About

KilgourMD sells scalp serums, shampoo, and conditioner for hair growth directly to consumers. The catalog is built around the long haul. Alongside single bottles of the Prevention and Treatment Scalp Serums at $89, the best-selling products are multi-month-supply bundles ranging from $150 to $700. Subscriptions account for roughly 70% of orders.

Challenge

Can an optional cart add-on raise order value without costing conversion?

When most of your revenue comes in on a recurring schedule, the usual ways to increase average order value no longer apply. Bundling, cross-sells, and free shipping thresholds all work by changing what a shopper puts in the cart, but in a subscription business, the cart is settled long before the shopper reaches it.

An optional add-on offers a way around that problem. It sells something adjacent to the order, so the product, the price, and the delivery cadence can all stay exactly where they are.

Onward's Checkout+ product works this way, offering shoppers a meaningful order upgrade that includes cashback, a satisfaction guarantee, and shipping protection, as a single, separate line item in the cart.

A long-standing assumption is that anything added before the checkout button costs you conversion, and that's why many brands never try an add-on at all.

Solution

KilgourMD tested adding an Onward Checkout+ protection product to the cart drawer using Intelligems

KilgourMD ran the integration as a controlled test rather than switching it on across the site.

The control group saw the standard cart drawer, with a plain "CHECK OUT" button and the Onward extension disabled. The variant group saw an "Onward Checkout+" shipping protection offer inserted above the cart footer at $3.95, with the checkout button relabeled "CHECKOUT+" and a "Continue Without Checkout+" opt-out link sitting directly beneath it.

Results

Order value rose across the board, and conversion held flat

Over a 38-day test with more than half a million visitors in each group, the lift held up.

Shoppers took the offer at a healthy rate, and the lift landed where it counts most for a subscription business.

• Average order value rose 1.9%.

• Conversion rate did not move, coming in at 1.97% against the control's 1.99%.

The flat conversion rate is what makes the rest of this usable. An add-on that lifts order value while quietly costing you buyers is not a win, and with more than half a million visitors in each group, there was ample data to detect a conversion penalty if one existed. Add-to-cart and checkout entry rates held steady too.

With a confirmed successful test result, KilgourMD can confidently move forward with Onward's platform, delivering meaningful profitability and LTV-driving enhancements to their customer experience.

Key Takeaways

• You can raise AOV without repricing anything. KilgourMD added a $3.95 item at the cart and left the subscription plan untouched. Most AOV tactics require changing what is in the box or its cost.

• What was offered mattered as much as where it sat. Onward's Checkout+ let KilgourMD offer shoppers a real order upgrade with tangible value: cashback, a satisfaction guarantee, and shipping protection bundled together. It also sat above the cart footer rather than in front of the checkout button, and declining took a single clearly labeled click.

• Test the app before you roll it out. KilgourMD had Checkout+ ready to switch on site-wide and ran it as a 50/50 test instead. That is the only reason they know what it cost them at checkout.