Looking to upsell in 2020?

As a business, getting more from the customers who are already purchasing from you is a great way to boost your sales, increase your AOV and encourage higher value transactions. But the word ‘upsell’ itself is just a buzzword – if you’re not doing it right, or you’re not using it to its maximum potential, you could be alienating customers, instead of encouraging them. Take a look at our top tips and tricks for nailing the upsell below.

Upsell vs cross-sell – what’s the difference?

Upselling and cross-selling are used interchangeably, but do you know the difference? Get familiar with the terms before we get into the nitty gritty tips for you to try yourself!

Upselling is when you persuade a customer to upgrade their product or buy a more expensive version of it.

For example, if you sell cars, you may offer personalisation for an extra cost. Or, if you sell services, you may promote a more expensive package.

Cross-selling is suggesting other relevant products people can try. A cross sell might be suggesting recommended products to a customer when they purchase or add to their basket. For example, if a customer buys a Notebook, you may cross-sell other stationery products at the same time, like planners or diaries.

What about a bundle?

Bundle packages are a great way to encourage customers to buy more in the same order (think: 3 for two, or a specially curated package of products), but is a bundle a cross-sell, or an upsell? Well, it’s a bit of a grey area, but if you package related items together and show that it’s better value, you can definitely increase your sales of all the items in the bundle.

Cross sell, upsell or bundle?

Ok, now you’re up to speed, let’s look at some top tips for actually making the upsell (or cross-sell).

Find the opportunities

The more opportunities you offer, the ore chance you’ll have of getting your customers to take one.

Have a think about where you could offer an upsell – for example, if you sell online you may want to add an upsell to:

• Product pages
• Checkout pages
• In your regular email communications
• As an alert when they’ve added a product to basket

If you sell in store, consider displaying similar items together and calling out the USPs of each, or offering help in-person to help them decide.

If you offer services, a great way to upsell is by showing a side-by-side comparison of the services on offer, for example Mailchimp use a pricing breakdown to compare their services. It’s easy to see the benefits of upgrading.

Mailchimp’s pricing structure is a clear example of upseling based on benefits

Use recommendations

Recommending a product is a great way to upsell. Sites like Amazon use tactics like recommending similar products that other customers have bought, encouraging customers to make extra purchasing decisions.

If you’re able to add this function, it’s a great way to add some social proof – you could even pull in reviews and comments about the product on offer.

How to use product reccomendations

Offer free delivery

Offering free delivery is a proven way to boost sales and AOV. By showing a customer how much more they need to spend to reach a threshold to qualify for free delivery incentivises them to spend more.

This may work best as a cross-selling method, as they’re more likely to add other items to their cart, but if a higher priced version of their product would help them hit the threshold for free delivery, this is a good place to highlight it!

Banded delivery options encourage customers to spend more

Got any tips to share on upselling? Let us know over on social!

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