This German FMCG Brand Increased AOV by 15%

OEL Berlin, a Berlin-based premium Greek olive oil brand, faced a challenge: most customers bought just one bottle per order, making it difficult to increase basket size. To address this, the brand developed a promotional strategy that increased AOV by 15% without disrupting its B2B pricing structure.

In this case study, I’ll break down exactly how OEL Berlin achieved this using the BOGOS: Free Gift Bundle Upsell app, with practical strategies that Shopify merchants facing similar challenges can apply to their own stores.

TL;DR

• Set up a reward journey by linking gift-with-purchase and free shipping thresholds, then using the cart drawer’s progress bar and upsell offers to encourage shoppers to buy more to get the reward.
• Choose gifts from products the store already sells to make rewards more valuable, encourage product discovery, and drive future purchases.
• Allow customers to build their own bundles based on real-life product usage, creating a more personalized shopping experience that drives higher AOV.

The Challenge: Increasing D2C Order Value Without Affecting B2B Pricing Structure

OEL Berlin sells premium Greek olive oil across the DACH market: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The brand operates through two sales channels: direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales and wholesale partnerships.

The brand faced a challenge with its AOV: most first-time D2C customers buy just one bottle. They needed to encourage larger baskets without disrupting its B2B pricing structure.

Traditional percentage discounts on individual bottles were never an option. OEL adopted a smart promotional strategy combining tiered gifts with purchase, volume discounts, and a bundle builder.

The challenge was implementing all three promotions efficiently. Shopify’s native discount features couldn’t support the entire strategy, while using multiple third-party apps would make offer management more complicated. OEL needed a single, reliable solution that could handle every offer type seamlessly. That’s where BOGOS: Free Gift Bundle Upsell came in.

The Solution: Three Offers Specifically Solved Each Buying Intent

OEL Berlin uses three promotional strategies, each designed around a specific shopping behaviour to maximize offer efficiency. Here’s how each offer works.

1. Increase average order value through gifts with purchase

OEL’s first offer is a sitewide gift with purchase promotion featuring two spending thresholds:

• Spend €45 to get a free OELpaste.
• Spend €120 to get a free Zoe 250 ml premium olive oil.

The offer includes three carefully planned elements designed to encourage larger purchases:

• An attainable first threshold: The €45 threshold sits roughly 30% to 50% above a typical single-bottle order, making it easy for shoppers to qualify by adding just one more item.
• A gift with real value: OELpaste is an existing product in OEL’s catalog, with a retail value of approximately 12% of the €45 threshold. This makes the reward more appealing while introducing shoppers to a product they may return to purchase.
• A worthwhile gift tier for high-value orders: The €120 threshold targets shoppers buying multiple bottles. Customers who reach this tier unlock three rewards at once: a free paste box, free shipping, and a 250 ml bottle of premium olive oil. Together, these gifts make that large purchase worth it.

What makes this strategy particularly effective is how the OEL takes advantage of shoppers’ high purchase intent in the cart drawer. 

The team uses a progress bar to show how much more customers need to spend to unlock the next tier, alongside in-cart upsell offers that recommend affordable products to close that gap. 

By connecting these elements, OEL creates a reward journey that naturally encourages shoppers to reach higher spending thresholds, leading to higher AOV for the brand.

2. Encourage repeat customers to buy more with volume discounts

While the free gift promotion targets all shoppers, OEL’s second offer focuses on returning customers who are already familiar with the brand.

Their buying mindset shifts from “Should I buy one bottle to try?” to “Can I save more by buying in bulk?”

This is especially common with fast-moving consumer goods, where customers are often willing to stock up on products they regularly use if the savings are attractive enough. For brands, this creates an opportunity to increase order value.

OEL taps into this buying behaviour with a two-tier volume discount:

• Buy 2 items to get 6% off.
• Buy 3 items to get 8% off.

The offer includes two strategic setups designed to maximize its impact:

• Target products that appeal to existing customers: OEL limits the promotion to selected large-format olive oil bottles. Shoppers browsing these products are likely already familiar with the oil and interested in stocking up for longer-term use. The tiered discount gives them a clear incentive to buy more at once and unlock greater savings.

• Reward subscription customers without displaying another discount widget: OEL also applies volume discounts to selected subscription products but keeps the promotional widget hidden on their product pages. This keeps attention on the subscription offer rather than encouraging shoppers to compare competing discounts between two offers. The volume discount now becomes an additional reward for customers who subscribe and purchase in larger quantities, helping OEL encourage higher-value orders without distracting from its recurring revenue strategy.

To support both setups, OEL needed a promotion app that could hide the discount widget on product pages while still automatically applying discounts when shoppers added enough items to their carts. BOGOS makes this possible without complicated customization, allowing merchants to configure everything in just a few clicks.

3. Build a bundle builder offer around customers’ cooking journey

OEL’s third strategy enhances the shopping experience through a bundle builder that reflects customers’ real-life cooking needs, guiding them through four steps tailored to different cooking occasions:

• Step 1 – Before roasting: Olive oils ideal for preparing ingredients before roasting.
• Step 2 – After roasting: Oils to add after cooking to enhance tenderness and texture.
• Step 3 – Raw dishes: Oils to drizzle directly over finished dishes for extra flavor.
• Step 4 – Ready-to-eat products: Seasonings, pastes, sauces, and other complementary products.

To encourage larger bundles, OEL offers tiered discounts based on the total number of items selected: 

Add 3 items to get 5% off; Add 4 items to get 8% off; Add 6 items to get 12% off.

This setup allows shoppers to freely select products from any step without quantity limits, creating personalized bundles of 3, 4, or 6 items that match their cooking needs while unlocking tiered discounts.

It also naturally introduces customers who are familiar only with olive oil to other product categories, such as seasonings, pastes, and sauces. By encouraging larger orders and broader product discovery, this strategy helps increase AOV while strengthening customers’ connection with OEL as more of its products become part of their everyday meals.

The Results: AOV Increased by 15%

The results speak for themselves. After implementing its promotional strategy with BOGOS, OEL achieved: 

• A 15% increase in AOV, with a steady upward trend. 
• An increase in the share of orders containing multiple bottles, reflecting the exact purchasing behavior it aimed to encourage.

Most importantly, OEL achieved these results without discounting individual bottles, successfully solving the core challenge that prompted the brand to install the BOGOS: Free Gift Bundle Upsell app: effectively uplifting AOV through different offer types in one single app.

Key Takeaways From OEL Growth Strategy

OEL’s approach offers practical lessons for Shopify merchants looking to increase AOV:

Approach	Why it works
Set achievable free gift thresholds	Reasonably encourages shoppers to buy more to unlock the reward and increase your average order value.
Choose gifts related to your target customers’ needs	Give away rewards that recipients would need and use
Use in-cart progress bars and upsell offers	Encourage shoppers to add more items and reach gift thresholds when their purchase intent is highest
Organize bundles around real-life product usage	Helps shoppers customize bundles around their needs and encourages larger purchases.
Apply volume discounts to selected large-format products	Motivates returning customers to stock up and unlock greater savings

Conclusion

OEL Berlin demonstrates how brands can increase average order value without compromising their existing pricing structure. Using BOGOS, the brand implemented three targeted promotions: tiered free gifts with purchase, volume discounts on selected products built around customer intent, and a bundle builder offer that meets customers’ specific cooking needs.

Together, these offers encouraged different customer groups to purchase more, helping OEL achieve a 15% increase in AOV with a steady upward trend, alongside a growing share of orders containing multiple olive bottles while keeping the B2B pricing structure stable.