If you aren’t up-selling your current customers, you’re missing out on a ton of revenue.Marketing Metrics notes that the likelihood of selling to a new customer is 5-20%, and the possibility of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%. And because product recommendations can boost revenue by up to 10-30%, putting the right up-sell offer in front of your existing customers at the right time is a vital sales growth strategy. It can skyrocket the average order value and your overall revenue.Using Ampry targeting and trigger features, you can create on-site experiences to show the right content at the right time. Schedule a personalized strategy call with one of our skilled conversion specialists.
How Do I Up-sell on the Checkout Page?
Make Your Up-sell Offers Relevant
Relevance is fundamental when deciding on your up-sell offers. For example, if a customer is buying a book on customer support, there’s no point recommending a book on home decor. Instead, recommend something related to what they have in their cart, like another book by the same author or an audio version of the same book. When you’re up-selling, you must also sell the benefits of the up-sell offer, and show why the customer should consider it. This type of customer education can help you make more sales.
Highlight New Arrivals
Have you stocked up on new products that your current customers haven’t seen yet? Then, get more eyeballs on them by promoting them across your checkout page.This is one of the most effective approaches for eCommerce stores.To promote your new arrivals, you can highlight them on your main banner and other sections, such as “Brand New Additions.” Also, you can promote new arrivals on your checkout page by using banners and pop-ups that your web visitors won’t miss.
Highlight Your Bestsellers
You can also up-sell your most popular deals and products on your checkout page. This is a simple and effective way to increase your average transaction value and consistently generate more sales and revenue. Figure out which items are most popular in your online store by determining how many:
- Times a product is purchased.
- Times prospects add that product to their cart.
- Page visits go to the product page.
Use eye-catching subheadings, such as “Items Trending This Week,” to highlight your popular products. Also, your cart page is a perfect place to promote your most popular items. Because when your prospects are viewing their carts, they can easily see your best-selling products, which can ultimately encourage them to add those items to their carts, too.
Offer Personalized Offers and Deals Based on a Customer’s History
Product recommendations are more successful if they’re personal. Recent research by Accenture reports that 75% of customers are more likely to purchase what you’re offering if you:
- Remember their purchase history;
- Recommend product purchases based on their history
- Address them by name.
Thus, to create even more customized and effective up-selling offers, you must leverage your customer’s browsing history on your website. For example, you can highlight a customer’s recently viewed products on your checkout page, product pages, homepage, or category pages.By displaying a wide range of product recommendations on your checkout page, including the customer’s “Recently viewed products and Featured recommendations,” you can improve your average transaction value and ultimately increase your revenue.
Offer Special Rewards and Gifts
It’s one thing to show your customers new arrivals on your website, but it’s another thing for the same customer to follow through and make a purchase. They’ve taken their time to decide which items they want to buy, so they may need an incentive to encourage them towards an impulse buy.You can use your checkout page to share your up-sell offers because, at this point, customers have already entered their payment details, and they’re ready to complete the transaction. You’ve convinced them to make the initial purchase, but you need to promote a special offer to get them to spend more.An up-sell offer or deal, combined with items your customers are receptive to, eases the buying decision. That’s because customers are getting what they need, and they already trust your business. A special offer or reward also increases your odds of making the sale.For instance, if the cart value is $100 and there’s a chance to save an extra 25% by upgrading to a larger item, customers would be more willing to spend a little more to get that discount.
How Do I Match Products Together?
Up-selling encourages customers to purchase products that would make their initial purchase more expensive with an enhancement, upgrade, or a premium option.With up-selling, you aren’t providing lateral items to compliment your customer’s initial purchase. You’re offering a premium or upgraded version of the item they’ve just bought. Thus, you must promote product bundles, package deals, or more profitable services to up-sell effectively. For instance, if a customer is about to checkout with a middle-tier smartphone, you can up-sell an upgrade for a premium smartphone. However, when bundling up or matching products together, you should bundle products that complement each other. For instance, if a customer wants to buy KFC fried chips, an offer of fried chips, hamburgers, and coke increases the customer’s cart value because they’ll receive complimentary products in a combo. Further, a customer looking to buy a digital camera probably wants to buy batteries. So instead of waiting for them to buy batteries later, or even worse, buy them in a competitor’s store that offers a better price, you can offer them a combo of a digital camera and batteries at a discounted price to encourage them to make the additional purchase. However, when matching and bundling up products, only match together 2-3 products in your offer. That’s because matching together 4-5 products doesn’t work well:
- The total price skyrockets, violating the pricing rule of “25.”
- Customers feel taken advantage of. They just want to buy a digital camera in the example above. Buying batteries is fine, but also, if you offer a power grip, camera holder, and remote control, they’ll have to think too hard if they should buy everything together. They’ll be hesitant, ultimately hurting your conversions.
A fundamental principle in up-selling is to help your customers by suggesting items that make sense to them and are relevant to their needs. Leverage customer behaviors and data to provide informed product recommendations that meet their needs and solve current or potential problems.
When Should I Offer Discounts on an Up-sell?
Every customer loves a good deal. However, with so many customers used to getting discounts, coupons, and other promotional offers, it’s crucial to have an effective promotional strategy to make your up-sell offers successful.Offering discounts, creating promotional marketing strategies, or introducing loyalty programs can benefit your brand significantly. Discounts and other promotional offers can help you attract new customers, improve customer loyalty, drive site traffic, and boost sales. Unfortunately, most eCommerce brands use an up-selling strategy only when customers are browsing through items. But you have a chance to up-sell even when customers have completed a purchase.You can do this by displaying up-sell offers and discounts on your thank you page or nudging customers to explore your discount page to see more up-sell opportunities using exit-intent pop-ups. This is like waiting for customers to complete their transactions and then redirecting them back into the purchase journey.Further, you can offer discounts and offers on your unpopular products to clear them out as soon as possible. For instance, if the Blue Swimsuit is a best-seller product on your site and Sunshine Flip-Flops are unpopular items that don’t sell. Then, offering a discount when up-selling the flip-flops can help you:
- Increase views for the unpopular product because it will show up every time a customer adds the best-seller item to their cart.
- Sell the unpopular product quickly because now it has a 50% discount if bought with the best seller.
However, just ensure the unpopular product is a perfect compliment for the best-selling item you pair it with so that customers can buy them together.Also, offering discounts or promotional offers at unique moments in the customer journey can help you deliver positive customer experiences and boost conversion rates.
Final Thoughts
Up-sell strategies are powerful techniques to help your customers quickly make better decisions. But don’t rely on guesswork to figure out what up-sell strategies work for your audience. A/B test different up-sell techniques to see what works for each audience.Ampry is an eCommerce platform that can help you create customized on-site experiences that convert your website visitors into paying customers and ultimately generate more sales. Schedule a personalized strategy call with one of our skilled conversion specialists.