AOQ
Whether your shoppers leave with one item or fill a basket.
What it means
AOQ is the average number of items in an order — items sold divided by orders across the period. Sell 2,400 items across 1,000 orders and your AOQ is 2.4. It counts units, not money; what those units were worth is AOV's job, which is why the 2 cards sit side by side on Shopify Overview.
Show the math
Formula and a worked example
Items sold is every unit across every line of every order in the period. A 6-pack sold as 1 SKU counts as 1 item, so 2 shops with identical revenue can sit at 1.0 and 3.0 purely on how they built their catalogue.
Orders is the count of orders placed in the period, whatever they were worth.
Worked example. You ship 1,200 orders holding 1,560 items. AOQ = 1,560 ÷ 1,200 = 1.3. Get that to 1.6 on the same 1,200 orders and the same €25 average item price, and the month brings in €9,000 more without a single extra visitor.
It's an average, so a handful of wholesale-sized orders pulls it up while most baskets stay at 1. If the number reads better than the shop feels, open the order table on Breakdowns before you trust it.
It answers the question
Can the orders you already get carry another item? Every unit added to a basket you'd have shipped anyway comes with no acquisition cost, which makes it the cheapest revenue in the shop.
Why it matters
Picking, packing and shipping an order costs about the same whether it holds 1 item or 3, so every extra item arrives with almost no extra handling and most of it survives into Contribution MarginContribution MarginProfit left after variable costs to fund the business.30% or more is healthy.
Lifting AOQ from 1.4 to 1.7 grows revenue by more than 20% on the same traffic, the same Ad Spend and the same number of parcels — as long as your average item price holds. It's the difference between the shopper who grabs 1 thing at the till and the one who fills a basket on the way there.
What good looks like
These bands suit a shop selling everyday items, and category decides more here than performance does — a mattress shop lives at 1.0 and is perfectly healthy, a coffee or cosmetics shop can sit well above it. Judge your own trend first, then read it against % Shipping Cost% Shipping CostHow much of sales fulfilment eats up.Under 6% is healthy: fuller baskets are meant to make each order cheaper to ship as a share of sales.
How to improve it
| Lever | What you do | Expect | How long | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fast Add a goes-well-with row | Put 3 related items under the add-to-cart button and again in the cart drawer | AOQ up 0.1–0.3 | 1–2 weeks | Every extra choice on a product page is another chance to leave without buying. Watch your order count for a fortnight — more items per order is a bad trade if there are fewer orders. |
| Fast Move the free-shipping threshold | Set it around 20% above your current AOV so 1 more item clears it | AOQ up, orders flat | 1 week | You now pay postage on every order that crosses the line, so % Shipping Cost climbs. Set it too far above AOV and baskets get abandoned instead of filled. |
| Slow Stock a companion range | Add refills, accessories and consumables under €15 that pair with your 3 bestsellers | AOQ up 0.3–0.5 | 6–10 weeks | Cheap add-ons drag AOV down while AOQ rises, and a small item takes the same picking time as a big one. Read the two together or you'll congratulate yourself for shipping more work. |
| Slow Rebuild the range around sets | Design products that need a partner — a starter kit plus refills, sizes people buy in 2s | A higher floor that holds | 1 quarter | Cash tied up in new stock. Companion products that don't sell become next season's markdowns, straight into % Product Discounts. |
Every lever costs something somewhere. The last column is the one to read twice.
Read it with
AOQ counts units and says nothing about what they were worth. Put it next to the money and it starts making decisions.
Baskets really are bigger
More items and more money per order. This is the pairing that pays — the extra units aren't coming out of your margin to get there.
Volume bought with discount
More units, less money. A 3-for-2 does this every time: you ship more, handle more and bank less.
Dearer, not fuller
Fewer items, each worth more. Usually a price change or a shift towards premium products. Real money, but it isn't basket growth and it won't repeat next month.
Shrinking both ways
Smaller and cheaper orders together usually means the traffic changed, not the shop. Cheap traffic buys 1 cheap thing.
Fuller baskets are supposed to make shipping cheaper as a share of sales. If AOQ rises and % Shipping Cost rises with it, the extra items are heavy, bulky or leaving in a second parcel — the basket grew and the economics didn't. Neither number shows that on its own.
This pair tells you what the extra item actually cost you. AOQ up with Contribution Margin flat means you bought those units with a discount, or added something that earns nothing. AOQ up with Contribution Margin up is the real thing.
Common misreads
It's a ratio. Lose half your orders while total units hold and AOQ improves as the month gets worse. Read it next to Orders, every time.
They move apart constantly. 3 items at €8 beat 1 item at €40 on AOQ and lose on money. Quantity is not value, which is why the app keeps them as 2 separate cards.
Not if you sell 1 big thing. A sofa shop at 1.1 is normal, a supplements shop at 1.1 is leaving money on the shelf. The band is a starting point; your own last 12 months is the real test.
Also called
Average Order Quantity · items per order · units per order · basket size
See yoursYour AOQ for the period next to AOV, and how it splits by country on Region.
Open Shopify Overview →