Upselling & Cross-Selling Strategies: Sell the Unicorn & the Saddle Too

Imagine a world where every click and purchase on your Shopify store is a delightful adventure, leading to treasures untold! Increasing both the initial conversion rate and the average order value (AOV) is like finding the golden key to your e-commerce kingdom. If you're not leveraging upsells and cross-sells, you're leaving a dragon's hoard of gold on the table. These magical strategies should be employed both during and after the purchase process to maximize their enchanting effects.

What Is the Difference Between an Upsell and a Cross-Sell?

An upsell is like offering a customer a ride on a majestic unicorn instead of a regular horse. It's about presenting a higher-value product or a more luxurious version of what they're currently viewing. On the other hand, a cross-sell is like suggesting they also grab a magical saddle, a sparkling bridle, or a wizard's hat to go with their unicorn. It's about offering additional products that complement the main product the customer is interested in.

UPSELL EXAMPLE: If a customer is eyeing a MacBook Air (lower cost), you could enchant them with the allure of a MacBook Pro instead (higher cost).

CROSS-SELL EXAMPLE: If a customer is buying a MacBook, you could suggest they also pick up a stylish laptop bag, a handy accessory cord, or a protective case. Or why not all three?

Upselling Strategies Can Improve Conversions in Two Magical Ways:

1. Adding a relevant product: When a customer sees good value across multiple products, they are more likely to embark on the journey of purchasing the main product.

2. Encouraging additional purchases: If a customer buys the main product they were initially interested in, they are more likely to add additional relevant products to their cart during the same session.

It's crucial to ensure that the offers are relevant to the products the customer is buying or interested in. Irrelevant offers can cast a spell of confusion and actually lower your current conversion rates. Make sure your upsell and cross-sell offers are highly relevant to the product the customer is viewing, has in their cart, or has just ordered.

PRODUCT PAGE UPSELLS: This is the enchanted forest where upsells thrive. Offer better or more versions of the same product the customer is considering. For example, if they are viewing a MacBook Air, show them the MacBook Pro and the MacBook desktop box as well. This increases the chances of conversion. Avoid offering discounts here. Possible callout texts to use on product pages:

• “Considering an upgrade?”

• “Other similar options”

• “Check out these similar products”

CART DRAWER OR CART PAGE UPSELLS: If your Shopify theme includes a cart drawer, use it! Cart drawers are known to convert better than sending customers to a cart page. However, if your theme only supports a cart page, that's fine too. This is the place to either upsell or cross-sell. If you're upselling here, avoid offering a discount. If you're cross-selling, offering a small discount (say 5 or 10% off) can be effective and increase the chances of additional related products being purchased. Possible callout texts to use in the cart:

• “Add the perfect companion accessories”

• “Need these with your purchase?”

• “Add to your order now at __% off”

POST-PURCHASE UPSELLS: Do not upsell here. This is the place to cross-sell since the customer has already completed the purchase of their main product. It's too late to switch to a higher-value version. Instead, offer additional related products here and provide your largest discount. For example, if you offered 5% off a laptop bag accessory in your cart drawer or cart page upsell offer, offer it again here but with a larger discount, such as “final offer - 10% off if you add to order now.” Possible callout texts to use post-purchase:

• “Before you go - add one of these to your order”

• “Our best discount - 10% off when adding to your order now”

• “Why wait? Add one or more of these accessories now”

Once your upsell and cross-sell strategies are live, analyze their effectiveness from the start to ensure they are increasing your conversion rates rather than lowering them. Let the data speak for itself and avoid second-guessing it. Ensure you have a large enough sample size of visitors and orders before making a determination of effectiveness.

Start with smaller products that aren't more than 20% of the value of the main product. See how this goes before trying to cross-sell larger-value products.

Begin with A/B testing one product against another with identical call-to-action text, fonts, and discounts. A/B test the entire products you're offering as upsells or cross-sells. Offer half of your visitors one upsell product and the other half another upsell product. Use In Cart Upsell's built-in A/B testing feature to do this easily and set it up quickly.

Once you have identified an upsell product that clearly works better than another, implement smaller A/B tests. Using the winning upsell product, conduct an A/B test with smaller variations. For example, use regular text versus bold text, or try at least two different calls to action and see how they perform against each other.

Conclusion: Not sure which products to pair together in your strategy? Use our AI Autopilot feature on any offer and our app will automatically recommend the next-best product in every upsell. Not sure how to set up your unique upselling and cross-selling strategy for your Shopify store? Contact our support team for free help in outlining a strategy for your product set.

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