Maximise Your Holiday Sales: How Customised Apps Can Boost Average E-Commerce Order Size

https://unsplash.com/photos/person-holding-cardboard-box-on-table-MGaFENpDCsw

The season of gift giving is here, and people are planning to do a significant portion of their holiday shopping online. According to PwC’s 2025 Holiday Outlook survey, 51 percent of consumers plan to complete their holiday purchases through online marketplaces. But due to the higher cost of living and tariff concerns, most of the respondents are thinking about slashing their gift budgets, with Gen Z cutting down their spending by as much as 23 percent. 

With many consumers preparing to cut back on holiday spending, online retailers should expect a significant drop in sales in the coming weeks. To encourage shoppers to add more items to their cart, retailers need to tailor their apps to create strategic offers and optimise buyer experience. Here’s how customized apps can boost average e-commerce order size and maximise your holiday sales. 

Creates a Higher Perceived Value

One way to get customers to buy more is to make them feel like they’re saving money as they add more products to their cart. Beauty retailers like MAC, Estee Lauder, Clinique, Charlotte Tilbury, and Benefit Cosmetics, among others, have mastered the art of doing this as they usually offer bundles or prepackaged kits during the holiday season. By offering makeup gift sets with mini and full sized versions of their best selling products, advent calendars, and limited edition holiday sets, these companies create a higher perceived value which makes these items more desirable than single products. What’s more, these brands partner with companies that provide beauty product fulfillment services to make their bundles stand out from the crowd with branded packaging and inserts to enhance the unboxing experience.  

This strategy is the secret to beauty and skincare’s phenomenal sales year after year. In an interview with WWD, Bank of America’s VP of Equity Research, Anna Lizzul, said that online sales of cosmetics will continue to thrive this holiday season. “While we may see a greater pullback in other areas of discretionary spend, beauty tends to hold on a little bit better than other categories.” Skincare or makeup startups may want to consider adopting this strategy, but even businesses that sell other types of products can benefit from product bundling. 

If you’re selling stationery, for instance, you can create gift bundles with mini calendars, planners, stickers, gel pens, and highlighters and offer them at a lower price compared to the total cost of buying each one individually. You can even give your customers the option to build their own bundles by customising your app in such a way that the buyer gets discounts or discount vouchers as they add more products to their cart. 

Increases Purchase Frequency

Many retailers such as Starbucks and IKEA have in-store loyalty programs wherein customers are rewarded with points that can be redeemed for free products. For the holiday season, Starbucks has a special reward program in Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and the Philippines wherein customers are rewarded with a digital sticker with every drink purchase. After getting 18 stickers, customers may redeem special Starbucks merch such as a planner, a steel tumbler, or a mug with a pouch. This program has been going on for years, and the thrill of collecting points in exchange for free items has resulted in skyrocketing sales for the coffee retailer during the sticker collecting period, which takes place from the first week of November to the first week of January. 

To encourage repeat purchases and increase order size, think about customizing your app to integrate a loyalty program. You can reward your customers with points, exclusive deals or perks, and early access to new products. They can also be given first priority to access sales or super sale events such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday. If you want to reward buyers with premium items, think about taking a leaf out of Starbucks’ book and create a promotion period that runs for only a few weeks to multiply your holiday sales. Not only does this increase purchase frequency, but it also boosts customer engagement and builds brand loyalty.

Creates Buyer Urgency

Customers tend to leave things in their carts for a long time while they contemplate whether to buy a product or not. This also happens during the holiday season as many customers like to leave their shopping to the last minute. If you want your buyers to shop now, think about creating limited-time offers to prompt customers to make a purchase sooner. By customising your shopping app, you can announce daily deals on app banners, and install countdown timers to let buyers know how much time they have left to buy special or discounted items. 

You can also program the app to display real-time stock levels to let customers know when certain products are about to run out. Finally, program your shopping app in such a way that your customers will be notified when a person makes a real-time purchase. This lets them know about the product’s popularity, which can encourage them to buy multiples of the item and increase their average order size. 

The holiday season is the best time to make the most of your sales. By customising your shopping app, you can boost average order size and increase buying frequency, which can help you achieve your sales goals for this special time of the year.