Don’t Forget To Up-Sell and Cross-Sell

Upsell Overlay
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011
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While this seems like a “no-brainer” for online merchants, if you quickly browse some of your favorite small to mid-sized online retailers, you’ll notice some are missing related products or “may we also suggest” items on individual product pages. This is a big mistake!

Have you ever seen a convenience store without gum at the counter or a supermarket without tabloid magazines on both sides of the checkout lines? The strategy here is to offer and sell items to shoppers that they didn’t even know they wanted when they entered store. The same rules apply to eCommerce. Online retailers spend a significant amount time and money brainstorming marketing strategies and managing pay-per-click campaigns all with the goal of getting people to their online stores. Yet many seem to forget that once they have the shopper in their online store, that they need to maximize the purchase potential. A simple, effective and now almost expected option on every product page is related items.

If a shopper is looking for a pair of shoes, make sure to offer a t-shirt or pair of socks that goes with them. If a bottle of wine is what they’re after, be sure to show them other customer favorites or offer accessories like a corkscrew or new wine glasses. And if they’re trying to find a toy for their favorite niece, be sure to offer batteries or even a gift card.

Up-selling and cross-selling using related products is an easy addition to any product page and will be sure to help you increase your overall order totals helping you recuperate some of your marketing and pay-per-click expenses.

Nexternal customers can quickly and easily assign related products to all the items in their online store. These relationships can be determined when creating and editing a product or they can be added in bulk using our import tools. If you want to get more aggressive, you can activate the upsell overlay (Layout/Edit Main Layout/Products/Related Product Upsell Overlay) which will highlight a list of products related to those already in the cart. One of our clients claims their average order size increased 10% since activating the upsell overlay.

Upsell Overlay

 

 

After receiving a degree in Industrial Engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Alex began his career as a technology consultant with Accenture. In 1999 he left Accenture and founded Nexternal – a cloud-based eCommerce Platform company. Alex is passionate about eCommerce and online marketing. He is now a Senior Vice President of HighJump, managing the Nexternal business unit.