UPT ( Unit per transaction)

E-commerce indicator that measures the average number of items purchased per order.
It reflects the ability of a website or shopping experience to encourage users to add multiple products to their cart, thereby increasing the value of each transaction.

🔢 Formula:

UTP = Total number of units sold ÷ Total number of transactions

🎯 Why it's an important KPI:

UTP is a lever for incremental value: with constant traffic and conversion rates, increasing the number of items per order allows you to grow your revenue without additional acquisition efforts.
It also allows you to evaluate effectiveness:

• cross-sells,
• product packs or bundle offers,
• personalized recommendations,
• the design of product pages and the shopping cart.

📌 Examples of optimization influencing UTP:

• Adding complementary products as suggestions (“You may also like,” “Frequently bought together”),
• Promotional offers (“Buy 2, get 20% off,” “Free shipping on orders of 3 or more items”),
• Optimization of the shopping cart or checkout process to make adding products smoother,
• Product layout tests: e.g., more visuals, more explicit titles, variation in display order.

🔍 Role of UTP in A/B testing:

In an A/B test:

• UTP can be a secondary KPI for evaluating the quality of the basket generated by a variation.
• It is useful for detecting indirect effects of a change that is not visible in the conversion rate (e.g., the conversion rate does not change, but the average basket size increases).
• It can also become a key KPI in tests focused on upselling or merchandising strategies.

In a multivariate test (MVT), the UTP can be used to measure the cross-impact of:

• the order of products,
• the format of suggestions,
• the wording of the benefits.

✅ Best practices :

• Segment UTP by device, product type, or traffic source to identify specific purchasing behaviors.
• Analyze it in correlation with the average order value (AOV) to measure the actual added value.
• Do not confuse high UTP with profitability: a higher UTP can mask a decline in unit margins or an increase in returns if poorly managed.

📈 Strategic challenges:

• Increasing UTP optimizes the ROI of acquisition campaigns.
• It is also an indicatorof engagement with the product offering, revealing thealignment between merchandising and customer expectations.
• In a CRO context, UTP is an excellent complementary indicator to conversion rate for building a more detailed understanding of commercial performance.

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