Using Product Bundles to Increase Website Sales

As an online retailer, you're always looking for easy ways to increase sales on your website. Offering product bundles to your shoppers is the perfect way to do just that! In this article, we're going to explain what product bundling is, the types of product bundles you could use, and how to use them in your eCommerce store.

What is Product Bundling?

The large retail chains do this well - let's look at Mc Donalds for instance. You can buy a Big Mac alone, or save money and buy a Big Mac Combo. Yes, you pay more overall, but you get more and at a discounted price than if you were to buy each item individually. Insurance companies do the same. Purchase your home, contents and car policies through them to get a combined discount.

Product bundling is when you offer customers a group of complimentary products with a discount. It could be a large and small suitcase, or a box of chocolates with a red rose. Often used during holiday times, it can be used as a year-round tactic to increase your sales.

Customers like product bundles because they see themselves as saving money. They get products they wanted and get a great deal at the same time. Sure, you're going to get customers that only wanted the one item buy that one item. But you'll also going to get customers who only wanted one item, but who agree on the spot to purchase more because you offered a discount and they love a bargain! Because of this, you increase your average value order and make more profit, even though you wouldn't get as much as you could have if you sold the products individually. After all, they may have only brought one...

Types of Product Bundling & When Should You Do Which One?

There are a few types of product bundles you could offer your online customers. They include:

• New product awareness - let your customers know about your new product by including it in a bundle with an existing product.
• Slow moving stock - add a slow selling item to a popular one and piggyback on it's popularity.
• Holiday time - people love a bargain when shopping for Christmas or another holiday. Why not give them one by bundling a few different products together, then promote it as a way to buy a gift for multiple people on their list - and save money!
• Subscription box - a popular way to sell products monthly. A subscription box lets your customers order  what is often a mystery box once per month, quarter etc, and for you to add a range of products to it depending on sales. Simply add a subscription box product, name the type of products people can expect to recieve based around a theme and start selling!

Promoting Your Product Bundles

One of the easiest ways to promote your products is to set them up as individual products. Then you treat them just the same as you would other products. Creating a category for only product bundles gives shoppers an easy way to find the bundles, but you can also add them to another category too. For instance, you could include your chocolate box and red rose bundle in the Valentine's Day, product bundles and chocolates categories too.

When it comes to the marketing of your product bundles, the same strategies as you would market your other products apply. You can find out more information on that by reading our articles What is Inbound Marketing and How to Speed Up Your Customer's Buying Decision. Other tips on marketing and creating bundles include:

• emphasise the savings a customer will get. Point out how much money they would save buying the items altogether than individually.
• use product photos to display the options. You can even add some text on the individual item product description promoting the bundle with a link to the bundle itself.
• use social media to ask your audience what bundles they would like.
• use the information you have already on what is and isn't selling on your website. Bundle popular products with less popular ones to help you clear stock.
• bundle main products with accessories. For instance, a laptop with a laptop bag and mouse.
• include a free item with your bundle.
• aim for at least a 5% to 10% overall discount with your bundle, than purchasing the items individually.

Finally, you will need to have an awesome product description for your bundle. Take a read of our comprehensive article Your Guide On How to Write Product Descriptions today!