Why Customers Buy Only One Item From Your Store

The short version

A customer who buys one product and leaves is not necessarily a problem. They may have found exactly what they needed.

It becomes worth investigating when customers repeatedly buy products that have clear complements but rarely add those complements to the same order. Someone buying a camera may also need a memory card. Someone buying a candle may want matches or a wick trimmer. Someone buying a cleanser may also use a moisturizer.

When customers rarely add those related products, several factors may be contributing. They may not see the products, may not understand why they belong together, may not trust the recommendation, or may decide that another item is not worth the extra cost.

Before trying discounts, bundles, or upsells, find out which of these factors may be affecting your store.

A one-item order is not automatically a problem

Average order value is useful, but it can make merchants treat every single-item order as something that needs to be fixed.

That is not always the right conclusion.

If a customer visits your store to replace a damaged phone case, buys the case, and leaves, the purchase may be completely successful. Adding an unrelated product would not improve the customer experience simply because the order value increased.

A better question is:

When a customer buys one product, is there another product that would make the main purchase more useful?

If the answer is no, there may be nothing to fix.

If the answer is yes, check whether customers can easily see that the products belong together.

Customers may not know that you sell the second product

A customer cannot add a product they never see.

Related products often appear in separate collections or categories. A shopper may arrive on a product page from Google, an ad, social media, or a direct link, add the item to the cart, and continue to checkout without exploring the rest of the catalog.

Baymard Institute observed this problem in its product-page usability research. Test participants often looked for related products after finding the main item they wanted. Examples included shoppers looking for a case and memory card after choosing a camera, or shoes to complete an outfit. Baymard found that showing these products on the main product page can make them easier to discover because customers do not need to search another category.

Consider a customer buying a camera. A memory card may be essential, while a spare battery or case may be useful. If those products exist elsewhere in the store but never appear near the camera, the customer has to find them alone.

A useful recommendation makes it clear why the second product belongs with the first.

Instead of showing another camera under a generic heading such as You may also like, show products that help the customer use the camera they already chose.

The recommendation should answer one simple question:

Why would I need this with the product I am buying?

Show relevant products, not just more products

Showing more products does not solve the problem if they have little connection to the purchase.

Baymard’s cart research found that customers quickly dismissed recommendations when the relationship to products already in the cart was unclear. Compatible accessories and products needed to use the main item were more useful recommendations.

A store may know that a particular T-shirt is popular, but that does not make it useful to someone buying hiking boots.

For hiking boots, socks, insoles, or a suitable care product may make more sense.

For a candle, matches or a wick trimmer may make more sense.

For a laptop, a compatible sleeve or adapter may make more sense.

A bestseller tells the customer what other people buy.

A complementary product tells the customer what may help with the item they already chose.

If you want customers to consider a second product, start with relevance rather than popularity.

Price can change how customers interpret a recommendation

A related product may still be rejected if its price makes the recommendation appear focused on increasing the sale.

KyuRee Kim and Rom Y. Schrift examined this issue in eight studies published in the Journal of Consumer Research in 2026. They found that consumers were more likely to follow company recommendations when the recommended option was lower-priced compared with the other options. When companies recommended more expensive products, consumers were more likely to think the company was trying to increase its own profit. That reduced their willingness to follow the recommendation. The effect appeared in online and offline settings and with both human and algorithmic recommendations.

The study does not give merchants a fixed pricing rule for add-ons.

It does show that price can affect how customers interpret a recommendation.

Imagine someone has chosen a $40 product and then sees a recommendation for another $90 product. The second product may be relevant, but the customer must now decide whether to spend substantially more.

That does not mean expensive complementary products should never be recommended. It means price should be part of how you evaluate a cross-sell.

When testing related products, compare different price levels and watch what customers actually add.

Sometimes related products are presented as separate purchases

A related-product recommendation still asks the customer to make another decision.

They have chosen the first product. Now they must decide whether they need the second, perhaps open another page, choose a variant, check compatibility, return to the cart, and reconsider the total price.

A bundle can reduce those extra decisions by presenting related products as one offer.

Kobuszewski Volles, Ribbers, Van Kerckhove, and Geuens examined complementary grocery bundles in research published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. Across several studies and a meta-analysis, they found that offering complementary products as bundles increased overall purchases in the settings they tested. The researchers found that part of the effect came from consumers perceiving the bundle as one purchase rather than several separate purchases.

The study focused on grocery products, so it does not prove that every Shopify bundle will increase order size.

It supports a narrower point: how related products are presented can affect how customers evaluate the purchase.

A cleanser and moisturizer shown on separate pages require two product decisions.

Presenting them as one set reduces the need to evaluate them separately.

The same can apply to a candle with matches and a wick trimmer, a coffee maker with filters, or a drill with compatible bits.

A bundle is most useful when the products already make sense together. It should make an existing connection easier to understand and buy, not force unrelated products into one set.

Buying the second product may require too much work

Customers may understand that they need another product and still give up because finding or adding it takes too much effort.

Baymard’s product-page research observed shoppers looking for related products that were difficult to find because those products appeared elsewhere in the catalog. Showing them on the main product page gave shoppers a more direct route to those items.

Compatibility can make the problem harder.

A customer may know that a camera needs a memory card but not know which card works with that model. A customer may want a phone case but not know whether it fits the exact device. A recommendation that simply says Accessories still leaves the customer to solve that problem.

A clear cross-sell can reduce that uncertainty.

Instead of:

You may also like

use labels such as:

Compatible with this camera

or:

Works with this model

when those claims are accurate.

The clearer the product compatibility, the less information the customer must verify before adding the second item.

Too many choices can make selection harder

Reducing friction does not mean showing every compatible product at once.

A mix-and-match bundle or accessories section can become another shopping task if the customer has to compare too many similar options.

Chernev, Böckenholt, and Goodman’s meta-analysis of choice overload found that large assortments are more likely to create problems when the decision is difficult, the options are complex, buyers are unsure what they want, or they want to reduce the effort involved in choosing.

This does not mean that fewer options always produce more sales.

It means that decision difficulty matters alongside the number of options.

If someone buys a coffee maker, showing three clearly different accessories may be easier to evaluate than showing 25 products with similar names and no explanation of which one matters.

The same applies to mix-and-match bundles. A large catalog can still support this type of offer, but customers need a simple way to find the products that fit their needs.

Your store may not have a natural second product

Not every catalog has a strong cross-sell opportunity.

A store selling one specialized long-lasting product may naturally receive many one-item orders. A customer may not need a second unit or an accessory. In that case, forcing unrelated products into recommendations or bundles can make the offer worse.

Before trying to increase items per order, ask whether a natural second purchase exists.

Depending on the product, that may be:

• an accessory;
• a refill;
• a replacement part;
• a multipack;
• a complementary product;
• a gift version;
• or a product customers already buy with the main item.

If none of these relationships makes sense, a one-item order may simply reflect the normal purchase pattern for that product.

How to find out why customers stop at one item

Do not begin by creating several bundles. Begin with one product that sells often.

Look at orders containing that product and compare single-item orders with orders where customers bought something else.

Then ask:

The goal is not to prove that customers should buy more.

The goal is to identify what prevents customers from adding a relevant second product.

If customers never click related products, the recommendations may be irrelevant or poorly placed.

If they click but rarely add them, compatibility, price, or product information may be contributing factors.

If they add the second item and remove it later, the combined price may deserve attention.

If they already buy two products together without prompting, that pair may be a good candidate for a fixed bundle.

What should you test first?

Start with the smallest useful change.

Choose one high-selling product with many single-item orders. Find one or two products that customers already buy with it or that have an obvious practical connection.

Show those products clearly on the product page and explain why they belong together. Do not hide them under a generic recommendation heading if a more specific label would be clearer.

Then measure what happens.

If more customers add the complementary product after it becomes easier to find, poor discovery may have contributed to the earlier single-item orders.

If the same products regularly appear together, test them as a simple fixed bundle. Keep the first version focused. The goal is to make the combination easier to buy, not to maximize the number of products in the set.

For mix-and-match offers, test whether customers can understand and complete the selection process without facing too many choices.

Then compare the results with regular orders.

Look at bundle purchases, units per order, average order value, conversion rate, and profit after discounts and direct order costs.

When does a bundle make sense?

A bundle makes sense when the products support the same use or customer need and buying them separately creates unnecessary steps.

A candle, matches, and wick trimmer have a clear relationship.

A cleanser and moisturizer can form a simple skin-care set.

A camera and memory card may form a useful package when compatibility is clear.

The bundle should make the connection easier to understand and purchase.

It should not exist only because the store wants customers to buy three products instead of one.

A bundle cannot fix products that do not belong together.

Our guide on how many products to put in a bundle covers how to decide what to test once the products already fit.

The goal is not to make every order bigger

A one-item order can be a good order.

The issue is worth examining when a relevant complementary product exists but customers rarely discover or add it.

Start with one product that sells well. Look at what customers already buy with it. Make those connections easier to see and easier to purchase.

If two or three products clearly fit together, test them as a bundle.

Then let your own order data answer the question that matters:

Did making the connection between the products easier to understand increase multi-item purchases?

Common questions

Why do customers buy only one product from my store?+−

Customers may need only one product, may not discover related items, may see irrelevant recommendations, or may decide that an additional product is not worth the extra cost. Start by checking which products are commonly bought together and where customers encounter related products.

Are single-item orders bad?+−

No. A single-item order can be a successful purchase. It becomes worth investigating when customers repeatedly buy products that have clear complementary products but rarely add them to the same order.

Can product recommendations increase order size?+−

Relevant recommendations can help customers discover complementary products. Baymard's usability research shows that customers respond better when the connection between the main product and the recommendation is clear.

Should I bundle products to increase average order value?+−

A bundle can help when products already support the same use or customer need. Do not create a bundle simply to increase the number of items in the cart. Test whether customers understand and buy the combined offer.

How do I know which products to sell together?+−

Start with your order data. Look for products that already appear together, then check whether they have a clear practical connection.