Product bundles are an answer to one of the most common ecommerce problems: overstocked inventory. Every shop, whether small or large, has encountered this issue before. You buy a certain amount of an item thinking that it will sell like hotcakes only to discover that your customers don’t seem all that excited about it. This leads to warehouses being filled with unpopular inventory that seems unlikely to ever move.
You can solve this by using product bundles. Tossing multiple items together will incentivize customers to buy them, and your warehouse space will be freed up once again. Product bundles are also a great way to upsell to customers, as most buyers naturally get excited to receive more items. Multiple studies have found that product bundling can really help businesses excel. For your inspiration, here are the companies that are doing it right with product bundles.
Men’s Wearhouse
One of the critical things to understand about product bundles is that they are most effective if there is an obvious reason to buy the items together. If a customer can reasonably think that they only need one item from the bundle, they won’t feel motivated to buy all of them at once. Men’s Wearhouse understands this, and that’s what makes their product bundles so effective. Creating a logical connection between items in a bundle is really important.
Their Featured Bundles in particular demonstrate this rule quite well. Rather than sticking random articles of clothing together and calling it a day, these bundles feature hand-picked pieces that are meant to go together. If you buy one of the Featured Bundles, you’ll receive a coat, a shirt, and a pair of pants. In other words, you’ll get a complete outfit. Not only is this a natural upsell for those who are already buying just one item in the bundle, but it also serves as a convenient option for those who don’t want to go through the entire shopping process.
MadeWell
Another fashion company that has really nailed product bundling, MadeWell knows that there are plenty of customers interested in buying entire outfits. Because of this, they make sure that their models rock outfits made entirely out of their own branded clothing. When a customer goes to look at a shirt, for instance, they will also be presented with the other items that the model is wearing. If they like the entire outfit, they can just buy each item as one bundle and be done with shopping. They make the process incredibly simple.
But Madewell also wisely doesn’t force any customer to purchase outfits via bundles. If they just prefer to have one or two items instead of everything that is being worn, they can easily pick and choose which pieces they want. However, their models are styled well enough that it feels totally logical to just go ahead and purchase everything at once. Giving customers the choice, though, makes the shopping process feel less stressful and more welcoming. It’s a nice strategy that matches MadeWell’s casual and friendly brand identity.
Cleancult
Cleancult is a cleaning company that was founded relatively recently. To stand out from their competitors, they use a creative approach that is based around natural and organic ingredients. But they also use clever marketing and excellent product bundles to find success. Their best bundle is certainly the Complete Home Bundle. The idea behind it is that buying it makes shopping for cleaning supplies as simple as possible. Rather than having to deal with overwhelming and confusing categories, you can just make one purchase and have everything you need to handle all of your cleaning needs.
The bundle really is quite comprehensive. You’ll receive glass bottles that can be refilled, four different bars of soap, an all-purpose cleaner, laundry detergent, dishwasher tablets, dish soap, and hand soap. Cleancult also allows their bundle to be personalized, as you can choose between different color and scent options before checking out. It’s an excellent value, but the biggest benefit of going for this bundle is how simple it makes the shopping process.
Nintendo
The video game giant Nintendo is a company that people often point to when discussing product bundling, and it makes sense. Any gamer (or parent of a gamer) knows that Nintendo smartly bundles their consoles with compatible games. This solution makes a lot of sense: no one wants to buy a console without any games to play, so Nintendo makes it simple and just sells both at once. However, the key is that they do not force anyone to buy the console with games. If they want to buy the console by itself, they are welcome to do so.
Interestingly, the company hasn’t always done this. Nintendo once tried a different method referred to as pure bundling. This forced customers to buy additional items in order to get the main item that they wanted. One example of this is selling a console with a game no one wants and not offering another option to buy the console without the game. They tried this for a while, but it ended up proving ineffective. Their revenue decreased by 20%, and they sold far fewer units than before.
Bathorium
Sometimes you need to get creative to help sell your bundles. This is especially true if you are trying to sell unpopular products. Bundling them up with other items is a good step in and of itself, but it’s not quite enough to start closing sales. For bundles like that, it’s smart to come up with some other incentive to give to customers. Bathorium does exactly this with their Large Bag Gift Bundle.
As a beauty company, Bathorium naturally has a large catalog of products. Their Large Bag Gift Bundle contains about $150 worth of different bath and beauty products, and they are offered at a discount if you buy them all together. But the real kicker is the fact that the bundle comes with free shipping. Bathorium makes sure to prominently feature the info about free shipping right below the call to action button, allowing customers to clearly see why they should purchase the bundle.
Best Buy
Best Buy is a well-respected technology company, and most of their sales are through their online store. This is because they have a strong take on product bundling that allows them to frequently upsell to their customers. If you’ve ever visited their site before, you’re probably familiar with their take on bundling. Rather than selling bundles, they simply make it very easy to add extra products before heading to check out.
They do this with their “Our experts recommend” feature. Every item’s page on their website has a small section dedicated to showing off products that would go well with the product that is currently being viewed. The widget also features a button that allows you to add every single item to your cart all at once. You can deselect individual items, though, but Best Buy smartly makes it so that each item in the bundle is automatically selected at first. This makes it easier to just buy everything than to pick and choose which items you want. Additionally, the added credibility of the items being recommended by experts helps increase the rate at which they are able to upsell.
Death Wish Coffee
Death Wish Coffee is leading the way in multiple different ways. Starting off as a small ecommerce coffee brand in 2012, they had scored a Super Bowl ad just a few years later. Their rapid rise in popularity can be attributed in part to their great branding. Their packaging and ads have just enough edginess to convince you that they’re different, and their product is good enough to back up the subversive marketing. But they also just seriously understand how to run a successful ecommerce business.
Something that is proof of that fact is their product bundles. Sold on a separate page on their website, their bundles are there for people who want more than just coffee. They sell you items like thermoses, mugs, and coffee pots in addition to their normal products. Each one is branded with a specific use – some are Starter Kits while others are Collectors Set, for instance – and this helps make the reason for buying each one clear. Their bundles largely exist for gifts of diehard fans of the brand, which is a good market to appeal to.
Native
Native is a company that makes deodorant and sunscreen. For the most part, bundling a bunch of their products together doesn’t really make sense. No one wants to buy ten different scents of deodorant. They want the one scent that they know and love, and they want to stick with that for years and years. With this in mind, Native came up with an interesting solution that fulfills the same purposes as a product bundle while still working for their unique customer base.
Their idea was a subscription service. When a customer views one of their products, they are given the option to either do a one-time purchase or a subscription purchase. The product pages make sure to highlight just how much money will be saved if they end up subscribing, and this motivates customers to take the plunge in order to save money.
Ultimately, a subscription service isn’t going to work for every business. That’s okay. The main lesson here is to think about how you can bundle your products in a way that makes the most sense for what you are selling and who you are selling to. Keep an open mind!
Apple
When it comes to sales, Apple is king. They understand their market perfectly, and the company always seems to come up with innovative ideas to move more products. Their bundles are an excellent example of this. They take an interesting approach that doesn’t involve trying to sell you multiple iPhones at once. Instead, they upsell you on services that will support your purchase moving forward.
Whenever you buy an Apple product on their website, you are given the option to purchase AppleCare+. This is a subscription service that the company offers that gives customers access to better repairs and personalized technical support. You can buy the regular AppleCare+ or an advanced service that offers theft protection as well.
This bundling idea is smart because it shows that Apple really knows their products and the people who are buying them. Anyone who buys an iPhone is far more likely to want support and protection of their new (and expensive) device than they would accessories. Bundling up their products with an additional service works well for Apple and helps them stay ahead of their competitors.
Amazon
Amazon is one of the biggest ecommerce retailers in the world, so it makes perfect sense that they offer good product bundles. Much like other massive companies like Best Buy, Amazon offers a list of items that you can add to your cart on every product page that you visit. It’s a convenient way to find suggested items, and it makes your shopping experience feel smooth.
Amazon is able to offer these products as bundles thanks to the massive amount of shopping data that they have. If you are looking at yoga mats, for instance, it has thousands of similar transactions that it can look at to find what items are related to yoga mats. Rather than suggesting random items that you don’t care about, Amazon leverages this data to give you actually useful product suggestions that you are likely to want to buy.
The best part of this entire process is that it all happens automatically. Any product that you look at will have these bundles available, and it’s super easy to add them to your purchase. It just takes one click. Amazon has pioneered making shopping as simple and convenient as possible, so it’s only right that their bundles are the same way.
