Bundling or Kitting and eCommerce
Buyers today expect flexibility and customization when it comes to shopping online. From Etsy to Amazon to BarkBox, eCommerce has evolved to meet the needs of consumers, spoiling us and setting expectations for custom experiences.
How can eCommerce sellers meet modern buyer expectations?
Bundling or product kitting (used interchangeably here) helps sellers customize a buyer’s order. They’re basically inventory management terms that refer to the process of combining single products into one unit for sale. When a consumer buys a kitted item, your inventory system automatically links each single item to the sale. Examples of bundling can include products sold by the piece or as part of a set, subscription box products and products assembled on order.
Let’s say you’re buying two pieces of luggage for your winter trip to Costa Rica. You could buy the two items sold individually or as a set. Each piece of luggage could be tracked and sold as a unique inventory item, and as a component of this two-piece set using product kitting. Bundling the items could help your buyer get a better deal, because your behind the scenes fulfillment efficiencies and the shipping savings could pass along to the consumer.
Benefits of Product Kitting for eCommerce
The kitting/bundling process can prove extremely useful as a merchandising tool for eCommerce sellers. First, it lets you do more with your existing stock. With bundling, you can easily kit items together that you sell by the piece to create merchandising options like featured deals, discounted sets, cross-sell promotions and more.
Kitted items give you more products to market because you offer more options to the end user, plus more categories and pages to optimize for the search engines. The bonus to you as a seller is that expanding your collection through kitting adds no more inventory or storage costs since you already purchase and stock these items.
Beyond merchandising and marketing creativity, the only thing product kitting really requires of you is an inventory system supporting it.
In our next blog we will discuss examples of kitting in eCommerce operations and the ways it makes it easy to manage all sorts of eCommerce goods and business models.
If you’re looking for more information today, call us at 800.562.9733 or:
