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Setting a minimum cart total threshold can help increase profitability and encourage larger-sized purchases in your online store. In this in-depth tutorial, I’ll walk you through the steps to define WooCommerce minimum order price limits — no coding skills required.
I’ve seen many variations of these questions:
- How to set a minimum order price in WooCommerce?
- How to set a minimum order amount in WooCommerce?
- How to set a minimum order total in WooCommerce?
- How to set the minimum cart value in WooCommerce?
They all mean the same. So, in this in-depth guide, I’ll walk you through the steps to define a minimum threshold amount customers must spend to place orders in your online store.
WooCommerce doesn’t include built-in options for defining minimum order amount limits, so we’ll set this up using the robust Min/Max Quantity for WooCommerce plugin.
But first, let’s understand the fundamentals: what does it mean to implement a minimum order price restriction in WooCommerce?
What is the minimum order price in WooCommerce?
A minimum order price (or minimum order amount) in WooCommerce is the lowest total a customer’s cart must reach before they can complete their purchase. If their cart total is below this threshold, they won’t be able to complete the checkout process.
Any kind of WooCommerce store can define minimum order price limits. However, they are most commonly used by:
- Retail stores that sell a lot of low-margin products.
- Wholesale businesses that sell in bulk.
- Stores that offer free shipping.
Minimum order price vs. minimum quantity limits
When defining purchase thresholds in your WooCommerce store, you can set limits based on order price or product quantity.
A WooCommerce minimum order price restriction makes it mandatory for customers to spend a certain amount before they can successfully place their orders. For example, a store that sells gourmet coffee can set a $30 minimum order requirement. If a customer adds only a $12 bag of Cuban coffee to their cart, they’ll be nudged to add more products before they can complete the purchase.
A WooCommerce minimum quantity limit, on the other hand, makes it mandatory for customers to buy a certain number of product units per order — either per product, per category, or storewide. A common example is stores that sell custom-printed t-shirts and require a minimum order of 10 shirts per design. If a customer tries to buy just 5, they won’t be able to check out.
Both kinds of purchase threshold restrictions are effective at keeping your profit margins intact, covering operational and order fulfillment costs, and enforcing wholesale purchase rules in an ecommerce store.
Why set a minimum order price in WooCommerce?
Here are the most common reasons why WooCommerce stores across various niches decide to implement minimum cart total thresholds.
To prevent unprofitable orders
Regardless of the order amount, there are fixed costs — think: payment gateway fees, packaging, shipping, and handling costs — associated with processing every ecommerce order. Without a minimum order price limit, small-value orders can quickly eat into your profit margins.
To encourage larger purchases
Defining a WooCommerce minimum order price nudges customers to add more items to their carts, thereby increasing your store’s average order value (AOV). For example, if your store sells handmade candles and you set a $30 minimum order amount, a customer who originally intended to buy just one $18 candle might add another to meet the minimum cart amount threshold.
To cover free shipping or delivery costs
Free shipping is free for customers…because store owners factor it into order fulfillment costs. If your store offers free shipping or local delivery, you’ll quickly find that processing a large number of small orders can eat into your profits. Defining a reasonable minimum cart amount threshold customers must meet to qualify for free shipping ensures it remains a viable perk.
To enforce wholesale or B2B purchase requirements
It’s pretty common for stores that primarily cater to wholesale customers to have lower margins per item. The low margins are offset by the bulk orders. Setting a WooCommerce minimum order price restriction prevents small, retail-level purchases and keeps your business focused on customers who buy in bulk.
Introducing the best WooCommerce minimum order price plugin
Min/Max Quantity for WooCommerce is a powerful plugin that makes it easy to set minimum order amount limits in WooCommerce.
Thousands of WooCommerce stores use it to enforce a minimum purchase amount for wholesale customers, limit low-value orders to save on shipping costs, ensure bulk purchases for profitability, and much more.
Once set up, it validates customers’ carts in real-time to make sure that they meet the defined rules. Customers whose carts don’t meet the rules are shown an error notification directing them to adjust their carts.
Best of all, this WooCommerce minimum order price plugin is ridiculously simple to use and packed with heaps of features which we’ll review in detail below.
Standout features
Set minimum order amount thresholds
It lets you define a minimum cart threshold all customers must meet before they can complete checkout. Customers whose carts are less than the threshold amount will be shown the custom error message to prompt them to add more or higher-value items.
Customize error messages for a better user experience (UX)
How you communicate WooCommerce minimum order price restrictions matters. Min Max enables you to customize the error message shown to shoppers who don’t meet the minimum order amount. You can tweak it to add useful notifications to direct customers to add more items to their carts to meet the threshold.
In addition, it lets you decide whether to show it on the product detail and cart pages to help you preserve your site’s user experience and prevent customer frustration.
Hide the checkout button for failed cart validation
You can choose to hide the “Proceed to checkout” button from the cart page in situations where customers’ carts don’t meet the minimum threshold amount. If you enable this, customers simply won’t see the checkout button until they meet the requirements.
Exclude products
Another option is to prevent specific products from being included in the WooCommerce minimum order price calculation. For example, if you sell both physical and digital products, you can exclude digital downloads from the minimum order limits, as there are no order fulfillment costs.
Additional useful features
Together with these core functions, Min/Max Quantity for WooCommerce includes a bunch of extra, useful features that make managing price and quantity restrictions effortless. Features like:
- Minimum and maximum quantity requirements for individual products, categories, or the entire cart.
- Default quantity limits, i.e., automatically change the starting quantity for products from 1 to a higher number.
- Step quantity increments, i.e., require purchases in defined fixed increments (e.g., customers can only buy in multiples of 5).
- Quantity button styles to change the design of the quantity selector on product detail pages.
- Start and end dates and times to schedule restrictions. Note: that this is only available when you set product or category-specific quantity rules.
How to set the minimum order value in WooCommerce
In this section, I’ll walk you through the process of setting minimum order price restrictions in your WooCommerce store. I’ll also demonstrate how to tailor the messages displayed to customers to prompt them to add more or higher-value items to their carts to meet the minimum order total threshold. We’ll configure everything using the Min/Max Quantity for WooCommerce plugin.
Prefer a video walkthrough? Check out the tutorial below for a detailed guide. Otherwise, keep reading for step-by-step instructions.
Step 1: Set the minimum order amount in WooCommerce
- Get the free or pro version of Min/Max Quantity for WooCommerce.
- In your site’s admin panel, go to Dotstore Plugins → Min/Max Quantity → Settings → General. This page is where you can define the minimum cart total requirement for all products in your store.
- Enter the minimum price you want to enforce in the “Min Order Value” field. For example, if you want customers to spend at least $50 before checkout, enter 50 in this field.
- If you’d like to exclude certain products from being counted towards the minimum order price threshold, scroll to the “Exclude Product” section.
- To make sure customers can’t attempt to start the checkout process if their carts don’t meet the minimum threshold, toggle on the “Hide Checkout Button” option.
- Finally, hit the “Save changes” button at the end of the page.
Step 2: Customize the minimum order price threshold error message
- From within Dotstore Plugins → Min/Max Quantity in your site’s admin panel, go to Settings → Messages.
- Enter the custom message in the “Min order value not reached message” field. This will be shown to customers on the cart page if their cart total doesn’t meet the set threshold.
- Press “Save changes” once done.
Bonus: Feel free to modify and use the below sample error messages:
- “Your order must be at least $50 to proceed to checkout. Add more items to continue.”
- “Oops! Your current order total is below the required minimum of $100 for wholesale purchases.”
- You’re just $10 away from free shipping! Add one more item to qualify.”
Step 3: Show minimum order thresholds on the single product and cart pages
- From within Dotstore Plugins → Min/Max Quantity in your site’s admin panel, go to Settings → Display Rules.
- Select where you’d like the minimum order rules to appear on product detail pages — either above or below the “Add to Cart” button.
- Optional: You can show a custom heading or message above the minimum order rules.
- Once you’ve configured the settings, click Save Changes to apply them.
Take a look at the example below of the WooCommerce minimum order price threshold rules on the cart page of a demo WooCommerce website.
Factors that define the minimum order amount in WooCommerce
Setting the wrong minimum spend threshold could hurt conversions instead of boosting revenue in your WooCommerce store. Here are the most important factors to consider before enforcing a minimum cart total requirement.
Customers’ shopping habits
Your WooCommerce minimum order price needs to align with how customers typically shop in your store. If, for example, most customers spend around $40 per order, setting a $50 minimum could push them to add one more item. But if they typically spend $20 per order, directly enforcing a $50 minimum spend will more likely chase them away.
Minimum profitability
If you plan to offer free shipping, what is the least amount customers would have to spend per order that completely covers packaging, payment processing, shipping, operations, and other order fulfillment costs?
Competitors’ pricing strategy
If your main competitors offer lower or no minimum spend requirements, customers might choose them over you. Even if they do, it’s a good idea to comb through customer reviews to get a sense of how their customers feel about the minimum cart totals.
You can also choose to offer additional value competitors don’t provide (think: free shipping, a discount, exclusive perks, etc.) to offset potential negative reactions from customers about minimum spend requirements.
Type of products
Many stores that sell both physical and digital items from the same storefront tend to count only physical products towards the minimum order amount threshold. This is because virtual products (think: ebooks, music, digital artwork, software, etc.) require nominal order fulfillment costs. Whereas, there are costs to store, ship, and fulfill orders for physical products.
How to use order total minimums to skyrocket your sales
Now that you’ve decided on a WooCommerce minimum order price threshold, combine these tips to skyrocket your store’s revenue.
Create product bundles
Bundling related or complementary items naturally increases the product cost and makes it easier for customers to hit the minimum order threshold amount.
For example, if the minimum order amount is $50, you can create multiple bundles priced just above that so customers can meet the threshold without having to add single quantities of additional items.
Tie discounts to minimum amount thresholds
Instead of offering discounts on all purchases, tying them to the minimum order threshold prompts customers to spend more to qualify for savings.
Keep in mind though, that you structure your discounts in a way that feels like a reward, not a restriction. For example, if your store’s minimum order threshold is $60, you can offer 10% off on orders above $75.
Tie perks to minimum amount thresholds
Similar to discounts, tying perks (think: free shipping, VIP privileges, priority support, bonus loyalty points, free samples, etc.) to minimum order thresholds can motivate customers to spend more to access exclusive benefits.
Define a WooCommerce minimum order price threshold
Setting a minimum cart total that customers must hit before they can successfully complete checkout can help prevent lots of small orders that eat into your profits, encourage larger purchases, enforce B2B purchase requirements, and more.
Even though WooCommerce doesn’t include the option to set minimum order price thresholds, you can easily set this up in your store using the powerful Min/Max Quantity for WooCommerce plugin.
Min/Max Quantity for WooCommerce is super simple to use. It enables you to set minimum and maximum order limits, display threshold amounts on product details, and customize error messages shown to customers whose carts don’t meet the set thresholds.
Plus, you can use it to change the default quantity, define step quantity increments, modify the quantity button style, and more.
Get the Min/Max Quantity for WooCommerce plugin and set up the minimum cart threshold amount in minutes!
Min/Max Quantity for WooCommerce
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