A $9 spoon moved average order value by half.
We built the Shopify store and ran paid media, social, SMS and email for a year. The largest single gain came from the least glamorous work on the list: rebuilding what happens between adding a tin to the cart and paying for it.
Selling a luxury occasion, not just a tin on a shelf.
Royal Touch Caviar is a New Jersey-based luxury eCommerce brand selling premium domestic and imported caviar overnight, from $125 single tins to four-figure celebration sets. They reached out to us to build a dedicated Shopify store and manage full-service growth across paid ads, email, and SMS.
We rebuilt the entire post-add-to-cart experience around how host-buyers actually shop. Over a 12-month full-service engagement, stacked upsell mechanics and occasion-based packaging drove a +50% lift in Average Order Value and a +20% increase in Conversion Rate.
Nobody wakes up wanting caviar.
They want a New Year's Eve that goes well. An anniversary that lands. A wedding table people photograph. The tin is a means to an occasion, and it arrives once, overnight, packed in ice, for a date that cannot move.
That shapes everything. It's a considered purchase with a deadline, made by someone who is usually buying it for the first time and is quietly worried about getting it wrong.
-
First-time buyers, high anxiety
Most people ordering caviar online have never done it. Will it arrive frozen? Will it taste fishy? How much do I need for eight people? Every unanswered question is a reason to close the tab and buy champagne instead.
-
The order is one tin, and it shouldn't be
Someone hosting eight people needs blinis, crème fraîche and something to serve it with. If the store doesn't tell them that, they find out on the night, and the experience is worse for it.
-
The date is the whole purchase
Perishable overnight delivery for a fixed occasion. Arriving a day early is nearly as bad as a day late, and uncertainty about timing kills the order outright.
-
Paid traffic to a page that sells a tin
You can buy attention for a luxury food product. Converting it profitably at a $125 order value is much harder than at $400, which makes basket size a media efficiency problem, not just a merchandising one.
Four upsell mechanics, all running at once.
Most stores have one lever: free shipping over a threshold. We built four that stack: a reward ladder in the cart, quantity discounts for buying more of the same, bundle pricing that beats assembling it yourself, and contextual add-ons at the moment the item goes in. Any one of them moves the number a little. Together they moved it by half.
- Imperial Ossetra from $129
- Imperial Beluga Hybrid from $125
- Hosting Set, 4–6 people $495
- Celebration Set, 6–10 $745
- Grand Celebration, 8–20 from $1,075
- Mother-of-pearl spoon $9.00
- Crème fraîche, 8oz $20.00
- French mini blinis $22.50
- Foie gras mousse $97.00
- Whole duck foie gras $165.00
Beside a $495 basket, a $9 spoon and $22.50 of blinis read as free. That contrast is the merchandising, and it only works because the anchor is high enough to make everything else look small.
Quantity discounts on the same product
Buying more of what they already chose is the easiest upsell there is: no new decision, no new product to evaluate. Caviar keeps for weeks unopened, so a second tin isn't waste, and a host planning one occasion frequently has another coming.
Buy 2, get the 3rd free: add 3 tins, code 50MOREBundle pricing that beats assembly
The sets are cheaper than buying the same components individually, and the saving is shown. That converts “which tin do I want” into “which set is the right size”, a question with a bigger answer and less anxiety attached.
20% off all bundles and sets: code CELEBRATEContextual add-ons at the moment of adding
Blinis, crème fraîche and spoons surface as the tin goes into the cart, not buried in a “you may also like” row further down. The customer is already thinking about serving it; that is the only moment the suggestion is genuinely useful rather than an interruption.
$9 spoon · $20 crème fraîche · $22.50 blinisEach one catches a different buyer
The threshold ladder catches people close to a reward. Quantity discounts catch people who already know what they want. Bundles catch the undecided. Contextual add-ons catch everyone at the moment of highest intent.
Running one is a tactic. Running four that don't cannibalise each other is why the number moved by half rather than a few percent.
We stopped selling tins and started selling evenings.
The highest-value products on the site aren't caviar. They're occasions with a headcount attached: “Hosting Set, 4 to 6 people” at $495, “Celebration Set, 6 to 10” at $745, “Grand Celebration, 8 to 20” from $1,075.
Each contains both varieties, plus crème fraîche, blinis and spoons. A customer who couldn't tell you the difference between Ossetra and Beluga can still tell you how many people are coming, so the set answers the question they can actually answer.
-
Bundles as SKUs, not as add-ons
A bundle offered at checkout is a discount request. A bundle that is the product is a purchase decision. These sets have their own pages, their own photography, and their own reviews.
-
Headcount instead of grams
“4 to 6 people” is a question a host can answer instantly. “250g” requires knowing that a tasting portion is 5–10g per person, which is the kind of research that ends in a closed tab.
-
“Try Both” removes the choice
The most common first-time hesitation is Ossetra or Beluga. The sets contain both, which converts an anxious decision into a bigger order.
-
A comparison tool for the undecided
An interactive flavour profile (bead size, texture, saltiness) for people who'd rather choose than be told. It resolves the same hesitation from the other direction.
Answering the questions that stop the order.
Conversion rate rose a fifth, and almost none of that came from testing button colours. It came from removing specific, nameable reasons people were leaving.
“Will it arrive on the right day?”
A delivery date picker at checkout. For a product bought for a fixed occasion, this is the single most important control on the site: it turns the anxiety of an overnight perishable into a feature.
“Will it taste fishy?”
The most common first-timer fear, answered directly in the FAQ and in a blog post written for exactly that search. Over-salting masks poor quality; saying so builds more trust than another adjective would.
“How much do I need?”
Grams per person, by occasion type: tasting, appetiser, full indulgence. It answers the question and, incidentally, tends to move people up a size.
“How do I keep it fresh?”
Storage, shelf life, why not to freeze it, why to use a bed of ice. Buying something you might ruin is a real hesitation, and instructions on the product page remove it before it forms.
“Is this the real thing?”
Malossol explained, sourcing named, sustainability certified. Nineteen FAQs in total: an unusual amount of copy for a luxury store, and the right amount for a category where most buyers are new.
“Has anyone else done this?”
Verified reviews on every product, averaging above 4.8. For a first-time purchase at several hundred dollars, other people's New Year's Eves are the proof that matters.
What we ran for twelve months.
Four workstreams, one team. Each links through to how we run it.
The Shopify store
Full build: theme, product architecture, bundle SKUs, cart mechanics, delivery date picker, reviews, loyalty. Everything described above is infrastructure, not a plugin someone switched on.
Shopify web design AcquirePaid media & social
Search and social, weighted heavily toward the fourth quarter and the run-up to Valentine's Day. A gifting product with two enormous seasonal peaks needs a budget curve, not a flat monthly spend.
eCommerce PPC RecoverSMS & email automation
Abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase care instructions, and occasion-triggered reminders. On a considered purchase with a deadline, recovery flows carry disproportionate weight.
SMS marketing ReturnRetention
A loyalty programme, gift certificates, and a wholesale channel: because a customer whose New Year's Eve went well is the cheapest revenue available the following December.
Email marketingAll of this is still running.
Everything described above is live on rtcaviar.com today. You can add a tin to the cart and watch the ladder work.
The reward ladder, live. The progress indicator updates as items go in: free shipping, then the spoon, then the jar.
A bundle as a product. Priced by headcount, with both varieties and the accompaniments included.
Pick your delivery date. The control that turns a perishable's biggest risk into a reason to buy.
Where's your basket leaking?
Give us read access to your store and analytics. We'll show you what your average order value could be, which thresholds you're missing, and whether the real problem is traffic or basket size. Findings are yours whether you hire us or not.
Read-only access · No obligation · Findings are yours to keep