Product bundling
Product bundling is when you collect together a selection of related products and sell them at a discounted price.
It’s a great tactic for ecommerce brands who want to encourage new sales or get rid of slow-moving stock. Offering bundles (also referred to as ‘packages’) can also help with upselling or cross-selling new products and reduce cart abandonment.
Why bundle products?
You may be wondering what you’ll gain by bundling your products. After all, it’ll involve offering a discount in order to incentivize your customers to purchase multiple products.
But think about it. If a customer is adding items to their cart, but they’re not feeling fully committed to purchasing yet, a product bundle might be just what they need to get through the checkout.
Different types of bundling
You probably come across bundled products all the time - you might not even realise it. Here are some examples of product bundling in marketing:
- Joint bundling - this is when you combine two or more products that can only be purchased together. An example of this would be when a travel website creates an exclusive flight and hotel deal. (You know, the deals that mean you have to leave at six in the morning). 😴
- Mixed bundling - this is when you combine mulpltiple products in a bundle that can also be purchased individually. You’ll often see this in supermarkets (think 2-4-1 or buy one get one free deals).
- Leader bundling - when you bundle a popular (usually high-ticket) ‘leader’ product with some less popular products. Usually, the less popular product can’t be bought individually. An example of this could be a furniture brand bundling a sofa with cleaning products or aftercare service.
The benefits and drawbacks of product bundling
If you’re considering a product bundling strategy, take a look at some of these benefits and drawbacks before you get started:
Benefits of product bundling
- Creates a positive brand experience: everyone loves a discount, so encouraging customers to add products to their cart at a discounted price is a win-win.
- Introduce customers to related products: offering complimentary products is a great way to show customers what they’ve been missing. For example, a beauty brand could offer a bundle deal of blush and mascara to customers who purchase foundation products.
- Reduce shipping costs: it’s cheaper to ship multiple products in one box. By offering free shipping on bundles over a certain amount you can encourage customers to spend a little extra with you.
- Helps build personalised communications: personalisation is a great way to encourage your existing customers to buy more products. By offering your them bundles based on their previous purchase, it’ll make for an easier sell.
Drawbacks of product bundling
As with anything, there are some drawbacks that you might want to consider before creating bundles:
- Customers can’t afford your bundles - if you’re offering a product as part of a bundle, it might put people off because they simply can’t afford - or don’t want - to pay extra for the other items. Make sure you give them the option to buy the products individually, too.
- Your leader products aren’t popular enough - as we’ve mentioned, one type of product bundle is to use a leader product and combine it with some less-popular items in order to shift the stock. However, if those other items are really not attractive to your audience (or not relevant), they won’t want to pay for them. Make sure you get the balance right by analysing your previous sales.
Examples of bundling in marketing
If you think product bundling will work for your brand, here are some tips to get started, along with examples from ecommerce brands:
Find your most popular products
What are your best-selling products? You can use these to build a leader product bundle. Make sure the complementary products you’re adding to your bundle are relevant and make sense when bought together. Here’s an example from Remarkable, who combine their high-ticket tablet with some must-have accessories.
Group similar products together
This is ideal if you sell one type of product. For example, Vacay offers multi-packs which are cheaper per can than if you bought them individually.
Create seasonal product bundles
You don’t need to worry about bundles all year round. But you can make the most of seasonal shopping holidays. Take Kosas Cosmetics. You can make a collection of different make up items to create a gift set - it makes the perfect Christmas gift.✨
Offer extras at the checkout
Customers might not know what they want until they see it. 👀 Offer them the bundles of products related to the item they’re buying, which they can create at the checkout. Take this example from Scuf Gaming.
