Average order value (AOV): what it is and how to calculate it
FLYDE Glossary · November 9, 2026 · 3 min read
Average order value (AOV), or average ticket, is how much a customer spends on average each time they buy. It is calculated by dividing sales in a period by the number of orders or tickets in that same period.
How to calculate average order value
An example. A store chain sells €48,000 in November across 1,600 tickets. Its average order value is 48,000 ÷ 1,600 = €30. If in December it sells €60,000 across 1,800 tickets, AOV rises to €33.33: it sells more and each purchase is bigger.
To keep the figure reliable, always use the same rules: sales excluding VAT, net of returns, counting orders rather than product lines.
Calculate your average order value
AOV, spend per customer and CLV are not the same
| Metric | What it measures | How it is calculated |
|---|---|---|
| Average order value | How much is spent per purchase | Sales ÷ number of orders |
| Average spend per customer | How much each customer spends in the period | AOV × purchases per customer |
| CLV | What a customer is worth over the whole relationship | Spend per customer × years they keep buying (or a predictive model) |
A rising AOV is not always good news: if the customers who made small purchases stop buying, the average goes up while the business loses customers. That is why it should be read alongside churn and purchase frequency.
How to read AOV properly
- By channel. Online and in-store tickets are usually very different. Mix them and a shift in channel weight moves the average even though nothing really changed.
- By segment. A new customer's ticket and a loyal customer's ticket look nothing alike. Calculate it by segment (for example with an RFM analysis) to see where the room for improvement is.
- With the median next to it. A few very large orders inflate the average. If mean and median drift far apart, look at the distribution before drawing conclusions.
- Against the same period last year. Black Friday, El Buen Fin or Christmas move the ticket on the same dates every year.
Five ways to increase average order value
- Cross-selling. Recommend the complementary product at the moment of purchase: the case with the phone, the batteries with the toy.
- Upselling. Suggest the higher version when the price gap is small and the added value is clear.
- Bundles. Group products that are bought together at a slightly better price than separately.
- Free shipping threshold. Setting it slightly above your current AOV nudges customers to add one more item.
- Personalized recommendations. Based on what that customer has already bought, not on best sellers. It is the lever that pays off most when each customer's purchase data is unified.
Be careful about raising it with volume discounts: the ticket grows, but margin per order can drop.
Average order value in FLYDE
With in-store and online purchases unified in each customer's profile, FLYDE calculates average order value by customer, segment, channel or store without stitching spreadsheets together. You can build audiences of customers whose ticket is falling, activate cross-selling campaigns for them and measure with a control group whether the ticket really goes up. And with FLYDE Brain you ask in plain language: "what was the average order value of customers who bought on Black Friday compared with the rest of the year?"
Frequently asked questions
Is average order value the same as average ticket? Yes. In Spain it is usually called ticket medio and in Mexico and much of Latin America ticket promedio; in English, average order value (AOV) or average ticket.
Should it include VAT? Either way, as long as you calculate it the same way across periods and channels. The most common choice is excluding VAT and net of returns, so it reflects what the business really takes in.
What is a good average order value? There is no universal figure: it depends on your sector, channel and prices. What matters is comparing it with yourself (month on month, store against store, segment against segment) and making sure it is not rising only because you are losing small-basket customers.
How do you calculate average order value in Excel? If each row is an order, =AVERAGE() over the amount column is enough. If each row is a product line, divide total amount by the number of unique orders; in Excel 365, with order numbers in column A and amounts in C: =SUM(C2:C1000)/COUNTA(UNIQUE(A2:A1000)).
What is the difference between AOV and average spend per customer? AOV measures how much is spent per purchase; average spend per customer, how much each customer spends over the whole period. The second is AOV multiplied by how many times each customer buys.