9 Best Ways to Strategically Upsell and Cross-sell your Products in 2022

Upselling and cross-selling are interesting and captivating ways to hook your customers. By offering higher-end products or combo-products you deliver a satisfied and wholesome buying experience. While cross-selling and upselling are profitable sales techniques, many of the online sellers who either sell through their e-store, marketplace or both, are not aware of the what, why, and how of upselling and cross-selling strategies. 2022 has begun and to ensure a successful selling experience, here is everything you need to know about Upselling and Cross-selling strategies.

What is Cross-selling?

Cross-selling means selling products or items related to the product searched or demanded by your shopper on your online store. Through cross-selling, you pitch the complementary products that will make a product complete and buying experience more wholesome. Cross-selling is often prevalent under the heading of ‘You may also like’ or ‘related items.

What is Upselling?

Upselling is different and focuses on a different sales objective. Upselling means selling the ‘UP’ or ‘BETTER’ option of the same category of product. Strategy of Upselling helps a shopper to land up to the better quality of the same product category but at a relatively higher price while browsing on your e-store. Upselling targets customers with higher spending history.

What are some best examples of cross-selling and upselling?

Example of cross-selling:

Being sellers yourself, you must have come across your own competitors or big brands offering complementary products to the customers through their online websites or e-stores. For example:

mCaffeine offers several coffee-based beauty products like soap, face-wash, etc. Look how they cross-sell their products:

When searched for a Face Wash, they pitched related products like body scrub, cleansing cream, and body wash.

Let’s look into another example:

Here is how Myntra makes buying experience interesting and colorful.

When searched for an outfit, all that could be complementary to the product was shown below. A watch, a hairband, a sunglass, or a kitten-heeled flip flop can be some of the next products a customer would also search for. Before a shopper makes so much effort, Myntra knows how to deliver them what they need or generate that need if they have not thought of it. Cool! Isn’t it?

Examples of Upselling:

Amazon marketplace is one of the finest marketplaces to see how upselling is done, here is an example of the flower pot. When searching for a flower pot, the recommendations followed below are a perfect example of Upselling;

You can see how flower pots of better color, design, quality, and also in price are pitched. Look at the first one, it costs around 1,463 INR which is more in price than the one initially clicked on.
Also, none of the prices are far away from the clicked product’s price, do you know why? Well! This is one of the strategies to keep your customer hooked up about which you will be reading in a short while.

Let’s look into another example of Etsy. This is how this creative platform uses the upselling strategy when searched for Coasters.

You can see the varieties offered. Not only that with each better design and color but the prices are also kept high. With captivating options, a customer will automatically agree to pay an extra few bucks to get a better one than one click. Mission Accomplished!

What are the benefits of Cross-selling or Upselling sales strategies?

Upselling and cross-selling are revenue boosters when applied to the right customer at the right time. Cross-selling and upselling have been in the recent trends and customers are now interested in looking into different options and collections an e-store has to offer. Let’s see what additional benefits can be leveraged by eCommerce sellers through cross-selling and upselling sales strategies:

Unfurling Better Options

Through cross-selling and upselling you allow shoppers to view other better products in your e-store. They find some unexpected and delightful items which they might have not thought of finding. This adds to their shopping experience on your online website.

Improves Shopping Experience

Suggesting better products is another way of helping your customers find just the right product for their satisfaction. Through cross-selling, you ensure that a customer gets everything that allows him to use that particular product in the best way.
For example, if a customer looks for a book, you can also show a table lamp or paperweight or a marker or a bookmark.

Increases Conversion Rates

These strategies are very helpful as far as conversion rates are concerned. More options in terms of better quality and quantity ensure customers of making the right investment.
With changing trends in Online shopping, customers love to see reviews, stars of customers before buying any product. Backing your cross-selling and upselling options with reviews, stars, and comments of converted buyers can further make your cross-selling and upselling a success.

Pitching less Sold Products

There are times when some of your products are there in your inventory for a long time. By adapting to these two sales strategies you can take up the opportunity of bringing less sold products or unsold products in front of your prospective buyers.
This way, you are able to generate an order on that long awaiting product and increase its sales and review base for future customers to buy it too.

Creating New Leads

Since cross-selling and upselling give a great customer experience, it creates new leads by offering relevant and complementary products of their daily requirements. New visitors of your online store feel overwhelmed with the options and complete buying experience by having to get everything in one place.

Delights the Existing Customers

Your existing customers for sure turn to your loyal customers and in no time into premium customers too. A customer hitting back on your shop clearly indicates your potential to satisfy their needs. You have succeeded once and it’s time to succeed again. Upselling and cross-selling can certainly be your successful weapon for your eCommerce business to delight your existing/loyal customers.

Top Cross-selling and upselling strategies to seek out this festive peak season

Strategies play a crucial role when it comes to making your marketing efforts successful and profitable. To assist you with all the successful upselling and cross-selling tips in one place, here are some proven tips to follow in festive rush 2021 for your online business.

Show Relatable Options

Show items relevant to the search of the customer. Relatable options will really help them find the best suitable product for themselves. Relatable products can make your upsell strategy a success. Several options at a slighter higher price can be pitched by keeping in mind the relevancy and relatability of the product with the need or want of the customer.
As mentioned above in the example of Etsy, all the coasters were not only relevant but also attractive in look and feel. Even at price slighter higher, one would want to buy of the options available.

Showcase Trending and Best Items

By showing trending and high-standard products, you value the interest of your customers. This works on a subtle psychological level. Allow your customers to get the trending products that they might be looking for or would like to see on your e-store.
While creating your own e-store or selling on a marketplace like Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Facebook marketplace, Walmart, etc, ensure that your product catalogs are contemporary and relevant to the current needs and wants of your customers.

Practicing Soft over Aggressive Selling

Selling online is an art. Despite your technical and marketing edge over others through the best eCommerce solutions available, it is very important to take care of the feel of your customer. Too much push or hard-selling irritates a customer and they might leave for sight to never see you again.
Keeping it soft, subtle, and strategy-centric can increase your revenue generation whereas hard selling or aggressive upselling and cross-selling can do you more harm than good.

Choose the right place for the right Strategy

According to many studies on shoppers’ behaviors, it is seen that Upsell works best while one is still looking for the best suitable product. Whereas cross-sell works best on the check-out page. By offering a complimentary product at least 60% cheaper than the selected product, the chance of selling one more product increases.

There are certain rules and principles of using upselling or cross-selling. Not both can be used everywhere or in place of each other.

Understand Customer Buying Pattern

Understand how your customer responds to your upselling and cross-selling options. Take note of how many have bought from the related searches, combos, or offered complimentary products.

These data can also be used for email marketing or social media ads to target customers individually and help them find what else they can add to their wardrobe or home etc.

Take Calculative Risk

Upsell and cross-sell as much as it does not create cart abandonment rate. Upselling if not backed up by good reviews or testimonials or if very costly, might give a bad experience to the shoppers and lead to a churn rate.

As online sellers, you must focus to increase the conversion rate, Customer Lifetime Value, and Average Order Value and not churn or cart abandonment rate.

Don’t confuse/ bombard your visitors

4-5 options can do the needful. Too many options can seriously confuse your customers, and instead of helping them choose best, they can get confused and leave the site to see something understandable elsewhere.

Refrain from showing options too many times, or on every page. Look what works best for the category of products, the demography of customers, the price bracket, and special occasions.

Add discounts and offers

As the festive season is running, adding discounts and offer or combo offers to the upsold or cross-sold products, can certainly increase sales. Upselling and cross-selling can be some of the best marketing strategies during the festive season.

If you provide premium services, offering discounts and offers can further increase the customer base. Also, upselling and cross-selling can be a successful low-budget marketing strategy that can work in your favor especially during the festive time of Halloween and BFCM.

Answer ‘WHY’ factor in the Product description

Mention the quality, sustainability, quality, reviews, and everything else that will slowly but surely increase conversion rate. Highlight the price, offers, discounts, or other services like free shipping or same-day delivery or coupons available in the spelling and cross-selling section of the page.

You need to get the best CRM solutions to understand which strategy out of two stands more profitable for you and for whom.

Some FAQ’s on Upselling and Cross-selling

Q1. Which is a better Upselling or cross-selling strategy for an online business?

Ans. Both are profitable if done the right way. For Upselling keep in mind the price bracket. The optional product must not cost an arm and a leg of the customer. They might feel like getting robbed.

While Cross-selling, take care of the relevancy and utility of the product when used with the main product. Products suggested must be a necessity and much much lower in price.

Q2. What books can I read about upselling, cross-selling techniques, and optimization?

Ans. Your best books can be the big brands, Marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, etc as mentioned in the examples above, and your own customer’s data. Successful techniques and strategies are realized over a lot of A/B testing and failures. You will know what works best for you when you start understanding your customers and contemporary brand strategies.

Q3. How can I increase my profit through Upselling and cross-selling?

Ans. You must adopt some best practices as mentioned in the blog (read to know them all). Also, more profit means increasing customer base. If you are the owner of just an e-store, you must think of multichannel selling for better online visibility and demands.

Role CedCommerce can play to hike your online sales during festive rush 2021

With an ability to start, sustain and grow eCommerce businesses, Big or Small, CedCommerce has marked its potential amongst online sellers globally. Helping sellers to sell smoothly with world-class integrations at reasonable prices, CedCommerce has won the hearts of thousands of sellers and 50+ partners globally.

To explore and know more about CedCommerce, click the link here and get connected directly to our experts who will make your online selling hassle-free and profitable in a short span of time.

Happy Festive Selling!