Cross-selling and up-selling practices can contribute to the growth of a business by increasing revenue, enhancing customer retention and loyalty, maximizing purchase value, providing upselling opportunities, and improving the overall customer experience.
Cross selling
Cross-sells are a functionality to provide recommendations to the shopper at or near the decision point to add-on related items to what they have selected in their cart.
For example if the customer is purchasing a sofa the cross sells could be matching end tables, pillows or end tables. If the shopper is purchasing a dress, cross sells could be accessories or shoes matching the dress. Virtually every product can have associated items which could be cross sold.
The reason cross-sells work is that the customer has already made a decision, or has short listed, to buy a product and is mentally more open to related items to what they have already committed to.
Cross-sells can even help the customer to complete purchase of the original product but creating a better deal overall and are frequently used on product pages, throughout the checkout process, and in lifecycle campaigns.
Cross-sells are designed in coordination with marketing and merchandising teams as well as finance to design acceptable margins.
A few situations in which cross-selling can be used effectively include During the product search process, At checkout and during promotions and sales. Basically it’s best practice to test cross-sells on different pages and screens and measure the performance as results can be different for your company.
As an example Amazon offers cross-selling suggestions on product pages, suggesting related products that customers may be interested in. For example, if a customer is browsing for a laptop, Amazon may suggest a laptop bag or accessories.
Your ecommerce platform should have the ability to provide cross-sell functionality or plug-ins to add it.
As product managers you can build the case for experimenting with cross sells and ultimately help your partner teams have self service capability to run cross-sells and track performance.
Upselling
As opposed to cross selling, upselling seeks to create additional demand for products and services from the same accounts that currently purchase them, but at a lower level.
Upselling efforts are almost always led by sales, and may be driven by a specific objective for a group of accounts or individual account planning.
Enhances the customer experience and fosters loyalty.
Upsells can be effective in increasing revenue and customer lifetime value for ecommerce businesses.
Upselling is a sales technique that encourages customers to spend more money by purchasing an upgraded or premium version of the product they originally intended to buy.
When a company suggests that a customer buy a more expensive or higher-end version of a product that they are already considering or have added to their cart, this is known as upselling.
Upsells are different from cross sells in that cross sells aim to sell related items to what the shopper wants without changing the original item but upsells aim to change the selected item entirely.
Both strategies can be applied in a variety of ways, such as showcasing related products in a post-purchase email, offering bundle discounts, or featuring suggested products on a product page.
By proposing pertinent items that fit their needs, upselling and cross-selling can be used to enhance income while also enhancing customer happiness.
Effective upsell use cases
An upsell can be offered suggesting related or complementary products that the customer may be interested in.
Suggest additional products that complement the items in the customer's cart. This can increase the value of the order and encourage the customer to make additional purchases.
After a purchase is completed, an upsell can be offered suggesting related or complementary products that the customer may be interested in.
Upsells can be offered based on the customer's behavior on the website, such as their search history or purchase history.
Upsells can be used during promotions and sales, offering discounted or bundled products that complement the items that the customer is already purchasing.