If you’re looking for bundle pricing examples to inspire your own strategy, you’ve come to the right place.
Price bundling is one of the most effective ways to increase sales. Because there are numerous bundle pricing strategies, it’s perfectly normal to be unsure which one is right for your business. Should you allow customers to pay less for buying more? Or should you pair complementary products and offer them at a discount?
In this guide, we’ll cover 7 bundle pricing strategies. We’ll walk you through what they are and include examples of how e-commerce stores such as yours are applying them today. This way, you’ll be able to see what’s working for others and see if it could also work for you.
Here’s a breakdown of what we’ll cover:
- What bundle pricing is.
- 7 bundle pricing types and real-world examples.
- How to choose the right bundle pricing strategy for your store.
- How to add bundle pricing to your WooCommerce store.
What is bundle pricing?
Bundle pricing is a strategy in which you offer multiple products together at a single price, usually lower than the sum of the individual items’ prices. So, what does this look like?
Let’s say you own a clothing store that sells:
- A T-shirt at $20.
- A hat at $15.
- And socks at $10.
You can offer these three in a single product bundle for $35, which would cost $45 in total if bought separately.
Why is price bundling important?
According to Salesforce, businesses that employ bundle pricing experience a 30% increase in revenue. This goes to show how effective bundle pricing can be when done right.
It’s such an effective sales strategy because it increases your customer’s perceived value. That is, customers feel they’re getting more for their money with the bundle than if they purchase items separately.
Customers believe they’re getting a better deal by purchasing products as a bundle, typically due to the bundle discount. As a result, they’re more likely to purchase. And when they do, they spend more per order, increasing your average order value.
With this strategy, you can boost sales for different types of products in your online store. This includes related and unrelated products, add-ons, and even slow-moving items.
To get the benefits of price bundling, you need to implement the right strategy. So, let’s look at 7 bundle pricing examples to see where you can draw inspiration for your own strategy.
7 bundle pricing examples
There are several distinct types of bundle pricing examples. They all work differently and are suited to different products and customer needs. Some are built around convenience, others around volume, and some naturally make sense.
Here are seven of the most effective types of price bundling, with examples showing how they work in real life.
1. Pure bundling
In pure bundling, products in a bundle are sold only together. Bundled items are not available individually.
For example:
HelloFresh. This business sells meal kits with pre-portioned ingredients and recipe cards. Let’s say a customer buys a burger kit. They bundle a bun, patty, and sauce together and sell them as one. Customers can’t buy patties or sauce separately; it has to be part of the meal kit bundle.
When does pure bundling work?
If you design products to be used together, like HelloFresh, it makes sense to offer them as a pure bundle.
This is because:
- Pure bundling makes customers’ buying experiences easier. HelloFresh customers don’t have to struggle to figure out the portions for each ingredient. The seller does it for them.
- It simplifies operations. Because products are always sold as a bundle, inventory management, packaging, and fulfillment are easier and more predictable.
- Helps with cost savings. It reduces labor costs associated with custom orders.
Note: Pure bundling has a caveat. You may end up losing customers who want specific items in the bundle but not the whole bundle.
2. Mixed bundling
In this strategy, you offer products both individually and as part of a discounted bundle. Customers can choose to purchase the products as a bundle or separately. Mixed bundling is generally the most used type of bundle pricing in many industries.
You’ve probably seen it in:
- McDonald’s Big Mac meal combo. A product bundle offering that combines a burger (the Big Mac), fries, and a soft drink. Customers can still buy the individual items in this bundle separately.
- Microsoft 365 (formerly Microsoft Office). Microsoft simplifies the customer experience by offering the Office suite apps as a single purchase, but you can still purchase the apps included in this bundle separately.
Why mixed bundling works well
Mixed bundling is extremely popular with retailers and e-commerce businesses because it appeals to customers. First of all, the product bundle is discounted, meaning they spend less than if they bought the individual items separately.
McDonald’s combo meals, for example, are about 15% cheaper than the combined prices of the products in the bundle. Secondly, customers aren’t required to buy the bundle. Those who want individual items can still buy them separately.
3. Leader bundling
Leader bundling is when you pair a bestselling or popular product with a slower-moving or complementary product. This is done to capitalize on your customer’s interest in the popular product and use it to drive sales for the not-so-popular products.
GoPro does it quite well with its camera bundles. For example, it offers a MAX2 Travel Bundle which includes:
- A MAX2 camera as the leader.
- A protective case and a carbon fiber extension pole as the accessories.
Why leader bundling works well
Leader bundling allows you to promote less popular items alongside bestsellers. Customers are already interested in the best-selling items, making them more likely to see the bundled extras as a convenient or good-value option.
It can be a great way to move inventory of less popular items. For example, if you’re selling custom laces for sneakers, you can bundle them with best-selling sneakers to promote them.
Note: If your bundle isn’t compelling enough, it could impact customer satisfaction, especially if it lowers perceived value. In a worst-case scenario, some customers could abandon the purchase altogether.
4. Cross-sell bundling
This bundle pricing strategy combines products that complement each other but aren’t necessarily bought as a set by default. Products in a cross-selling bundle go well together and are frequently bought together.
Amazon is famous for offering cross-sell bundles in its ‘Frequently Bought Together’ section. You’ll see this section under the main content of the product page you’re viewing.
You can add items frequently bought with the one you’re viewing by simply checking the boxes.
This strategy is also replicated by fast-food providers such as McDonald’s in their value meals.
Why is cross-sell bundling successful?
When done well, cross-selling contributes about 10-30% of total e-commerce revenue.
This is because you recommend products that customers would buy anyway. Cross-selling bundles can also introduce them to products they hadn’t considered before, which would be useful when they buy the product they’re interested in.
The bundle makes their purchase decision easier because complementary products have a clear relationship in the customer’s mind.
5. Quantity bundle pricing example
In quantity bundling, customers receive a discounted price when they buy more units of the same product. Essentially, they pay less for buying more.
There are different ways to offer quantity bundling, such as:
- Fixed quantity bundles. This is where customers earn a discount for buying a specific number of items for a fixed price.
- Buy One, Get One. Customers receive additional items when they buy a certain quantity.
- Tiered (sliding scale) pricing. Alibaba, one of the largest wholesalers globally, offers sliding-scale pricing for many of the products it sells. Tiered pricing is when prices decrease as customers buy more. For instance:
- 1-9 T-shirts at $10 each.
- 10-24 T-shirts at $9 each.
- Bulk packs. Costco’s entire business model is built around bulk packs. Instead of buying individual products, customers buy a pre-packaged quantity at a lower price.
Why quantity bundling can be ideal
Mixed bundling works for e-commerce businesses that want to increase sales volume. How? It creates an incentive for customers to spend more.
A customer who had initially planned to buy 10 items may end up buying 20 because the higher discount seems too good to pass up. The extra money they spend feels justified because they earn a larger discount.
6. Add-on bundle pricing example
With Add-on bundling, you offer a primary product along with optional add-ons at a combined price. These add-ons are complementary products that upgrade the primary product. This is why we can also look at it as upselling the primary product.
One of the best examples of how this works is in how GoPro does it. GoPro offers add-on bundling uniquely where:
- You can choose to buy the core product alone.
- Below the core product, you’ll see different accessory bundles. You can choose the add-on bundle that matches the accessories you want to be delivered with your camera.
For example, its HERO13 Black + Accessories bundle features 3 additional add-on bundles to select from. The core product plus accessories is sold as a single package.
Why add-on bundling works
Add-ons add value to the purchase. For example, in the HERO13 Black camera bundle, the battery, adhesive holder, and SD card are things the customer will want to have alongside the camera.
For the store owner, bundling add-ons with the main product will increase sales. Customers walk out with more products per purchase, which helps you move inventory quickly.
7. Gift or seasonal bundling
Gift or seasonal bundling groups together multiple products as a themed bundle for a specific holiday, event, or gifting occasion. For example, you can group products for the festive season, easter, New Year’s, or even back-to-school.
Seasonal bundles are usually limited-time offers. They aren’t available once the occasion or season ends.
Seasonal bundling is common in skincare brands such as Sephora. Sephora offers festive beauty bundles for the festive season. One of the best-selling bundles is the ‘Sephora Favorites’.
This is a hair gift set, which includes:
- A blow-dry spray.
- Refresh mist.
- Curl gel.
- Dry texturizing spray, etc.
What makes it work well?
Customers often struggle with picking gifts. Gift bundling simplifies gift shopping by offering a ready-made package. Customers don’t have to go through the hassle of picking individual products, one after another.
Also, because they’re limited-time offers, they trigger customers’ fear of missing out (FOMO). According to a Citizen Relations survey reported by Strategy Online, 60% of millennial consumers make a reactive purchase after experiencing FOMO, most often within 24 hours.
In other words, customers will most likely purchase them just because they’re time-limited. Seasonal bundles are a great example of bundle pricing that you’ll want to implement during the holidays or events.
So that’s 7 effective bundle pricing examples you can draw inspiration from. They don’t all work the same way for all products and e-commerce businesses. With that in mind, how do you choose the right bundle pricing strategy for your online store? Let’s go over how to do this next.
How to choose the right bundle pricing strategy for your store
The right bundle pricing strategy for you depends on your situation. Your situation is dictated by:
- What you sell. Are they products customers regularly buy in multiples? Or do you have products that are frequently bought together?
- What your customers need. Which strategy would make their purchase easier?
- What you’re trying to achieve. Do you want to increase AOV, clear out excess inventory, or increase sales for a new product?
The answers to these broad questions will let you know the right strategy for you. Here’s a summary of what to choose depending on your situation.
| Recommended bundle type(s) | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Pure bundles | When you sell items that have no standalone use. Selling them separately doesn’t make sense. Example: Subscription boxes and gift hampers. |
| Mixed bundling or cross-sell bundling | If you have complementary products that are naturally bought together. Example: Cameras and their accessories. |
| Leader bundling | If you have best-selling products and slower-moving stock. Pair them up to move the slow-moving stock faster. Example: Sneakers and custom laces. |
| Quantity bundling | You sell consumables or products that customers regularly buy in multiples, and you want to reward them with better unit prices. Example: Products sold in bulk, such as T-shirt pieces. |
| Add-on bundling | You want to upsell your core product with optional extras. Example: A camera and its accessories. |
| Gift/seasonal bundles | When you’re in the holidays or during any other event, and you want to drive sales. Examples: Christmas hampers and Valentine’s Day sets. |
How to add bundle pricing to your WooCommerce store
Bundle pricing isn’t built into the default WooCommerce setup. Luckily, you can add all types of bundle pricing to your WooCommerce store with the help of these plugins.
WooCommerce Quantity Discounts, Rules & Swatches
If you want to add quantity bundling to your WooCommerce store, WooCommerce Quantity Discounts, Rules & Swatches is the plugin to help you do it. It gives you everything you need to set up quantity-based discounts.
Customers buying in bulk will be able to clearly see how prices apply to specific quantities right from your product page. They’ll know the minimum and maximum quantities they can add per product. And if they add the wrong quantity, your store will let them know every step of the way.
Here’s what the plugin allows you to do to achieve this:
- Set up tiered pricing (bulk discounts). You can set discounts for specific product quantities and quantity ranges in your store. If you want the price to drop by $1 for every 10 units, you can set this up.
- Advanced quantity control. You’ll be able to set minimum/maximum quantities for every product and define the allowed quantity increments. For example, customers can add at least 5 or 10 units.
- Quantity swatches designed by you. It lets you replace the default WooCommerce quantity swatches with well-designed, clickable ones. Plus, these swatches are customizable.
You can also add dynamic messages in these swatches to promote your bundles and edit the styling to fit with your brand.
Whether you want to incentivize customers to spend more with sliding-scale pricing or offer fixed-quantity discounts, WooCommerce Quantity Discounts, Rules & Swatches will help you get it done.
WooCommerce Discounts
WooCommerce Discounts lets you create any type of discount in your WooCommerce store. It’s a powerful discount plugin for WooCommerce, and its power lies in its discount conditions. With this plugin, you can create highly specific conditions to be met before discounts apply in your store.
This is what makes it ideal for setting up pretty much every bundle pricing type we’ve covered in this guide. Here’s how:
Quantity bundling
WooCommerce Discounts allows you to set quantity discounts based on several conditions. For instance, cart value, specific items in the cart, subtotal, and number of items. With these options, you can allow customers to get discounts after buying a specific number of items or after spending a given amount.
You can also create quantity bundles (with discounts) targeting a specific user role. This is useful if you sell directly to end users and to other businesses as well. You can have quantity bundles for your wholesale customers alone.
Having all these options ensures that you can structure quantity bundles carefully. In a way that will be profitable for your business but still valuable to your customers.
Buy X get Y bundles
You can set up Buy X Get Y offers where customers get free gifts or products when they buy a specific quantity. For example, if you sell coffee, the offer might look like this: Buy 4 bags of coffee at a fixed price and get 1 bag for free.
Seasonal bundling
WooCommerce Discounts allows you to schedule discounts in advance. You can set start and end dates for your discounts so they run automatically. You won’t have to rely on last-minute changes. This is useful when you have seasonal bundles for the festive season, Black Friday, back-to-school, etc.
Mixed bundling, leader bundling, and cross-sell bundling
With WooCommerce Discounts, you can create discounts that apply when a specific product or products are in the customer’s cart. This allows you to create mixed and cross-sell bundle offers.
Let’s say you sell cameras. You can set up a rule so that customers get 30% off a memory card when a camera is in their cart. They can choose to buy these products individually or together at a discount.
Leader bundling will also work the same way: customers only get a discount on the additional product after adding the leader to their cart.
There’s so much more you can do with discount conditions; this is only a small sample. You can set as many conditions as you want to curate your bundled offers.
Customize how discounts are displayed
You can determine where and how discounts appear on your product page and cart by:
- Showing sales badges to introduce customers to your offers.
- Display tiered pricing tables to eliminate any confusion.
- Showing cart discounts and confirmation messages to let customers know they’ve received a deal.
With these features, you should have everything you need to implement bundle pricing effectively in your WooCommerce store.
Start using bundle pricing in your WooCommerce store
Bundle pricing is an effective strategy for driving sales in your online store. There are so many ways to implement it. And if you’re looking for inspiration, there’s no shortage of examples to look at. Ultimately, the bundle pricing type you choose will depend on what you sell, what you want to achieve, and what your customers want.
By default, WooCommerce doesn’t support bundle pricing. The good news is that you can implement price bundling easily in your WooCommerce store using these plugins:
- WooCommerce Quantity Discounts, Rules & Swatches. Create rules for quantity discounts in quantity bundling.
- WooCommerce Discounts. Create different types of bundled offers flexibly using discount conditions.
