Cross Sells, Upsells, Upgrades!

Everyone wants to make more profit per sale. That’s the best way to increase your income without having to increase your traffic, advertising, or product offerings. There are many ways to do this – generally limited only by your imagination and your programmer’s skills. But there is one very common and easy way to get more out of each conversion…

Cross Selling

Actually I like to break it down further into cross selling, upselling, and upgrading. Most store platforms have at least some form of cross selling function available. Take advantage of it. Whether it is on your product pages or in your shopping cart you want to use it for everything you sell, it works. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let me first explain exactly what I’m talking about.

Products featured as “other items you might be interested in” or “other customers also bought” are commonly known as cross sells. They are on every product page in your store and/or your cart page. Cross sells are basically related items.

Products that are add-ons for another product are referred to as upsells. An example would be headphones for an MP3 player. A lot of people lump these in as cross sells, I’m not a big fan of that, I like to use both if applicable and keep them separated.

Upgrades may or may not apply to your products. It doesn’t have to be for electronics only, I sell swords that can be sharpened for an additional amount, I consider that an upgrade. Anything that is part of the product that can be customized or changed is an upgrade.

If you have the functionality in your store you should take the extra few seconds to set it up for each product. By making it simple for your customers to add other products they might want to their cart you’re increasing your chances of making a higher profit. These functions are helpful and shoppers like them – done right they can make shopping at your store more convenient which is something shoppers will remember and come back for.

Here are some examples of how I use cross selling, upselling, and upgrades in my stores.

Some platforms allow you to discount items that are offered as cross sells. For example, in the Armory I sell a cloth arming cap for medieval helmets. It sells for $17 if purchased alone but if a customer adds a helmet to the cart they have the opportunity to buy it for $15. This sort of incentive based cross selling is not only a great idea, it also works very well.

That cross sell takes place on the cart page but I like to have upsells on my product pages too. For instance on every one of my tapestry product pages I offer an option to add a rod to the order. I put it in a drop down box right next the order button, all the customer has to do is select from the box. It’s easy; the customer doesn’t have to even look around the page. You can go one step further and discount those add-on items to entice the customer into placing a bigger order.

I use this tactic with great success in the Armory. The pictures I use for my medieval clothing are mostly of a model in a full knight costume. So someone interested in the tunic being featured might also want the belt, crown, sword, or any of the other accessories that are pictured. So I offer these in a drop down just like I offer the rods on my tapestry site. When I started doing this my “average products per order” increased. Yours can too with very little effort.

Get cross selling going for your store, it is simple and incredibly important for your business. If your store platform doesn’t have a cross sell function see about getting a developer to create one for you. You can increase your profits without more traffic or more ads – just show your current customers what you have to offer and make it easy for them to buy it.

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