Metrics & KPIs

AOV

Average Order Value — the average dollar amount a customer spends per transaction. Total revenue divided by number of orders.

AOV is one of the three levers of ecommerce revenue: Traffic × Conversion Rate × AOV = Revenue. If your AOV is $32 and your CPA is $25, you have $7 of gross spread before factoring COGS. Push AOV up by $8 with a well-placed upsell or order bump and suddenly the same ad spend funds a healthy business instead of a breakeven one.

Most dropshipping stores sit at an AOV between $25 and $55. Operators scaling past $100K/month almost always engineer AOV deliberately with bundles, quantity discounts, order bumps at checkout, and post-purchase upsells. A $45 AOV store and an $85 AOV store running the same ads will look like different businesses entirely at the bottom of the P&L.

Watch for the AOV trap: discounting to drive conversion rate can tank AOV and leave blended margin worse than before. Measure AOV alongside contribution margin, not in isolation.

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