Average Order Value (AOV) is an important metric for all Shopify stores but it can be overused and abused.
Knowing your AOV and how it changes over time is more important than comparing yours to other stores. By tracking how it changes from month to month or week to week, you can notice shifts in customer behavior with enough time to respond to them.
If you don't have a system that tracks your AOV over time, here's a quick way you can do it yourself.
- Starting today, calculate your overall Average Order Value. Just use your entire store's lifetime to start.
Total sales divided by number of orders.
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Write this down with today's date. Preferably in a spreadsheet.
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Next, setup a five minute appointment on today's date next month.
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Calculate the new Average Order Value.
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Compare the two.
Is AOV growing? Shrinking? Not changing very much? What campaigns have you ran since last month?
What you want is to see AOV growing over time.
If you used Repeat Customer Insights this would be even easier. It provides you with a real time, store-wide Average Order Value. All you'd need to do is to login, write it down, and then compare the past value.
Eric Davis
P.S. If you want a more complex but more relevant value you could calculate your last 3, 6, or 12 months Average Order Value. This will favor more recent orders and activities over past historic sales.
