For aspirants in eCommerce industry who wish to make it big, merely cataloguing products and focusing on intelligent navigation will not suffice. It’s time to think out of the box. And this comes through the process of upsell and cross-sell strategy. Most of the digital businesses often do not care of this selling technique and lose revenue in the long run.

Why Upselling and Cross-selling?

The process is an art of introducing customers to complementary products that gets instant acceptance. According to Forrester research analyst, upsells and cross-sells strategy is responsible for an average of 10-30% of eCommerce revenue.  Every time a customer buys something, and if you fail to offer an upsell and cross-sell, you are definitely missing a great opportunity to increase your sale.

Surveys have revealed that both these strategies are useful in increasing revenues manifold. Also, the tool helps customers choose the high quality products when shopping online.

Here’s how it goes…

Let’s say a customer is looking at purchasing a camera

Upselling strategy: After selecting a camera, if customer is immediately presented with the option of buying a DSLR camera, the merchant is trying to persuade the customer to switch his purchasing decision to a more expensive product. Upselling is getting the customer to spend more money on the same type of product he initially intended to buy.

Cross-selling: Ones when the DSLR camera is purchased, if the customer is presented with options like a camera bag, additional lenses and memory card, it complements their existing purchase. When customers are offered additional products to support and complement the product that he has already decided to buy, the technique is called cross-selling. The special packages supporting the main item allow your customers to receive that extra at a special price. The strategy aims at getting a customer buy more products in addition to the original product he intended to buy from you.

In case of an online business, upselling and cross-selling includes showing the related and relevant products on order or product page.

The Core Difference

Upselling is about understanding the features of your more expensive products and how those features can be of great value and benefit to the customers. While cross-selling involves how the special packages supporting the main products allow your customers to acquire that extra they require at a special price.

Can You Upsell and Cross-sell everything?

Simply focusing on selling more and increasing the customer’s cart size isn’t always the right strategy. You need to understand what exactly your customers want. Consider what actually makes sense to show your customers and at which stage in the purchasing lifecycle.

Consider the three primary factors during Upsell and Cross-sell Method-

Relevance of the add-ons

Showing irrelevant additional products will unnecessarily confuse your customers. Make a list of your products and accessorize them with the compatible ones. Given a situation, customers will always need something besides the product he’s currently buying.

The greater familiarity your customers have with the additional item, the more likely they’re to buy.

Value for money

While you upsell and cross sell your products, do not increase the overall product order by more than 25 percent. Customer should feel the worth of every penny they spend.

Right time to approach

You don’t want to seem pushy with your products and on the contrary, you also don’t want to miss the window of opportunity. It is recommended to create triggered-based rules to showcase the right message at the right time.

Don’t exaggerate

Ones you know what to upsell and cross sell your customers, be tactful about it. Showing your customers heaps of unnecessary products, page after page will only confuse your customer’s acuity about your brand. This ultimately affects the overall conversion rates.

Are You Considering Upselling or Cross-selling?

Most of the retailers often remain confused as what to select – upselling or cross-selling. Research and analysis has revealed that consumers are more attracted to the upselling process than the cross-selling. It has been observed that they pay more attention to the pages that upsell the products. Studies have also revealed that 4% of the total online sales are usually driven by upselling strategy, whereas cross selling drives only 0.2%.

However, it has been noticed that cross sell is more effective when the products are presented on the checkout pages. It should not be ignored completely, but suggestions of the add-ons should be made more intelligently based on what the customers are buying, post purchase history and the amount they spend.

Measure your Performance

Analytic tools help in assessing the purchases that has already taken place and the trends associated with it. If a mother is buying diapers for her baby, she might buy other products related to infant care. This trend needs to be analyzed so that next time a mother clicks on a diaper in an online catalogue, she must get a pop-up of other products related to her baby care. These related products are quite useful for prospective customers.

Considering all these factors, plan your upsell and cross sell strategy to improve conversion rates as they’re effective drivers of additional revenue for your business.

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