Cross-Sell Strategy: How To Cross Sell on Shopify
"Would you like some fries with your order?" "Do you want to upgrade your order?"
A classic scenario of product upsell and cross-sell strategy that often goes unnoticed. Without pushing too hard, upselling and cross-selling create a two-way dialogue between the buyer and seller. This makes the interaction engaging and more personal.
However, in e-commerce, the absence of physical vendors who can assist and guide shoppers with upgrades and add-ons to increase average order value proves to be troublesome for store owners. So much so, that 74% of online retailers struggle to provide a dynamic, personalized shopping experience to their shoppers.
This raises several questions like:
- How do you take advantage of upselling and cross-sell strategy?
- What are the benefits of enhancing them?
Our article will provide tips in product upsell and cross-sell strategy that will increase your average order value (AOV), build customer loyalty, and boost revenue.
But what's the difference between product upsell and cross-sell?
Since both upsell and cross-sell aim to increase the AOV of your store, they are often used interchangeably. However, there are subtle differences between them that set them apart.
Product upselling:
When a vendor suggests upgrading to a superior product, usually in price, version or features, depending on the buyer's selection.
Cross-selling:
When a vendor suggests an add-on item that complements the products selected by the buyer.
Why should store owners use an upsell and cross-sell strategy?
To increase your AOV, upsell and cross-sell should be your ace in the sleeve. By implementing a cross-sell technique, you can increase revenue by up to 70%. Similarly, upsells drive up your sales by up to 35%.
To increase your sales, you should incorporate both of the strategies. Here is our guide to implementing the techniques and win-over your customers.
1. The Decoy Effect: make expensive products look like a steal
Customers don't often buy impulsively. They look around for the cheaper alternatives and seek out what they think will value their money. How can you ensure the profitability of your more expensive products? You shift their preferences towards two products by offering a third one. The Decoy Effect.
The Decoy Effect is used to upsell your pricier items by comparing their enhanced features with cheaper alternatives and asserting their dominance.
2. Upsell and cross-sell products by personalized recommendations
You can invest in setting up predictive analytics to predict your buyer's behaviour. You will be able to create personalized recommendations as per your customer's engagement history with your store.
The idea is to set up an algorithm that upsells and cross-sells certain products by analyzing the customer's browser and purchase history. The more data it will have, the more accurate the predictions will be.
3. Show substitute products for items out of stock
First-time buyers often leave the store in despair when the product they came to purchase is out of stock.
This can be an opportune moment to execute your cross-sell strategy. You can offer similar products from your store as substitutes or alternatives to the original product. But the goal is to prevent them from leaving empty-handed.
4. Always have the option to upgrade
The best way to offer an upsell is to provide buyers with a choice of upgrading their order. You give them a chance to update to a newer or higher version of the same product if they are willing to pay the extra premium.
Your objective here is to offer the best possible product for your customer and enable them to make a more significant purchase.
5. Bring back customers with product upsell and cross-sell emails
There's a 70% chance retargeted clients from abandoned carts will convert. The only question is, how do you bring them back.
Having an email strategy to target cart abandoners has several benefits - one of them being, offering products for upselling and cross-selling. Since these emails are focused on the customer, there is a high chance the customer will return to complete their order.
With an effective upsell and cross-sell strategy, you can rest assured that the buyer will return and increase your store's AOV.
Product upsell and cross-sell strategy can do wonders by increasing your average transaction size and sales. Even though our suggestions may sound extensive, they are proven to show results.
If you are looking to set up upsells and cross-sells on your new store and want a tool that can help you in the process, you should definitely consider Cartroids. Cartroids make it easy for you to create highly targeted upsells, cross-sells, and bundle offers, you know, will work.