Up-selling and cross-selling: The Reference Guide

Online shoppers normally come to the store with the aim to buy a particular product but often finish up by purchasing more than that. This is what we call as up-selling and cross-selling strategies.

Generally speaking, the up-sell and cross-sell are two strategies that can result in boosting average cost per order and thus the sales revenue, if accomplished correctly.

Before moving into the details, let's understand each of them clearly with differences. For better understanding, we'll take the reference of Magento eCommerce store for practical considerations.

So, let's begin with cross-selling.

Getting a customer to spend more on the eCommerce store is the prime priority in eCommerce. Here cross-selling comes into the picture. In cross-selling, the customer is provided with the suggestions that are directly related to the product the customer is about to purchase. These related products are generally showcased before/on the checkout page.

Let's see this in the real-life scenario. Suppose you navigated to a Magento e-commerce store to purchase shoes. After rendering the variety, you finally come to the selection. The game begins, when you are finalizing the product. During this short span of time, the customer is provided with the range of highly related products (for example pair of socks, shoe polish, slippers, etc).

Now, it's the general human behavior that customer will at least have a look at these related products. If the conditions are favorable, there is a huge probability that the customer will grab these related products in the cart.

In this way, the customer who came with the intention to buy shoes ends up purchasing some related products in addition to shoes. To elaborate, the Magento store owner was able to increase the value per sale. Over time, the cross-sell strategy has huge sales potential when implemented carefully in accordance with generic user behavior.

The cross-selling in Magento e-commerce does not involve much overhead. The store admin just has to install the Magento Auto related products Extension that will cater to all the needs.

This Magento 2 Extension provides a range of features that can be used to provide highly-customized and user-centric related products to the customers. Clearly, the store owners successfully hiked value per order. So, what are you waiting for, grab Auto-Related Magento 2 Extension on DISCOUNT now. LIMITED OFFER!!

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Now that we have hands-on knowledge on cross-selling, it's the time to proceed towards up-selling.

Up-selling is yet another sales technique aiming to convince the customers to purchase a more expensive, upgraded or premium version of the chosen product. The cross-selling can be assumed as a subset of up-selling. In up-selling, along with cross-selling, the customer is introduced to a premium or higher capable product soon the purchase is made.

Let's jump to the real-life example. Consider the same example quoted while cross-selling.

In the case of cross-selling, the customer was offered related products to the shoes (for example a pair of socks, shoe polish, slippers, etc). In the case of up-selling, the customer will soon be proposed with another higher product such as better quality shoes, slippers, etc. This constitutes the up-selling process.

Therefore, e-commerce businesses combine upselling and cross-selling techniques in an attempt to increase order value and maximize profit.

Now that we are clear with cross-selling and up-selling, let's review the implementation of up-selling and cross-selling strategies.

For the purpose of cross-selling, the store owners need to carefully display related products. In Magento Store, the auto-related products Magento extension enables the user to do that with a wide range of filters. The only need is the strategy to show related products.

Up-selling success is based on the understanding customer's needs to make the shopping experience more enjoyable. The up-selling should always make the customers feel like they won.

Here are some up-selling strategies.

1. Follow up emails to introduce potential customers to the featured premium product.
2. Incentivize upsells with reward points. Eg. offer free shipping or a discount on future purchases.
3. Ensure the product you’re trying to upsell is within a reasonable price range.
4. The customer data to personalize the offer as much as possible to suggest the product that really provides value to the customers.
5. Educate customers on the risks and missed opportunities, of not taking advantage of.
6. Utilize the right time and language for communication to convey the risk of not buying the recommended product.
7. Convey a good range of similar products but never overwhelm the customer with choices.

So, this was all for a successful attempt to up-selling and cross-selling. The implementation of these strategies will not generate over results over time, but yes, in the matter of some time, these strategies have the potential to turn up the sales revenue.

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