Upselling is a Complementary Technique Every Business Should Use

What is Cross Selling and Upselling

Cross selling means promoting an additional complementary product or service – a waiter suggesting a bottle of wine with a main course is cross selling. Upselling is offering a superior version of a product as an alternative. The waiter who proposes an expensive wine over the house wine is upselling. The techniques can be combined when a waiter suggests a dessert after the main course and then promotes the expensive option – but this is a bit cheeky!

How to Cross Sell and Upsell

A service business, such as a gym, may provide many services – personal trainer, pilates, swimming, yoga etc – but when and how should they cross sell/upsell? It’s important not to burden a customer with too many choices at one time. Registration of new members is a great time to upsell – longer memberships can be offered at a small discount. Cross selling to new members after making a large financial commitment will probably be ineffective. Instead members should be emailed periodically about new services – this is known as an email drip campaign. It also provides the business with time to understand the customer so that cross sells are both relevant and welcome.

Cross selling on Ecommerce

E-commerce sites often personalize online shopping by providing recommendations based on customer order history. They try to use the word ‘you’ where possible e.g. ‘Recommendations for you’. This is important so that cross selling feels helpful. It’s even better If a merchant cross sells a product the customer is genuinely happy to buy. The customer will be delighted to get two desirable products for a reduced price! This type of cross selling boosts customer satisfaction and promotes loyalty. It also provides the merchant with more information about the customer to help with future cross selling.

Upselling using Side-by-Side comparison tables

Many onlines services such as Netflix and Spotify provide side-by-side comparison tables of different service options listing their benefits. This is a clever form of upselling as seeing a comparison table may convince a user to switch from a regular to a premium option. Petrol stations like to employ this when they upsell automatic car washes by comparing regular washes with premium – ‘Extreme wax only with Deluxe Wash’.

Product businesses cross sell services

Many product businesses make a lot of their money from offering protection plans with their products – insurance that promises to replace a defective product for a period after the warranty expires. Car companies similarly cross sell finance to fund the purchase. Tesla recently announced they are considering offering car insurance with their cars. This means product merchants may need to leave their comfort zone and learn to cross sell products with services.

Sometimes advertising can be seen as one of modern life’s irritations but cross selling and upselling, if done right, can both boost a merchants revenues and generate real customer satisfaction. That is truly a win-win for everybody. If you want to know more about these great techniques contact us at Groupon and we will be delighted to help.