Are baskets growing or shrinking?
№ 057 · AOV trend
Definition
MetricAverage order value over time
Unitcurrency per order
Single line of average order value over time. Watch for big drops during promo periods. Build by dividing total revenue by order count per period. Example: $84 baseline, drops to $62 during Black Friday discounting, rebounds to $89 in January (post-promo recovery).
- AOV
- Average order value. Gross merchandise value divided by number of orders.
Benchmarks
| Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|
| under $70 globally; under $50 for paid-channel DTC panels | $150 to $172 global blended; $74 for Triple Whale paid-channel DTC brands; GBP 127 for the IRP UK platform | $200+ globally across verticals; $95+ for paid-channel DTC panels |
Global ecommerce blended across verticals and devices, 2025 to mid-2026. Definition used: total revenue divided by total orders, gross of returns and typically inclusive of shipping revenue. · The three headline numbers in circulation are not comparable and mixing them is the most common misread on this chart. Dynamic Yield reports roughly $172 global from a mid-market and enterprise retailer panel of 200M+ monthly uniques. Triple Whale reports $74.12 median across paid advertising channels for its DTC brand panel, which is lower because it skews to smaller DTC brands and to paid traffic specifically. IRP reports GBP 127 from a smaller-merchant platform sample. Match your own definition and peer set before reading any of them. Device and region shift the number as much as vertical: desktop $218 vs mobile $159, EMEA $193 vs Americas $158 vs APAC $125 in the April 2026 Dynamic Yield cut. AOV also rises mechanically with inflation, so a flat nominal trend line is a real-terms decline.
| Category | Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luxury and jewelry | $259 | $364 to $386 | $530 |
| Consumer goods and electronics | $150 | $206 to $296 | $418 |
| Home and furniture | $180 | $250 to $278 | $300+ |
| Fashion and apparel | $80 | $140 to $151 | $289 |
| Beauty and personal care | $45 | $60 to $83 | $94 |
| Pet care | $45 | $58 to $68 | $70 |
When it looks bad
The line is flat or gently rising in nominal terms while promotional periods show as sharp spikes followed by troughs below the pre-promo level, which means the trend is being carried by discount-driven basket stuffing rather than by mix or price.
AOV runs $88 in Q1, spikes to $104 during a two-week promo, then sits at $79 for the following six weeks. Twelve-month AOV is up 2% nominal against 3% inflation, and units per transaction is flat, so the entire nominal gain is price.
What to do about it
- Split the line into price, units per transaction and mix before acting on it. IRP data shows market AOV rising 2.32% while average item price fell 0.15%, meaning basket size did the work; the two conditions need opposite interventions.
- Set the free-shipping threshold 15% to 25% above current AOV rather than at or below it, and re-test quarterly as AOV moves. A threshold that has drifted below AOV is a pure margin giveaway that no longer changes behaviour.
- Read AOV against device and region mix before treating a decline as a merchandising failure. Mobile runs roughly $159 against desktop $218 in the Dynamic Yield cut, so a shift in traffic mix alone can move blended AOV by double digits.
- Cap discount stacking at checkout. Effective discount rates of 12% to 18% of revenue are typical, and stacked welcome plus email plus free shipping codes can strip 30% to 40% of an order's margin while showing up as a healthy AOV.
Sources
- Dynamic Yield (XP2) Trailing 12-month AOV highest in Luxury and Jewelry at $386 and lowest in Pet Care and Veterinary at $63; EMEA $208, Americas $157, APAC $119; desktop $255, mobile $164, tablet $161 marketing.dynamicyield.com ↗
- Triple Whale Median AOV across paid advertising channels was $74.12 for 2025, up 2.68% on 2024; global AOV reported around $150 to $180; AOV ranges from $68 in pet care to over $350 in luxury triplewhale.com ↗
- IRP Commerce Market AOV rose 2.32% from GBP 124.19 to GBP 127.06 year on year, while average sale price per item fell 0.15%, so basket size rather than price drove the increase irpcommerce.com ↗
- ClickPost (citing Dynamic Yield) Global AOV around $172 with a $252 spread between highest and lowest verticals; regional spread EMEA $193, Americas $158, APAC $125; device spread desktop $218, mobile $159, tablet $154 clickpost.ai ↗
- Wiser Review Global AOV settled at $154 in October 2025, up 3.08% year on year, having peaked at $175 to $177 in April and May 2025; desktop $122 to $155 vs mobile $86 to $112 wiserreview.com ↗
- Speed Commerce Global AOV around $144 in 2024, up roughly 30% since 2019; DTC typically $60 to $150 by category with fashion DTC $80 to $140 speedcommerce.com ↗
- Elogic Commerce Average order value predicts conversion rate more reliably than industry classification does, and dataset population explains most cross-source variance elogic.co ↗