Bundle up: There's still time to perfect your holiday bundle strategy

Some things just hit the spot. For romance lovers, it’s a good Hallmark holiday movie.

For your customers this time of year? It’s thoughtful gifts, like bundled products, that send them rushing to “add to cart.”

Holiday shoppers are making their lists with a focus on unique local gifts this year, and product bundling is an eye-catching way to make the cut.Bundles work so well because they trigger your customer's value perception by being of monetary value, social value, or functional value(we'll explain these in a bit). Now that the 2021 holiday-buying season is underway, here's your chance to implement this sales-generating tactic into your holiday campaigns.

If selling bundles seem daunting, let this post be like Rudolph's shiny nose through the fog. Find the product bundling strategies you need and other things to consider when selling bundles, like pricing tips. We'll also explain how to automate them with simple workflows to make the order fulfillment process fast and easy using Edit Order by Cleverific.

Ready to learn how to bring holiday joy to your customers with intoxicating bundle offers? Get the details on

• Time-tested and proven bundle strategies
• What to consider when you set up
• Staying ahead of bundle fulfillment

Time-tested and proven bundle strategies

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. These are some strategies that real stores have put to work and proven as efficient methods for increasing customer engagement:

Not sure what to bundle?

Make sure the items you choose meet your customers' value perception. This perception can befunctional value,where shoppers are after the product's solution;monetary value,where shoppers perceive a discount in the cost, orsocial value,where the product gives shoppers status or social connection. During the 2021 holiday season, keep an eye on customer buying trends like:

• Kitchenwares
• Online classes and masterclasses
• Clothing, shoes, and handbags
• Champagne and sparkling wine
• Indoor and outdoor furniture, and homewares
• Home office equipment
• Exercise equipment and sporting goods
• Self-care, beauty, and shaving kits

If you’re interested in more details, check out our guide on 6 different ways you can use bundling to improve your holiday season this year.

• Learn more on how to increase revenue with product bundles

What to consider as you start prepping that perfect bundle

✅ Bundle up with your popular products

Your analytics are like Santa's list; check it twice for products with the highest traffic. Does it make sense to bundle them together? Bundles work best with complementary products, like a high-performing dog toy with a package of your customer's favorite treats. Or make a holiday spirits bundle with a bottle of your most famous red wine with a bottle of your popular white wine.Ensure the products make sense together; you won't find much success if the products don't pair well. Imagine bundling a bestselling paperback book with an e-reader!

✅ Presence is a gift: Know who's buying

When creating your bundle, think of who's buying or receiving the gifts. Maybe you sell board games and want to target parents buying gifts for a family game night. Consider bundling family-friendly, group games together.Always keep your target market top-of-mindwhen building your bundles and bundle products that they'd like.

✅ T'was the right price before Christmas

You've made the perfect pair (or more) of products and are ready to start pricing. If you have a price-sensitive audience, your bundles will only sell if there's a perceived discount. If you sell hamburgers and bundle a side and a drink to make it a meal, add a price deduction. If your customers aren't as price-sensitive, applying aggressive discounts to your bundle can cheapen it, making it unattractive to potential buyers.Know your audience and price accordingly.

✅ Santa's little helper: The right tech

Running bundle promotions can be hectic, but don't worry; you've got this with a helping hand from the right apps and software. You'll need them to find high-traffic products, automate your repetitive tasks, create bundle products on your online store, and resolve fulfillment and order-management issues like if you need to edit an order because a customer has an allergy.What tools are available to deal with these?

• Use Google Analytics when you're looking for insight into your high-traffic products
• Bundle Products and Discounts by Thimatic to automate bundle creation on your online store
• Edit Order: for automating fulfillment for Shopify bundles

Staying ahead of bundle fulfillment with Edit Order

The holidays are almost here, and you’re just about ready to get your bundles out the door and down the chimney! But once your bundles are live on your store, what do you do when the orders start rolling in?Automation gives you the gift of time and growthby bringing a consistent buying experience for your holiday shoppers. It alsoremoves the manual, tedious fulfillment processesthat take time away from other parts of your business.

You have the knowledge you need to create attractive bundle offers for your customers. Let's look at two ways to make it a merry holiday with automation for you and your elves. Shopify automation can be so easy to implement that you don't have to worry about training your team.

Enjoy the gift of hands-off bundle fulfillment with automation

For your customers, being able to add a single bundle to their cart instead of four to five individual items is a godsend. For you in your back office, though, it can be a headache. Bundles only show up as one SKU, so when a customer places an order for a bundle on your Shopify store, you can run into some unforeseen fulfillment issues and hours of work to fix them. Thankfully, there’s a quicker solution. For any Shopify Merchant, Edit Order’s bundle fulfillment automation ensures that you canset up a single workflow to automatically expand your bundle SKU into individual product SKUs.

• Learn more about bundle fulfillment automation with Edit Order
• For Shopify Plus merchants, learn more about bundle fulfillment automation using Shopify Flow

Speed up bundle fulfillment with Product Shortcuts just in time for the holidays

Do you ever find yourself manually adding the same products to your orders over and over again? Product Shortcuts helps smaller operations make smoother workflows andadds multiple products with just a few clicks. In your back office, expand a bundle or subscription SKU when an order comes in and add multiple components so that when it's time to fulfill the order, it's clear which products need picking.

You can also save your sanity and time by adding sets of commonly-used products, like your holiday bundles, to expand bundles on any existing order or phone order. Reduce the workload on your orders page and fulfill products faster just in time for Santa's sleigh.

• Learn more about Product Shortcuts

You're ready to start selling bundles!

They're a powerful way to boost your average order value and number of repeat customers by removing the"pain of paying"and creating the joy of finding a great holiday deal. Soon, bundle issues will be a mere memory. With Edit Order, you’ll get streamlined fulfillment for your bundles and more!

Deanna is theContent Marketing Manager at Cleverific, Inc., formerly from the Shopify Apps and Partner team. She enjoys writing about ecommerce to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses. She lives in the countryside of Canada's capital with her husband, her exceptionally perfect dog Leo, and her exceptionally loud dog Cece.