Cross-selling is an effective method to make the most of your current customer base. Consider how often you visit a supermarket for one item and leave with a full cart. Your online store should also benefit from this shopping behavior.
Here are our essential tips to ensure that you are making the most out of your sales opportunities.
Only cross-sell when you have all of the necessary information – Make sure that your customer can make the original purchase that they were after before you try and cross-sell them another product. If you try to cross-sell too early, you may put people off.
The 25 rule – Any additional sale should not increase the overall sale by more than 25%. This helps you to not exceed a mental barrier that people have about how much they are willing to buy in any given transaction.
Profit – Make sure that the effort that you put into cross-selling is matched by the profit that you are making. Don’t make extra work for yourself if the payoff is not profitable.
Cross-selling, not junk selling – Avoid using cross-selling just to clear out unwanted inventory; this can erode your customers’ trust and may drive them away from future purchases. If you’re selling discontinued items, be upfront and inform your customers.
Only sell what is appropriate – Don’t use cross selling to get rid of weird and wonderful items that have no relation to the original purchase. If you sell someone a shirt, try selling them a tie, not a glow in the dark penguin ornament.
Sell familiar items through cross-selling – Don’t try and sell new products to people through cross selling. They won’t be at the right stage in the sales funnel to buy something without knowing the features and benefits. You need to sell something that they are already aware of and may have already considered purchasing for themselves to be more likely to make a successful cross-sale. Likewise, try to cross-sell products from the same brand so that people can feel more comfortable in their decisions.
Planning for Performance – Make sure that you have thought about what products will sell with others. For example, don’t sell a pink shirt and try to add on a green tie.
Automate where you can – Automating your cross-selling process can make it much easier. Use data gained from previous sales to see what products should be bundled together in a cross-sale promotion.
Incentives – You can often sell more by having free shipping for orders over a certain amount. If your bundled items take the sale to this point, it can be the nudge that is needed to finalise the decision.