Chandler Olson
June 30, 2023
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Upselling, in general, can have a big impact on your eCommerce business. Some studies show that it can drive revenue by 10-30%! Not all upsells, however, have to be hefty sales in order to make an impact. Sometimes, selling just a little bit—consistently, over a long period of time—can add up to a lot of revenue a year or two later.
Think about it. Let’s say you set aside $200 a month to invest in your savings. At the end of the year, that adds up to $2,400 saved. And at the end of 5 years, that adds up to $12,000! While $200 a month may not seem like a lot initially, a little can go a long way.
Keep reading to learn more about upselling, small upsells in general, and why you should start implementing them on your Shopify store.
Upselling is when you sell an upgraded version of an existing product to a customer. For example, it’s like suggesting a customer upgrade to a computer with more storage for a higher price, or suggesting they add insurance to their existing purchase. In more everyday terms, it’s like adding extra bacon to your cheeseburger.
Upselling has a lot of upsides for your eCommerce store. First, since it incentivizes customers to buy more with every purchase, it drives AOV (average order value). Next, since upsells typically enhance the value of a customer’s already intended purchase, they drive customer satisfaction (i.e. adding bacon to your cheeseburger makes it taste SO much more delicious, making for a more pleasant dining experience.). This, in turn, leads to higher retention and higher customer LTV (lifetime value), since customers are coming back more often and buying more with every purchase. In the end, this all adds up to more sales and more revenue for your eCommerce business.
“Small” upsells are those that typically fall within the $10-$15 range. They’re not a heavy additional lift for the customer financially, and they often sort of just make sense with their existing purchase.
For example, upselling shoe cleaners with a pair of white sneakers (that are guaranteed to get dirty in less than a month) is sort of a no-brainer for a customer who hopes to keep their sneakers white. Similarly,
selling a $5 3-pack of razor refills is cheaper than an almond milk latte and will definitely be needed at some point (if a customer is buying a razor). Now if you’re able to upsell just 1,000 razor refill packs over the course of a year, that’s an extra $5,000 in the bank for your business—cash that before would never have even existed.
To spell this all out a bit more clearly, let’s look at some examples of some “small” upsells in action.
First, let’s look at Hyggelight, an eCommerce retailer selling candles-turned-planters. Let’s say you come across their Willow candle. “This is perfect for my living room,” you think, and promptly add it to your cart. Upon adding it to your cart, you’re greeted with an upsell: Add a wick trimmer for just $14.
A wick trimmer is probably something you’re going to need at some point. (Assuming that you intend on burning your candle. But then again, why would you buy a candle if that wasn’t your intention??) Eventually—in a few weeks’ time—you would probably head to the store to buy one. But why would you create future to-dos for yourself when you can buy a wick trimmer, like, right now. For as low as $15, adding the wick to your cart just makes sense.
Next, let’s look at The Kiddospace, an online retailer selling things for kids. Let’s say you’re looking for a gift for your nephew and come across their Kiddostamp Customized Name Stamp. You think this is the perfect gift, and go ahead and add it to your cart. When you add it, however, you notice an upsell in your cart: White Ink Refill for just $14.99.
Similar to the wick trimmer example, an ink refill is probably something you’re going to need at some point. It doesn’t make sense to wait for it to run out—your nephew will become frustrated and you’ll have to make a trip to the store anyway. To prevent this future frustration, it just makes sense to add this small $15 purchase to your cart right now.
Lastly, let’s look at Adretto, an eCommerce menswear retailer. Let’s say you’re looking for some new work shoes for your husband as a birthday gift and find their Shoes Cognac, which are just his style. When you add them to your cart, you notice something: the option to add damage insurance for $12, failure insurance for $9, or a rental extension for $25.
Your husband happens to be very clumsy; the chances of him damaging his shoes in some way are super high. Even more, the low $9 price of damage insurance is far lower than you would have to pay the cobbler in the future, should your husband damage his shoes. Adding this damage insurance for such a small price is just a no-brainer.
In all these instances, all of these examples incrementally increased AOV for all these Shopify stores (which, as we discussed, adds up to a lot of additional revenue over time). Beyond this increased AOV, however, these examples all offered something more: an enhanced customer experience.
With the wick trimmer, the customer could trim their wick as they used their candle over time— the hassle of future, out-of-the-way trips to the store was avoided. With the ink refills, the customer avoided a future meltdown from their nephew, while also avoiding a future trip to the store. And with the shoe insurance, the customer helped her husband to get more wear out of his shoes over time while avoiding costly future trips to the shoe repairman. All in all, all of these examples resulted in enhanced, satisfactory customer experiences—all of which will lead to more loyal customers, high customer LTV, and even more revenue for each of these respective Shopify stores.
Convinced that you should add upselling capabilities to your site? Lucky for you, implementing it is easy with theInCart Upsell Shopify App.
The InCart Upsell & Cross-Sell app, which uses AI to recommend products that your customers are most likely to buy, makes upselling and cross-selling on product pages during checkout easy.
Try it out for free today and start reaping the benefits of upselling as soon as possible.
