Online business is all about selling your products and services to your target customers as well as whoever visits your site. Cross-selling and Up-selling are related to the primary function of selling of course and helps in generating revenue.
To thrive in this competitive online market, you need to make these two functions an intricate part of your sales strategy and exploit them to their full potential. But before we begin, let us understand what we exactly mean by Cross-selling and Up-selling.
Up-Selling is giving the same product to the customer he is looking for but with the upgraded version. For e.g.: Buy a phone from me and I’ll offer you a better one for 200 bucks more: the better phone is an up-sell. It is a strategy to sell a superior and more expensive version of the same product the customer is willing to invest in.
When you offer related services with the phone like data card, phone case or selfie stand, it can be termed as cross-sell. This strategy is applied when you have related products with what customer is already in the mood of buying. Offering a phone case or data card makes sense if the customer is buying a new phone. This will save his time and effort in looking for similar complimentary products elsewhere.
Why it is important:
Well-planned and executed up-selling and cross-selling techniques can enhance the revenues by selling more products to the same customer. It not only benefits the business owner but also improves the customer’s shopping experience. They can buy relevant products in one go and do not have to search again and again.
By effectively up-selling and cross-selling you can suggest the right products to the customers and help them make the right decision by giving them ample choices to choose from.
For example, cross-selling batteries with products that do not come with batteries is the surest way of making a sale. Consumers do not want to go to the local market separately for buying batteries. This will increase the total cart value as well as the customer can use the product immediately as soon as they receive.
Which one should you focus on – Cross-selling or Up-selling:
It is natural to get confused about which one to focus on. You do not want to bombard your customers with too many recommendation and pop-ups while they are making a purchase. This habit will refrain customers from buying even the products they are interested in. So, what type of recommendations should you focus on? Should you up-sell to show more expensive products in the same category, or should you cross-sell by offering them related and complimentary items?
According to a research, up-selling performs 20 times better than cross-selling and drives over 4% of total online sales, versus just 0.2% of sales contribute by cross-selling strategy.
However, when it comes to checkout pages, cross-selling is much more effective when. Cross-selling can drive sales by 3% as compared to Up-selling on product pages.
Therefore, in our opinion, you should focus on both types of selling and give your customers the freedom to choose wisely. Maintain a balance between the two and let your consumers buy your products peacefully without being disturbed.
What should you Cross-sell and Up-sell:
In the race to sell more products, the business owners eventually lose the purpose of up-selling and cross-selling. Focusing on just increasing the cart value isn’t right, to begin with, instead, the focus should be on improving the customer experience. The customer will have no choice but to come back to your site for further shopping.
Compelling your customers to visit again by improved services and quality is a better way than bombarding them with shallow offers.
Strategize carefully about what makes sense to show your customers at which point in the purchase lifecycle. Not showing the right and relevant products at the right time will decrease your chances of conversion and will not enhance the customer’s shopping experience in any way. This will ultimately affect your revenue in the long run.
The other two factors that should be considered while you avail up-sell and cross-sell opportunities to your visitors are:
Value:
Create value addition through up-sell and cross-sell. Allowing the consumer to choose products that are relevant yet not very expensive will ensure a purchase. Increasing the cart value to more than double will only deter the consumer from buying products from your site. Try to choose products that do not increase the cart value more than 25 percent when choosing up-sell and cross-sell products to display.
Familiarity:
Choose products that the consumer is familiar with taking into consideration their past searches and purchases. Drastically different products create confusion and unfamiliarity serve no one. They are more likely to buy products they are greatly familiar with.
Conclusion : Don’t Overdo It
Always be tactful in applying your up-sell and cross-sell strategy on your customers. Do not overwhelm your customers with hitting them on every page to buy similar or relevant products. This will degrade their smooth shopping experience which they came for on your site and will ruin your reputation as well.
Learn to know your customers better before suggesting them your products. Understand their buying capacity, requirements, and frequency of purchases made in the past to start advising them on new products which they might like.
These practices will make you the first choice for consumers looking to buy goods online as compared to your competitors and their word of mouth will not only promote your products but also your brand and services.
For a further understanding of how you can make the most of the Up-sell and Cross-sell strategy, contact our experts at Webbee Global which is a renowned name in e-commerce development services for clients across the globe.
The consultants and developers at WebBee have the profound knowledge, experience, and expertise in dealing with varied e-commerce projects for designing, development, mobile applications, and marketing strategies. WebBee helps you to improve your e-commerce conversion rate and Shopify Development, Magento Website Development with complete e-commerce solution.
