With rising competition in the market, brands are exploring various direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing strategies. One such strategy is product bundling.
Brands across industries are experimenting with bundles, whether it is food or fashion.
In this blog, we explore the fashion brand pricing strategy of ASOS, what your brand can learn from it, tips, and best practices to ace your bundling strategy.
Let’s get started!
What is product bundling?
Product bundling is a marketing strategy in which many products are sold as one bundle. For example, a set of 5 t-shirts is a bundle, or a bundle of skin care products.
Product bundling increases the average order value (AOV) for brands and offers discounted prices to customers. Many different types of bundles are possible, depending on the product type and industry.
In the fashion industry, bundles such as sets of t-shirts, sets of socks, winter wear bundles, and accessories bundles are common. Bundling is an effective fashion brand pricing strategy that has many benefits for the business, such as, increasing the average order value (AOV), increasing sales, enhancing customer experience, and more.
Product bundle strategy breakdown of ASOS
ASOS is a fashion brand that caters to men and women’s fashion, clothing, accessories, footwear, and more. The brand houses multiple brands under one umbrella. A quick search for the words, ‘Bundle’, ‘Pack’, and ‘Set’, will bring up hundreds and thousands of options, ranging from cosmetics, clothing, and accessories.
In this section, we breakdown the brand’s bundling strategy and key takeaways that you could apply to your Shopify store.
1. Easy to find bundles
ASOS does not have a dedicated page for bundles. Perhaps that is because of the nature of the brand – it houses various brands under one roof and hence, bundling multiple brands together is not as easy as bundling products of the same brand.
However, this doesn’t deter the brand from offering bundles. The bundles are easy to find with the search tab. Words such as pack, set, multi, and bundle bring up all the bundle options.
This approach offers flexibility of choosing a single product or a pack. With this approach, the brand is able to create more excitement and increases AOV with bundles.
Tips and best practices:
- Create various types of bundles
- Make bundles prominent on your product pages
- Make it easy for customers to find bundles
2. Bundles in different product categories
ASOS offers bundles in various categories, for instance, clothing, undergarments, accessories, cosmetics, and more. Items in these bundles can be purchased separately but are more appealing and cost lesser when bought together.
This approach not only enhances customer experience, it also simplifies customers’ shopping process. Brands that use this approach can increase the AOV, manage the inventory better, upsell, and create excitement for their customers.
Tips and best practices:
- Create bundles across various product categories, for example, sustainable fashion bundles
- Create mix and match product bundles
- Bundle products for upselling and cross-selling
3. Fixed bundling
Certain products are best offered as fixed bundles, meaning, the products in the bundle are predetermined and cannot be changed.
One such example we found interesting on ASOS is the camera bundle. The bundle includes a camera, a case, and films.
The brand offers a discount on the bundle, however, increases AOV with these types of bundles. Fixed bundles also help manage inventory better, offer predictable pricing, and marketing opportunities
Tips and best practices:
- Identify products suitable for fixed bundles
- Determine a pricing strategy
- Monitor and review the bundle performance
- Promote the bundle to increase sales
4. Product recommendations with bundles
Another approach that is effective in increasing the AOV is product recommendations along with bundles. When a website offers thousands of products, it can get daunting for customers to go through everything.
That’s where strategies such as recommendations help customers discover more products. And this way, brands can introduce lesser-known or slow-selling items to customers.
For example, ASOS shares product recommendations in the product bundle pages — a pack of t-shirts can also be bought with a track pant — upselling and cross-selling.
Tips and best practices:
- Upsell by suggesting product recommendations
- Offer recommendations that add value to customers
- Personalized product recommendations
5. Create FOMO and urgency around bundles
60% of consumers make impulse purchases after experiencing FOMO. Urgency and FOMO help brands increase sales. ASOS adds these tactics on its bundles.
For bundles, FOMO and urgency can be created in many ways. For example, by creating limited-period bundles, limited-edition bundles, seasonal bundles, etc. With this approach, you can not only increase AOV, but also increase the speed at which products get sold.
This tactic can be easily automated, so that as soon as products start getting sold-out, the product page automatically gets updated with a ‘Selling out fast’ sign. For instance, Appstle Bundles & Discounts can help with automation.
Tips and best practices:
- Create limited edition bundles
- Offer exclusive offers on bundles
- Show scarcity or fast-selling out signs
- Offer limited time free shipping on sets
- Automate FOMO and urgency via your Shopify bundle app
6. ASOS keeps bundles simple
ASOS bundles and multi-packs are easy for customers to pick and choose from, because they are simple. Today, customers have multiple choices across brands and websites. And so, if you complicate their decision making, it may lead to your loss.
ASOS has created simple bundles and packs, minus any complication. For instance, the brand has a pack of 3, 5, or 7 pairs of socks. So customers can simply pick an option based on their needs.
Tips and best practices:
- Simplify things that are complicated on your eCommerce website
- From navigation to search to bundle options, make every experience simple
- Write a clear description and details of each bundle to avoid confusion
7. Multiple types of bundles of the same product
Another bundling strategy that ASOS uses is to create multiple variations of bundles of the same product. For example, t-shirts of brand x available in a pack of 10, 7, 5, and 3. This offers more choices to customers, as they can pick a bundle based on their budget, needs, and preferences.
For the brand, this means more revenue and upselling opportunities. The strategy works for both. ASOS applies this strategy on mens and womens clothing and accessories. By creating these bundles, the brand differentiates itself from other brands and offers value-added purchase opportunities.
Tips and best practices:
- Offer something for everyone
- Offer what your customers want, for example, sustainable fashion bundles
8. ASOS offers starter bundles
ASOS smartly offers different types of bundles based on the products they offer. For instance, multi-packs of socks and t-shirts, and starter packs for cosmetics and wellness products.
For example, the brand offers a dental care starter pack. Most customers hesitate to try new products for their dental health. So, ASOS made it easy for customers to try the products with a starter bundle – an effective strategy for direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing.
Tips and best practices:
- Create bundles based on your products, not based on what other brands are doing
- Keep the customers’ needs in mind when planning your bundles
Ready to start your fashion brand pricing strategy with bundles?
If you are a fashion brand, there are many ways to create and offer bundles to your customers. We have given you many ideas and tips on what all you could do with your fashion product bundles. And even if you aren’t a fashion brand, you could still try out bundling as a marketing strategy for your business.
However, you will also need to consider the many tasks, scale, and how you would manage your bundling strategy. Performing tasks manually may not be ideal. And so, you will need a comprehensive product bundling and discounting app.
That’s where Appstle Bundles & Discounts comes in! The app designed for Shopify and Shopify Plus stores, offers a comprehensive set of features to set up and manage bundles.
