Two levers are usually tried: a bundle that gets shoppers to add items, and a free-shipping threshold. The research does not promise a size for either. It does show where each can help and where it can backfire: a rigid bundle may only move shoppers between products, and a threshold may add orders without adding value per order.
The headline figure
12-20% of e-commerce revenue can go on fulfilment. McKinsey: “Fulfillment costs, for example, can account for 12 to 20 percent of e-commerce revenues, squeezing margins and making profitability a mirage.” It adds that “higher item value and basket size ... incur lower shipping costs as a percentage of sales.”
This is e-commerce in general. It does not give an order-value gain for bundles.
Research on this pain point
- 12–20%of e-commerce revenue can go on fulfilmentBundles and basket size: what the research says about letting shoppers choose
- 40%of US shoppers who abandoned a cart, excluding those just browsing, said “extra costs too high”Free-shipping thresholds and order value: what Baymard, McKinsey and the journals found
How BundlePilot works on it
BundlePilot lets shoppers build a bundle of 2+ items on the product page, each item keeping its own variant, such as size or colour. Free plan available.
See BundlePilotBundlePilot: Smart Bundles on the Shopify App Store
What we checked
Each figure is read in the source’s own text. None of them is a result of our apps.
- SourceMcKinsey, “Solving the paradox of growth and profitability in e-commerce”, full textOpen on mckinsey.com (opens the source)