Product Bundling: Types, Pricing and Examples

Product bundling means selling several products together as one offer. Start with products customers already buy together, then set a price that covers their costs and fulfilment. For a skincare or gift store, one useful set is easier to test than a bundle across every category.

A discount can move slow stock while reducing the profit on bestsellers. Choose the products before choosing the saving, and keep the individual items available when customers need only one.

Types of Product Bundles

Choose a bundle type by how much control the customer needs over its contents. These hypothetical product bundling examples show how each type works in an Australian store.

Bundle type	How it works	Example
Pure bundle	The products are available only as the set	A barbecue tool kit containing tongs and a spatula that aren’t sold separately
Mixed bundle	Customers can buy the set or its individual products	A skincare routine with cleanser, serum and moisturiser, also available separately
Build-your-own bundle	Customers choose items from an eligible range	A back-to-school stationery pack with a choice of notebook and pen colours
Gift set	Products are presented together for a recipient or occasion	A boxed hand-care set with hand wash and cream

Gift sets describe the presentation and purpose. A gift set can also be a pure, mixed or build-your-own bundle. A fixed bundle describes predetermined contents, so it can be pure or mixed depending on whether you sell those contents separately.

Look through past orders for repeated product pairs. Check whether those orders happened at ordinary prices or during a promotion. A cleanser and moisturiser bought together repeatedly give you a stronger starting point than unrelated items that happen to be overstocked.

Check that the products suit the same customer and have compatible quantities. A large refill paired with a tiny dispenser can make a set awkward to use. Keep optional add-on recommendations separate from the bundle itself. The cross-selling guide covers those single-item suggestions.

Bundle Pricing Methods

Set one fixed price when the contents stay the same. Use a percentage discount when eligible choices have different prices, or make one item free when its cost fits the margin.

For a fixed-price skincare set, list the exact contents and the total price. A percentage offer needs a clear eligible range and any minimum quantity. With a free-item offer, name the included item and the purchase required to receive it. Its purchase cost still belongs in your calculation.

Show the saving against the genuine total of buying those same items separately. In a hypothetical Australian offer, the separate prices are $33, $44 and $33, including goods and services tax (GST). The $110 total compared with a $99 bundle means a saving of $11, or 10%. Use the same sizes and variants for both totals.

If an item is already on sale, don’t use a higher old price to inflate the saving. Keep delivery charges visible so customers can understand the amount they’ll pay.

Multiple unit pricing discounts a quantity, such as two notebooks for $10 or three pens for the price of two. These are hypothetical Australian-dollar offers including GST. The customer buys more units from the eligible product range. A fixed bundle price applies to a defined set, which can contain different products. State whether the offer allows different colours or requires identical items.

Pricing a Bundle Without Losing Margin

Compare the discount with the combined product margin and any fulfilment saving. Remove GST from sales revenue before comparing it with costs recorded excluding recoverable GST. The Moneysmart GST calculator explains the tax component of a taxable sale.

Consider the hypothetical $110 skincare set above. Assume the store is GST-registered, all products attract 10% GST and its combined product cost is $50 excluding recoverable GST. The following amounts are Australian dollars. Customer prices include GST. Revenue and costs in the calculation exclude GST.

Measure	Separate purchases	Bundle
Customer product price including GST	$110	$99
Product revenue excluding GST	$100	$90
Combined product cost excluding GST	$50	$50
Product gross margin in dollars	$50	$40
Shipping and packing cost excluding GST	$16	$10
Amount remaining after those costs	$34	$30

This example assumes separate purchases need two parcels and the bundle needs one. The shipping and packing saving is $6. The discount reduces revenue excluding GST by $10, so the saving offsets only part of it. The store retains $4 less after the listed costs.

To retain the same $34, the bundle needs $94 revenue excluding GST. That is a customer price of $103.40 including GST, with a $6.60 saving against the separate total. Payment fees, returns and any gift packaging still need to fit within the remaining amount.

If customers already buy the items in one order, a bundle might save no shipping cost. Use the parcel cost for the actual basket and delivery zone. Don’t assume combining products always makes postage cheaper, especially when the set crosses a weight threshold.

Setting Up Product Bundles in Shopify

Shopify Bundles suits fixed sets and multipacks with shared component stock. Shopify’s App Store lists it as free, and its Help Center confirms availability on all Shopify plans. Your store needs an eligible sales channel and upgraded checkout. Legacy checkout.liquid customisations are incompatible with bundles.

Choose the bundle structure before installing another app. Shopify’s own app lets customers select included variants, such as a colour. Choosing a colour for a fixed product differs from replacing that product with another item.

Requirement	Shopify Bundles	Third-party bundle apps
Fixed bundles and multipacks	Supported	Commonly supported, including by Bundler
Mix-and-match products	Use a third-party app or a custom Shopify Plus solution	Bundler lists this on a paid tier
Volume discounts	Multipacks give a defined quantity a set price	Bundler lists quantity breaks and volume discounts on its free tier
Stock handling	Real-time availability from component stock	Native bundle apps can sync components; discount-only offers can use individual cart items

A paid subscription becomes relevant when you need a mix-and-match builder beyond fixed products and their variants. Volume discounts alone don’t always require payment. Bundler’s listing separates those functions from its paid mix-and-match tier. For stock, choose an app that keeps real component quantities in the order, instead of a separate stock count that can drift.

Use Shopify’s documented setup sequence for a fixed set:

1. Create the individual products and enable stock tracking where required.
2. Install Shopify Bundles, then open Apps and select Bundles.
3. Choose Create bundle, enter its title and select the products.
4. Set each quantity and the variants customers can choose, then select Save and continue.
5. Add the bundle price and product details. Select the sales channels, change its status from Draft to Active and save.

Shopify calculates bundle availability from the scarcest tracked component, allowing for the quantity needed. With ten cleansers and six serums, a set containing one of each has six available bundles. Items set to continue selling when out of stock don’t restrict that calculation.

Before promoting the set, complete a test order in your store’s test payment mode. Confirm the correct component quantities appear in the order and stock decreases by those quantities. If the bundle stays hidden, check its Active status and channel publication. If the price becomes wrong after a component price changes, update the bundle price separately.

For WooCommerce, the paid WooCommerce Product Bundles extension reduces component stock with each sale and can track bundle-level stock too. Free plugin alternatives include WPC Product Bundles, which manages bundled items like standalone sales. Asana’s Product Bundle Builder has a component-stock synchronisation setting. Enable the appropriate stock controls and test both a bundle sale and an individual component sale before launch.

Using Bundles to Clear Slow Stock

Pair a slow item with a bestseller only when the combination solves a real customer need. A slower-selling moisturiser can join a popular cleanser if both suit the same routine. A random accessory can make the offer harder to understand.

Choose a fixed end date for the promotion and record it in your merchandising schedule. Cap the available sets to the slower item’s stock, with enough bestseller stock left for individual orders. Add any expiry or shelf-life constraints to the picking instructions.

Keep the bestseller available separately when the offer is a mixed bundle. Compare the combined margin with the money you’d retain from selling the bestseller alone. Stop the offer if it mainly discounts purchases customers would have made anyway.

Helping Shoppers Build Their Own Set

Give customers a small eligible range and a running total when they build their own set. Explain the required number of items and how the discount applies. Make replacing an item easy when the total exceeds their budget.

A hypothetical stationery builder could let a parent choose a notebook, then add pens and a pencil case within a total spend. Keep unavailable colours out of the choices. Show what changes in the price before the customer accepts a replacement.

shoppa is an AI shopping agent that helps customers find, compare and buy products in the chat using your catalogue and store documents. Its budget optimisation allocates a customer’s total spend across the basket. A customer can change their requirements and swap products while putting together a set. They can then add the items and pay in the same chat on your site.

A personalised basket and a discounted bundle are different offers. Define your bundle’s eligible products and discount rules so the price customers see matches the offer they can buy.

Testing Bundle Performance

Judge the bundle by take-up and margin per order, alongside its effect on single-item sales. A set that sells often can still reduce profit if it replaces full-price purchases.

Record a baseline before the offer begins. Compare similar traffic and sales periods, and change one part of the offer at a time. Keep a record of its contents, discount and placement so you know what produced each result.

Track the share of eligible shoppers who buy the bundle and the amount retained after product and fulfilment costs. Compare single-item sales of the included bestseller with the baseline. Also count slow-stock units sold, returns and incomplete sets caused by stock shortages.

Bundles often increase order value because customers buy several items together. The average order value guide covers the wider tactics. For this test, keep the focus on whether the set earns enough and moves the intended stock.

Keep the offer when it moves slow stock without breaching your margin floor. If take-up is low, test a more useful pairing before adding a larger discount. If take-up is strong but margin falls, reduce the saving or remove the extra fulfilment cost before expanding the bundle.