For many Amazon sellers, increasing traffic isn’t the biggest challenge anymore. Increasing the value of every order is.
As advertising costs continue to rise and competition intensifies across nearly every category, brands need to generate more revenue from the customers they’re already attracting. That’s why Average Order Value (AOV) has become one of the most important metrics in Amazon growth.
The first instinct for many brands is simple: lower prices.
Run a coupon.
Offer a promotion.
Increase the discount.
While discounts may temporarily increase conversion rates, they often reduce profitability and train shoppers to wait for lower prices. There’s a smarter approach that allows brands to increase basket size without relying solely on price reductions.
That strategy is virtual bundles.
When built strategically, Amazon virtual bundles encourage customers to purchase complementary products together, increasing Average Order Value while protecting margins and strengthening overall account performance. The most successful Amazon brands don’t simply sell more products; they help shoppers purchase more of the products they actually want together.
At WBX Commerce, we’ve repeatedly seen that data-driven bundling strategies outperform broad discounting because they’re built around actual customer buying behavior rather than assumptions.
Why Average Order Value Matters on Amazon
Growing Amazon revenue isn’t always about finding more customers. Sometimes the fastest path to growth is increasing how much each customer spends during a purchase. A higher Average Order Value can deliver several important benefits:
- More revenue from existing traffic
- Better return on Amazon advertising spend
- Improved profitability
- Higher customer lifetime value
- More efficient inventory movement
- Greater advertising scalability
For brands investing heavily in Amazon PPC, Amazon DSP, or other Amazon advertising services, increasing basket size often produces a stronger return than simply trying to acquire more clicks. This is especially important as cost-per-click continues rising across competitive product categories.
The Problem With Relying on Discounts
Discounts work, but usually only in the short term. Lower prices can certainly increase conversion rates during promotional periods, but they also create several long-term challenges. Repeated discounting often:
- Reduces profit margins
- Devalues premium brands
- Encourages shoppers to wait for future sales
- Creates pricing pressure against competitors
- Makes revenue growth dependent on constant promotions
Eventually brands become trapped in a cycle where maintaining sales requires increasingly aggressive discounts. Instead of increasing profitability, they simply move more units for less money. An experienced Amazon advertising agency understands that sustainable growth comes from improving customer value, not simply lowering prices.
What Are Amazon Virtual Bundles?
Amazon Virtual Bundles allow brands enrolled in Brand Registry to combine multiple eligible products into one purchasable listing without physically packaging them together. Customers see a curated bundle that includes complementary products while Amazon fulfills each item separately.
Examples include:
- Coffee paired with mugs
- Shampoo and conditioner
- Tea with infusers
- Kitchen utensils with cookware
- Supplements frequently purchased together
- Skincare routines
- Seasonal gift combinations
Unlike creating new packaged products, virtual bundles require no additional manufacturing, warehousing, or packaging changes. Instead, they create a better shopping experience while increasing Average Order Value.
Why Bundles Change Customer Psychology
Customers don’t always know what they need. They often know the problem they’re trying to solve. Virtual bundles simplify decisions by presenting logical combinations rather than forcing customers to search for additional products individually. Instead of asking:
“What else should I buy?”
The bundle answers:
“Here’s everything most customers purchase together.”
Reducing purchase friction frequently increases total basket size without requiring larger discounts. Bundles also reduce decision fatigue. Rather than comparing dozens of individual products, shoppers are presented with complete solutions. This is especially valuable for premium brands where convenience is often just as important as price.
Bundles Increase Value Instead of Lowering Price
One of the biggest misconceptions is that bundles only work because they’re discounted.
That’s not necessarily true.
Many successful bundles perform well because customers perceive greater value.
Consider these examples:
A tea drinker shopping for loose-leaf tea may also need:
- A tea infuser
- Tea filters
- A storage tin
- Additional complementary flavors
Instead of purchasing only one item, a thoughtfully designed bundle presents everything together. The customer spends more while receiving a more complete experience. The brand increases revenue without relying entirely on price reductions.
Why Data Should Drive Bundle Creation
Not every combination makes sense. The highest-performing bundles are built using actual customer purchasing behavior, not guesses. Brands should analyze:
- Frequently purchased together products
- Repeat purchase patterns
- Cross-category purchasing behavior
- Seasonal buying trends
- Complementary product relationships
- Market basket analysis
This is where advanced Amazon analytics become incredibly valuable. Instead of assuming customers want Product A with Product B, successful brands use actual shopping data to identify combinations that naturally occur. The result is higher conversion rates and stronger Average Order Value.
Case Study: How Palais des Thés Increased Basket Size with Virtual Bundles
A great example of this strategy comes from WBX Commerce’s work with Palais des Thés. Palais des Thés is a premium French tea company specializing in sustainably sourced loose-leaf teas, tea bags, and gift sets sold through both direct-to-consumer channels and Amazon. The company approached WBX with two primary goals:
- Increase Amazon channel sales
- Improve total basket size and Average Order Value
Rather than relying exclusively on deeper discounts, WBX developed a data-driven virtual bundling strategy.
Using insights from the WBX Glass Market Basket report, the team identified products customers were already purchasing together.
During the July 2024 Prime Day event, WBX launched five virtual bundles designed to encourage shoppers to expand their purchases naturally. The results were immediately encouraging. Following that success, the strategy expanded.
Fifteen additional virtual bundles were introduced ahead of the Fall Prime Event and Thanksgiving shopping season. These bundles incorporated additional testing, including various discount levels, allowing the team to continually refine pricing while identifying the combinations that delivered the strongest overall performance. Rather than assuming which products belonged together, WBX relied on ongoing testing and market basket analytics to continuously improve bundle performance.
The project demonstrates an important lesson. Successful Amazon growth isn’t about randomly combining products. It’s about understanding customer behavior and building offers around it.
Why Market Basket Analysis Matters
One of the biggest advantages of working with an experienced Amazon advertising agency is access to deeper customer insights.
Market basket analysis reveals:
- Which products shoppers commonly purchase together
- Which products initiate larger orders
- Which items influence repeat purchases
- Which combinations improve customer lifetime value
- Which products create halo effects across the catalog
These insights help brands move beyond simple product optimization toward complete purchasing strategies. Instead of optimizing individual ASINs in isolation, brands begin optimizing customer journeys.
Bundles Can Improve Advertising Performance
Virtual bundles don’t only increase Average Order Value. They can improve advertising efficiency as well. When customers purchase larger orders:
- Return on ad spend improves
- Revenue per click increases
- Customer acquisition costs become more manageable
- Campaign profitability improves
- Budget scales more efficiently
Rather than generating the same order size from more expensive traffic, bundles increase the value generated from every advertising dollar. This becomes increasingly important as Amazon PPC competition continues growing.
Virtual Bundles Support Premium Positioning
Premium brands often hesitate to offer aggressive discounts because doing so can weaken perceived value. Virtual bundles provide an alternative.
Instead of communicating:
“Our products are cheaper.”
Bundles communicate:
“Our products work better together.”
That subtle difference helps preserve premium positioning while still encouraging larger purchases. For luxury brands, specialty foods, beauty products, supplements, and gourmet products, this distinction can be extremely important.
Why Continuous Testing Matters
Launching bundles isn’t a one-time project. Customer behavior changes. Seasonality changes. Competitors change. Product popularity changes. Successful brands continuously test:
- Product combinations
- Bundle pricing
- Seasonal offers
- Promotional timing
- New product pairings
- Gift-focused bundles
- Subscription opportunities
The Palais des Thés case study illustrates this perfectly.
After the initial Prime Day success, WBX didn’t stop. Additional bundles were launched. Pricing strategies evolved. Discount levels were tested. Performance continued to improve through ongoing optimization. This iterative approach consistently outperforms static strategies.
Bundles Should Be Part of a Larger Amazon Growth Strategy
Virtual bundles work best when integrated into a broader Amazon strategy that includes:
- Amazon PPC management
- Amazon DSP advertising
- Catalog optimization
- Listing optimization
- Market basket analysis
- Inventory planning
- Retail readiness
- Conversion rate optimization
- Brand Store optimization
- Amazon Marketing Cloud insights
- Attribution reporting
Each component reinforces the others. Better advertising drives more qualified traffic. Better listings improve conversions. Better bundles increase basket size. Better analytics identify new growth opportunities. The result is a stronger overall Amazon business – not just temporary sales spikes.
Why Working with an Amazon Advertising Agency Makes a Difference
Many brands create bundles based solely on intuition. The highest-performing Amazon brands rely on data. An experienced Amazon advertising agency understands how advertising performance, catalog structure, shopper behavior, pricing strategy, and analytics all work together. Rather than asking:
“What products should we bundle?”
They ask:
- What does customer purchasing behavior tell us?
- Which products create the highest Average Order Value?
- Which combinations improve profitability?
- Which bundles generate the greatest advertising efficiency?
- Which offers support long-term brand growth?
These questions lead to far better outcomes than simply increasing discounts.
Conclusion: Virtual Bundles Deliver Smarter Amazon Growth
Discounts will always have a place in Amazon strategy. But sustainable growth rarely comes from lowering prices alone.
Virtual bundles allow brands to increase Average Order Value by creating more relevant shopping experiences instead of simply reducing prices. When supported by market basket analysis, customer behavior insights, and continuous optimization, they become a powerful driver of both revenue and profitability.
As the Palais des Thés case study demonstrates, strategic virtual bundling helped increase basket size and Amazon channel sales by leveraging data, not guesswork. Through ongoing testing and refinement, WBX Commerce identified bundle opportunities that aligned with how customers were already shopping, creating stronger results than discounts alone could achieve.
For brands looking to grow on Amazon, the question shouldn’t be, “How much should we discount?” It should be, “How can we help customers buy more of what they already want together?”
That’s the difference between short-term promotions and long-term growth.
Ready to Increase Your Amazon Average Order Value?
If your brand is relying heavily on discounts to drive Amazon sales, there may be a more profitable strategy. WBX Commerce helps brands use advanced analytics, market basket insights, virtual bundle strategies, Amazon PPC management, and full-funnel optimization to increase Average Order Value while improving advertising performance.
Contact WBX Commerce today to learn how a data-driven Amazon advertising strategy can help your business grow more efficiently.