressure while keeping customer-facing prices stable, versus price increases which cause customer defection.
Bundling products together is the primary tactic discussed, which gives customers more items at a higher total price point but a lower effective per-unit cost, encouraging larger purchases while maintaining perceived value.
AOV optimization requires testing and iteration over weeks or months before supplier relationships and stock levels adjust, whereas simple price increases are immediate; many brands default to the obvious solution rather than the more effective one.
When you move significantly more product units through volume bundling, you can approach suppliers with higher order quantities, which typically reduces your per-unit manufacturing cost and directly improves profit margins.
Customers who see your prices staying stable while competitors raise theirs perceive better value with you, especially when bundles let them buy more products for the same money, effectively stealing market share.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode is almost entirely padded with filler, affirmations, and hedged generalities. The one substantive idea - use bundles to increase AOV and leverage volume to reduce per-unit COGS - is immediately obvious to any eCommerce operator and is never developed with depth or nuance.
yeah yeah so that just adds to the adds to the uh like the basically the snow it's a snowball effect
i think in these in these days it's it's you have to be um innovate well not innovative basically but try try new things uh that's a little bit out of the norm
The core argument - bundle products to raise AOV instead of raising prices - is textbook eCommerce 101 and is presented with no contrarian angle, no first-principles reasoning, and no fresh framing. There is nothing here a practitioner hasn't read in a basic Shopify blog post.
something like this is also very um very intuitive actually if you think about it but something that not a lot of brands actually think about doing because it's so obvious
I would say increasing the prices isn't the best solution. There are a lot more better methods
Quinton is introduced as a media buyer at the host's own agency - not a founder, operator, or executive who has built or scaled anything independently. The conversation confirms he is sharing generalized agency-side observations rather than practitioner experience at meaningful scale.
we have Quinton, one of the media bars at our agency
one of the brands we're working with, a big part of the pricing of the products, we're basically stuck with what we have
The single concrete detail offered is a brand with a product priced at 995 RAND that psychologically can't cross 1000 - a relatable but anecdotal and unverifiable data point. No conversion rates, revenue figures, margin percentages, timeline results, or named brands appear anywhere in the episode.
it's in the currency is in RAND and the product is 995. And as soon as you realistically price it to actually adjust for all the inflation, that very attractive number of like 995 goes over to 1000
if you push it for a month or two, then that averages out back to where you start ordering your niche stock
The host asks purely leading, restatement-style questions and responds to every answer with uncritical affirmation. There is no follow-up that probes a mechanism, no pushback on any claim, and no attempt to quantify or stress-test the guest's logic.
Yeah yeah this all makes perfect sense
yeah yeah exactly that's a really nice approach to fight the inflation
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
It's no shock we've seen an increase in costs around the globe. As the economic tension grow, brands everywhere are trying to find different ways to fight inflation. In this episode of the eCommerce Titans Podcast, Media Buyer, Quintin, shares how increasing your average order value can help fight inflation. For other resources on your AOV check out the podcast below: How your cost of goods and average order value are related:
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Hello, everyone. My name is Mariana and I will be the host today on the eCommerce Titans podcast presented to you by DimNiko Agency. Today on the podcast, we have Quinton, one of the media bars at our agency. Hi, Quinton.
How are you today? I'm good. Thanks for meeting you, Mariana. Yeah, me too.
Thank you. So today we are going to discuss with Quinton how increasing your average order value can help fight inflation. Quinton, so let's start with talking about inflation in general. How do you think it's affecting consumer behavior at the moment?
So with inflation at the moment, obviously after COVID, we saw a bigger increase, expected increase, but a bigger increase than you would usually expect for annual increase of inflation. With the current inflation, especially with e-commerce, you can actually look at the same percentage of or you can look at the percentage of increase of the market in general and you can expect that basically to come from the rest of the e-commerce space as well. What affects this is obviously all the stores start increasing their prices.
Customers get, I wouldn't say angry, but they're not very it does they're not they don't like the prices going up so because the the consumers money is worth less of what it was let's say a year ago they stop buying because they're getting they're getting a lot less uh than they used to so especially with impulse buying and like fun products and all that uh i would say this is the one of the biggest markets uh that have been affected and obviously in general overall um it's all it's it's a lot harder for us as uh e stores basically to convert these customers to actually make the final purchasing decision Yeah yeah for sure and also the cost of advertising is also increasing due again to the exactly and everything yeah yeah so that just adds to the adds to the uh like the basically the snow it's a snowball effect so it starts even with us and everything uh we have to pay down to what the consumer has to pay at the at the end and then we should try and fight it yeah so you said that most of the businesses are increasing prices.
Do you think that's a good way to go or not a good way to go? I would say, so it generally depends. For instance, one of the brands we're working with, a big part of the pricing of the products, we're basically stuck with what we have. So it's in the currency is in RAND and the product is 995.
And as soon as you realistically price it to actually adjust for all the inflation, that very attractive number of like 995 goes over to 1000. So a lot of brands are stuck where they actually can't. And I feel also like it's not worth increasing the pricing because you have to basically look at how many customers you're going to lose for the prices getting increased, especially with perishable goods. So your customers are coming back and they're used to a certain price and now all of a sudden, even if you announce it, they're not going to care that it's more expensive.
They're just going to say, okay, now it's more expensive. I'm not going to buy it anymore. So I would say increasing the prices isn't the best solution. There are a lot more better methods that you can implement in order to actually reduce your cost of goods and obviously increase your average order value at the end of the day So why do you think increasing the average order value is a better option than increasing the prices So if you look at, if you increase your average order value, you're basically, there's two things that happen.
So you have that higher purchasing price. And if your cost of goods or at your profit margins are set up correctly, it works really well. So what you can do is start, let's say, putting up bundles, which gives you a higher price. And obviously, because you have a higher order value.
And with that, you get a lot more revenue in. You're moving a lot more products at the end of the day. And it helps to actually, because with a bundle, you essentially reduce the price of a single unit that they would buy in general. So if you have a good tactic of increasing the average order value and the amount of units that you move per customer, that also floats back to your manufacturing.
So we can actually afford to buy high quantities of the product, which in turn you can then talk to your supplier and actually reduce your cost per unit. So that with that discounted price per unit and with the discounted price on your manufacturing costs, your profit margin will basically remain the same. And your customers are happy and you're happy because you're getting basically the same amount of more revenue relative to the inflation. But your actual margin stays the same.
Obviously it doesn't happen instantly, but if it's something that works pretty well and you push it for a month or two, then that averages out back to where you start ordering your niche stock and all that. And then your customers as well they feel a lot more pleased because they also feel like if they stores with higher pricing um and it a good method to also steal customers from other brands because your pricing your pricing is remaining the same and uh customers that feel fed up with um prices that were increased with their uh general brand from your competition they go start looking they see i can now i can buy a lot more products for basically the same or for less of the price um than they can with a competitor yeah yeah this all makes perfect sense and again talking about marketing costs it will probably like stay the same but the revenue will increase because you increase your average order value yeah yeah exactly that's a really nice approach to fight the inflation yeah we have to yeah i think in these in these days it's it's you have to be um innovate well not innovative basically but try try new things uh that's a little bit out of the norm because it's uh i think something like this is also very um very intuitive actually if you think about it but something that not a lot of brands actually think about doing because it's so obvious uh to do at the end of the day yeah yeah that's true um okay thank you quinton very much for these insights i'm sure that this conversation will help our listeners understand better how to fight inflation and obviously we shared with them um a very good approach and that they will understand why increasing the average order value is the way to go and thank you to the listeners for tuning in once again.
If you want to catch more hot tips about e-commerce, subscribe to our podcast and be notified every time we release an episode. Until then, have a great week. Thank you. Cheers.
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