When AOV stalls, most skincare brands reach for the same lever. Bundle a cleanser with a moisturizer, knock 15% off, and call it a strategy. It works for a week or two. Then the customer comes back expecting that price again, margin gets squeezed, and nothing about the shopping experience has actually changed.
The brands growing AOV without discounting aren't doing anything exotic. They've built their storefronts around the way skincare shoppers already think about products, which is as routines rather than individual items.
The AOV problem: why discounting is the wrong tool
Discounting to grow basket size creates two problems at once. First, you're paying for the add-on yourself. The customer adds the second product because it got cheap, not because they understood why it belonged in the cart. Second, you've set a new price anchor. Next visit, the discount is the reference point, and anything at full price feels off.
So you've bought an AOV bump for a week and made every future conversion more expensive. There's a better way to approach this.
How skincare shoppers think
Most ecommerce sites are organized around individual products. A shopper lands on a serum page, reads the copy, checks reviews, and either buys or bounces. Everything else in the catalog is a separate decision.
Skincare doesn't work that way. A shopper researching a vitamin C serum is also asking what they should use before it, what they should layer on top, whether it'll conflict with their retinol, whether they need a different moisturizer. The product isn't really the unit of decision. The routine is.
Most skincare PDPs treat the page like a single-product pitch when the shopper is trying to build a system: cleanser, serum, moisturizer, SPF. Morning routine. Evening routine. When the site helps with that, basket size moves on its own.
"You might also like" isn't a routine recommendation
There's a real difference between a generic cross-sell widget and a routine recommendation, and it's not a visual one.
A "you might also like" grid surfaces products from your catalog. A routine recommendation tells the shopper how your products work together. First is a suggestion, second is advice, and shoppers respond to those differently.
When a module on a vitamin C serum page says "for best results, pair it with these three products, here's why," it converts a single-product purchase into a multi-product one by being useful, not by nagging. AI-powered routine builders see a 38% lift in AOV over standard browsing. That's a sizable number on its own, and it gets more interesting once you factor in what happens on replenishment.
Three tests for routine building and cross-sell
Knowing this works doesn't tell you what to test on your specific store. These three are where most skincare brands see the fastest wins.
Test 1: "Complete Your Routine" module on PDP
Replace the generic recommendation widget with a step-based routine: Cleanse, Treat, Moisturize, Protect. Each step shows one recommended product and a short line on why it belongs with what the shopper is looking at.
Format matters here about as much as the product selection. A step-based routine reads like advice from someone who knows skincare. A four-across product grid reads like a catalog. Test the headline framing ("Complete Your Routine" vs. "The Full Protocol" vs. "Used Together"), the number of steps shown, and where the module sits on the page. Measure add-to-cart rate on the recommended products and session AOV.
Test 2: Routine bundle pricing
Skincare shoppers already understand sets. Morning routine, evening routine, starter kit. The test is whether a bundled price with a modest discount (10 to 15% off the combined total), framed as "Your Morning Routine," outperforms four separate product pages with cross-sell prompts.
What's actually happening in a bundle test is you're consolidating four decisions into one. The shopper evaluates the routine as a whole rather than each product against the next. Even with a small discount attached, this often outperforms individual cross-sells because it's a different kind of choice.
Test 3: Halo product pathways
Entry-level products are a funnel for routine building. A shopper who adds a $22 trial-size moisturizer is telling you they're interested in the brand. They haven't committed to a routine yet, and they're also not done shopping.
Test a post-add-to-cart recommendation showing the full routine with a path from trial size to full size to complete system. Measure both same-session AOV and 30-day repeat purchase rate. The trial is the opening. Whether it becomes a first routine purchase or a one-off depends on what you do with the next recommendation.
Where placement fits in
What's in the recommendation matters. So does where and when it shows up.
A routine module between the product description and reviews performs differently than the same module below the fold. A cart recommendation that appears after the shopper has committed performs differently than one that breaks the checkout flow. There usually isn't one right answer across brands, and there often isn't one right answer across SKUs within a brand. You sort it out through testing. The framework is portable; the specifics are yours to find.
Replenishment changes the math
The 38% AOV lift is worth chasing on its own. What makes routine building durable is what happens over the next twelve months.
A customer who buys a three-step routine replenishes three products on roughly the same cycle. A customer who bought one product replenishes one. Over a year, routine buyers are worth considerably more, not because you discounted anything, but because they understood how to use more of your catalog from the first order.
This connects to paid acquisition economics too. When cross-sell strategy raises average customer value, CAC targets can move with it. Routine recommendations aren't just a PDP decision, they shape what you can afford to pay for traffic.
Hear from Rebuy's Adnan Shah at the Skincare CRO Master Class
Adnan Shah from Rebuy is leading the Pillar 3 section of the Skincare CRO Master Class on May 7. He'll cover routine building, cross-sell strategy, and halo product pathways with data from Rebuy's skincare and beauty client base, and walk through what the testing sequence looks like across different catalog types.
If AOV optimization is on your 2026 roadmap, this is the session to attend.
Register for the Skincare CRO Master Class. May 7, 11AM ET.
