A growing store often pays more for every customer. Ads get more expensive, and when customers check out with a single item, that one sale has to pay back the whole acquisition cost. That was the problem at Mansour, a fashion brand from Breda in the Netherlands. In this article we show what they changed, what it delivered and how to take the same steps in your own store.

The problem: orders were stuck at one item

Mansour was growing fast, but its orders were not. If anything, they were getting smaller. Customers bought 1.17 items per order on average. Someone who bought trousers rarely added the sweater or jacket, even though the collection is designed to be worn together.

That hits your margin directly. You pay the cost of acquiring a customer (CAC) per order, not per item. The less there is in the cart, the heavier that cost weighs.

The results in numbers

We measured the effect with an A/B test in Mansour's Shopify data: visitors with and without MountStudio, over the same period.

1.171.47Items per order
+35.1%Average order value
+22%Conversion rate

Customers more often buy a complete outfit instead of a single piece, they get to a purchase faster, and the return rate stayed well under control.

Worked example: what this does to your acquisition cost

Say you spend a fixed amount on ads per order. At 1.17 items per order, that amount is spread over 1.17 items; at 1.47, over 1.47. Per item sold, you then pay about 20% less in acquisition cost (1.17 ÷ 1.47 ≈ 0.80).

Look at revenue and the effect is bigger. With a 35.1% higher order value, the same ad spend is about 26% smaller as a share of the order (1 ÷ 1.351 ≈ 0.74). And that is before counting the 22% higher conversion rate, which turns the same traffic into more orders.

You don't have to spend more to earn more. Every customer you already pay for brings in more.

Five steps to raise your items per order

Sell the outfit, not the item

Customers don't buy trousers, they buy a look. Mansour has Mount Stylist put together complete outfits based on what the customer is looking for: the trousers with the sweater, jacket and shoes that go with them. A customer who can already picture the combination adds a second and third piece more easily.

Try it yourselfShow a complete look made from your own collection on every product, and make it easy to add it in one go. A loose "you might also like" row works less well than a combination that actually fits together.

Give size advice before the customer starts to doubt

More items per order means little if they come back. In fashion, doubt about size is one of the main reasons to drop off or return. That is why the stylist gives size advice with every recommendation. It kept Mansour's return rate well under control while orders got bigger.

Try it yourselfAnswer the size question on the product page itself, not in a separate size chart customers have to look for.

Reward a fuller cart

Mount Cart rewards a second and third item with a tiered discount. It is not a store-wide discount, but a benefit that only kicks in when the customer buys more. That way you only pay for extra revenue.

Try it yourselfShow in the cart how close the customer is to the next reward, and which item from the outfit is still missing.

Help customers find what they want, fast

The longer people search, the less they buy. Mount Search understands what a customer means, even when they describe it differently from your product names. Customers find their product faster and get to a purchase sooner.

Try it yourselfCheck which searches in your store return zero results. Those are customers who wanted to buy something and could not find it.

Measure where things go wrong

With Mount Insights, Mansour sees where shoppers drop off and what they ask. The team knows what to tackle next instead of guessing.

Try it yourselfTest changes with an A/B test instead of a before-and-after comparison. Seasons, promotions and ad campaigns make before-and-after unreliable.

Customer service grew along with it

Growth brought Mansour a second problem: far more questions for customer service. Extra staff is expensive, and during peak periods it is never enough. Mount Care now answers questions about orders, exchanges and returns instantly, even at the busiest times. Mansour keeps growing without expanding the team. How Mount Care brought the response time at coffee brand Georgie’s Company from 1.5 hours to 0.4 seconds, you can read in scaling B2B customer service.

In short

  • Show customers complete outfits, not single items.
  • Give size advice at the moment of doubt, so bigger orders don't come back.
  • Reward a fuller cart instead of discounting everything.
  • Make search easy and check which searches return nothing.
  • Measure with an A/B test, not with before-and-after.

Curious what this means for your store? Read the full Mansour case or work it out with the ROI calculator.