At a glance
Average Order Value, the dollar value of the average completed order across all BigCommerce channels. The denominator of every store growth conversation: AOV times order count equals revenue, so a 5% AOV lift is mathematically identical to a 5% volume lift but is almost always cheaper to achieve. Where Shopify merchants tend to lean on apps to lift AOV, BigCommerce merchants more commonly rely on B2B Edition’s quote workflow, customer-group price lists, and built-in cart-level promotions, all of which move this number directly.
| What it counts | SUM(total_inc_tax) / COUNT(orders) over the trailing 30 days, with vsP (versus prior 30 days) for trend. Both numerator and denominator filter to status_id != 0 (Incomplete excluded) and status_id != 5 (Cancelled excluded) so the figure represents the AOV the merchant actually banked. |
| API endpoint | GET /stores/{store_hash}/v2/orders (BC REST Management API, paged at 250 / page) plus catalog v3 for line-item attribution. The OpenSearch index materialises total_inc_tax from this endpoint each catalogue sync. |
| VAT / tax treatment | Tax-inclusive. BC’s total_inc_tax field is the customer-billed amount, the same number the customer saw on the receipt. For ex-VAT pricing, see BC Total Revenue Net of Tax. |
| Shipping | Included. total_inc_tax aggregates subtotal + shipping + tax + handling. Stores that fulfill big-ticket items (furniture, B2B pallets) often see AOV inflate during shipping-fee recalibrations rather than from genuine basket lift. |
| Discounts | Deducted. Coupon codes, cart-level promotions, customer-group discounts, and Promotions API discounts have all been applied to total_inc_tax before the average is computed. |
| Refunds | Not deducted. Refunds reduce a separate refund metric; AOV reflects the order at point of capture. A high-refund SKU therefore looks like a healthy AOV contributor here but bleeds margin elsewhere. |
| Cancelled orders | Excluded (status_id = 5). Genuinely cancelled orders never reached the customer, so including them would deflate the figure artificially. |
Incomplete orders | Excluded (status_id = 0). These are abandoned-checkout artefacts that BC writes for analytics; they are not real orders. |
| Currency | Multi-currency without FX. Each order keeps its currency_code (USD, GBP, EUR, etc.) and the figure is computed per-currency. The headline AOV the user sees reflects the dominant currency or the merchant-selected display currency; stores with three-or-more-currency exposure should pair with BC Channel Currency Mix. |
| Channels | All channel_id values aggregated. Web (channel_id = 1), POS, Amazon Channel Manager, Facebook Shop, B2B portal, and any custom Channels API channel feed into a single number. For per-channel AOV use BC AOV by Channel. |
| B2B Edition behaviour | B2B Edition orders (quote-converted, PO-paid, customer-group price-listed) appear here normally; their AOV is typically 4-15x higher than DTC and meaningfully pulls the headline figure up. Stores with mixed B2B and DTC traffic should always pair this card with BC Guest vs Registered. |
| Time window | 30D vsP (rolling 30 days versus prior 30 days). |
| Alert trigger | drop >10% vsP. A 10% AOV decline week-over-prior-week is the floor at which the cause is no longer noise. |
| Sentiment key | aov_trend |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
Worked example
A US-based industrial supply distributor on BigCommerce Enterprise with B2B Edition, selling both DTC (Stencil web) and B2B (Stencil portal with customer-group price lists). Snapshot for the period 1 Apr 26 to 30 Apr 26.| Channel | Orders | Total revenue (total_inc_tax) | AOV |
|---|---|---|---|
1 (DTC web) | 4,820 | $578,400 | $120 |
B2B portal (customer-group 12) | 612 | $1,224,000 | $2,000 |
1019847 (Amazon Channel Manager) | 1,140 | $159,600 | $140 |
| POS Terminal A | 380 | $24,700 | $65 |
| Store-wide total | 6,952 | $1,986,700 | $285.78 |
| Channel | Prior AOV | Current AOV | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| DTC web | $128 | $120 | -6.3% |
| B2B portal | $1,950 | $2,000 | +2.6% |
| Amazon | $138 | $140 | +1.4% |
| POS | $62 | $65 | +4.8% |
| Headline | $295.40 | $285.78 | -3.3% |
- The headline drop hides a B2B lift and a DTC drop. Without the channel split, an owner reading this card sees “AOV down 3.3%, marginal” and moves on. The actual story is “DTC AOV down 6.3% while B2B AOV up 2.6%”. The DTC drop is a real problem that needs investigation; the B2B lift is good news that should be propagated as a case study.
- B2B orders dominate the average. 612 B2B orders (8.8% of order count) drive 61.6% of revenue and pull headline AOV up by ~$170. For BigCommerce stores with B2B Edition active, the headline AOV is essentially a B2B vs DTC mix indicator. A small shift in B2B order count moves the headline more than any DTC merchandising change.
- POS AOV is the only channel that grew without volume help. The 4.8% POS lift on flat order count likely reflects a price-list update (an in-store SKU got more expensive) or a successful in-store upsell from a new staff member. Worth identifying which.
- The headline AOV would behave differently on Shopify. Shopify’s
Sales by sales channelreport excludes draft orders (BC equivalent: status_id 11) but includes refunded line items in the daily view; the merchant comparing BC AOV to a Shopify clone often sees Shopify ~5-8% lower for the same order book because of refund treatment. Reconcile via BC Channel Revenue Trend and the Shopify equivalent before flagging the gap as a data issue. - The Amazon channel slice is suspiciously consistent. Amazon AOV almost never moves more than 2% month-over-month for a stable assortment because Amazon’s algorithm normalises customer behaviour. If you see Amazon AOV swing more than 5%, the cause is almost always your assortment changed (you added a higher-priced bundle SKU) rather than buyer behaviour shifting.
- Decompose by channel first. Open BC AOV by Channel to see whether the move is store-wide or concentrated. A store-wide dip is usually a discount-stacking problem; a single-channel dip is usually merchandising or feed.
- Decompose by customer type. Open BC Guest vs Registered to see whether the move is in guest checkout (acquisition / promo) or registered (B2B / loyal).
- Check discount density. Open BC AOV with/without Discount to see whether a new promo or coupon is dragging the discounted-segment AOV down.
- Check the cart abandoners. A drop in AOV combined with a healthy BC Order Count often means low-value baskets are converting more (good) but high-value baskets are abandoning (bad).
- For B2B stores, validate the customer-group filter. A misconfigured price list can drag B2B AOV down quickly; B2B Edition’s price-list audit log shows when changes happened.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with AOV |
|---|---|
| Total Revenue | The numerator of the AOV calculation. A revenue drop with stable AOV is a volume problem; a revenue drop with stable volume is an AOV problem. Always read together. |
| Order Count | The denominator. Same logic as above; AOV moves are only one half of the revenue equation. |
| BC AOV by Channel | The per-channel decomposition. Headline AOV often hides cross-channel offsetting effects (B2B up, DTC down). |
| BC AOV with/without Discount | The promo-density view. Tells you whether discounted baskets are dragging AOV down faster than full-price baskets are pulling it up. |
| BC AOV by Country | Geographic decomposition. Multi-currency stores will see headline AOV move when traffic mix shifts between high-AOV (US, UK) and low-AOV (emerging-market) countries. |
| BC Guest vs Registered | The customer-type split. B2B-heavy stores will see this card swing dramatically with the registered-customer order count, since B2B orders carry 4-15x the AOV of DTC. |
| BC Channel Revenue Trend | The over-time view. After AOV moves, this shows whether the move is acute (last week) or part of a longer drift. |
| BC Top Products by Channel | Surfaces which SKUs drove the AOV change. A new bundle SKU at $400 launching can lift AOV materially without any merchandising change elsewhere. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel: The native AOV view lives in Analytics → Orders on Plus, Pro, and Enterprise plans. The header tile reads “Average Order Value, last 30 days”. For a per-channel view: Analytics → Sales → “Sales by channel” exposes channel-level AOV on Plus and above. B2B Edition’s separate analytics surface (under Channel Manager → B2B Edition → Analytics) shows AOV for the customer-group-locked B2B portal independent of DTC web. Other BC views that look adjacent but compute differently:- Orders → All orders sorted by total descending: gives a quick visual sanity check on top orders, useful when AOV spikes (one $50,000 PO can lift the figure 0.5%).
- Customers → Customer groups: shows AOV per customer group, the closest BC-native lens for B2B-vs-DTC.
- Reports → Orders custom report: build your own AOV view with arbitrary filters; this is the most flexible reconciliation surface BC offers.
| Reason | Direction |
|---|---|
| BC Analytics excludes channel-stamped orders by default on the headline tile. The tile shows web AOV; we show all-channel aggregated AOV. Multi-channel stores will see Vortex IQ HIGHER than the BC tile. | Vortex IQ HIGHER |
| BC Analytics applies a 30-day rolling window with end-of-day boundaries (UTC); we use rolling-30 with last-completed-hour boundary. The two figures can diverge by 0.5-2% on the most recent day. | Either direction |
| B2B Edition orders. BC’s analytics surface for B2B Edition is separate from the main analytics surface. Stores with active B2B Edition will see the BC main AOV tile EXCLUDE B2B orders; we include them. This is the largest single source of divergence on B2B-heavy stores, often 30-100%+. | Vortex IQ MUCH HIGHER |
| Multi-storefront aggregation. Stores with the multi-storefront feature see one AOV per storefront in BC’s UI; our default rolls all storefronts up to one figure. Configure per-storefront views via the platform filter in Nerve Centre. | Either direction |
| Multi-currency rolling. BC computes AOV per-currency and shows the merchant’s primary; we offer a converted display-currency option. Configure under Settings → Currency in Vortex IQ. | Either direction (small) |
| Refund treatment. We do not deduct refunds from AOV; BC’s analytics tile in some plan tiers does. | Vortex IQ HIGHER on high-refund stores |
bigcommerce.aov = total_revenue / order_count
Component cards (these should be self-consistent, if they’re not, it’s a sampling or rounding issue, not real divergence):
Cross-connector reconciliation (when both connectors are connected for this merchant):
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
google_analytics.ga_aov | GA4 AOV should be 5-15% lower than this card | GA4 misses 10-25% of orders due to consent-mode, ad-blockers, and short-session attribution. The orders GA4 misses skew slightly higher AOV (logged-in customers using saved cards), so GA4 AOV reads low. |
stripe.stripe_avg_charge | Stripe AOV should match this card on web orders within 1-2% | Stripe sees only successfully captured charges; this card includes any order that wasn’t cancelled. A spike in declined-but-captured orders shifts the two views. |
paypal.pp_avg_transaction | PayPal AOV should track this card on PayPal-paid orders | PayPal includes some non-checkout transactions (manual invoices, mass-pay) that BC won’t surface; expect 2-3% PayPal-side bias on top. |
google_ads.ga_aov_paid | Paid-traffic AOV usually trails store AOV by 8-12% | Paid traffic skews to first-time buyers, who buy fewer items per order than returning customers. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
My headline AOV is much higher in Vortex IQ than in BigCommerce Analytics. Which is right? Both, just measuring different things. BC Analytics’ main tile typically excludes B2B Edition orders and excludes some channel-stamped orders; we aggregate everything by default. For B2B-heavy stores the gap can be 30-100%+. To match BC’s number exactly, filter Vortex IQ tocustomer_group != B2B and channel_id = 1. The gap will close to within 1-2%.
My BigCommerce store has just one storefront and one currency. Why would my AOV ever differ from BC?
On a single-storefront, single-currency, no-B2B store the figures should match within 0.5-1.5%. Persistent gaps usually trace to (a) refund treatment, BC’s tile deducts refunds in newer plan tiers, we don’t, or (b) timezone boundary, BC uses end-of-day UTC, we use last-completed-hour. If the gap exceeds 2% and isn’t drifting toward zero across days, file a support ticket; that’s a data issue worth investigating.
Is BC AOV higher or lower than Shopify AOV for the same order book?
Typically BC reads 3-8% higher than Shopify for an identical book. The two main reasons: (1) BC’s total_inc_tax includes shipping and handling fees more aggressively than Shopify’s total_price, (2) Shopify deducts refunds from same-day AOV automatically; BC does not. An agency migrating clients from Shopify to BC should expect headline AOV to look 5-7% better post-migration just from the metric definition shift, not from genuine merchandising lift.
My B2B Edition AOV swings 20-40% month-over-month. Is this a problem?
Almost always not, it reflects the B2B order cadence rather than buyer behaviour. B2B portal orders are typically large quotes converted on a 2-6 week cycle. A single $80,000 PO landing on the 30th of a slow month can lift B2B AOV by 30%; the same order in a busy month moves it 5%. For B2B-heavy stores read AOV on a 90-day rolling window rather than 30-day; the volatility smooths to manageable levels.
My Amazon Channel Manager AOV is suspiciously stable. Is the data wrong?
No, this is normal. Amazon’s algorithm normalises buyer behaviour heavily; you’ll rarely see Amazon AOV move more than 2% month-over-month for a stable assortment. Amazon AOV moves typically reflect assortment changes (you launched a higher-priced bundle) rather than buyer-behaviour shifts. If your Amazon AOV swings more than 5%, audit the Channel Manager → Amazon SKU list for new high-priced listings rather than trying to find a “campaign” that changed.
Why doesn’t this card decompose by customer group natively?
Customer-group AOV is a separate, more granular card. We keep this headline card simple (all-orders) and offer customer-group breakdowns on dedicated cards. For B2B Edition users, the customer-group AOV card is the right primary view; this headline card is the rollup.
Can I configure this card to use ex-VAT pricing?
Yes, in Settings → Tax handling, switch to “ex-VAT” mode. The card recomputes using total_ex_tax rather than total_inc_tax. UK / EU finance teams typically prefer ex-VAT for internal reporting; US and APAC teams typically prefer inc-tax. Configure once at the org level; all AOV cards across all channels follow the setting.
My multi-storefront BC instance shows one AOV but I want per-storefront. Where do I configure?
Multi-storefront filtering is on the Nerve Centre dashboard’s storefront selector (top-left, next to the integration name). Select “All storefronts” for the rollup or pick a single storefront. The card supports per-storefront persistence; once you pick UK Storefront, it stays selected across page loads. Per-storefront alerts are configured separately under Settings → Alerts.
Should I expect AOV to grow over time?
Yes, by 2-5% annually for healthy stores in stable categories. Above 5% is exceptional (usually a price-list increase rather than a behaviour change). Below 0% (declining AOV year-over-year) is a warning sign that either pricing has compressed (competitor pressure) or basket size has shrunk (mix shift toward smaller items). Sustained AOV decline is the single most reliable leading indicator of margin compression.
Why is the alert threshold 10% and not 5%?
A 5% threshold fires too often on legitimate noise (a slow promo cycle, a B2B order missing from the period). 10% is the floor at which a move is almost certainly real. For low-volume stores (under 200 orders / 30 days) the threshold should be raised to 15% to suppress small-sample noise; configure under Settings → Alerts → Sensitivity.