How and what to cross-sell on my Shopify store?
A well thought cross-sell encourages customers to add one or more complementary products to their cart. We’ve all seen the cross-sell links on Amazon like Customers who buy this item also buy that.
While the Upsell is to get customers to buy a more expensive model or add features / warranties, the Cross-sell is to get customers to buy more complementary products or products from other categories than the product being viewed or purchased.
GetElastic gives great examples to illustrate the difference between upsell and cross-sell:
Say the customer is viewing a 4GB iPod Nano for $169.
✓ 8 GB iPod Nano, $229 ➡ Upsell
✓ 8 GB iPod Touch, $299 ➡ Upsell
✓16 GP iPod Touch, $399 ➡ Upsell
✓Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic , $79 ➡ Cross-sell
✓ Skull Candy headphones, $69, ➡ Cross-sell $25
✓ iTunes card ➡ Cross-sell
✓ 8 GB Microsoft Zune, $249 ➡ Upsell
✓ Portable DVD player, $299 ➡ Cross-sell
✓ Griffin FM transmitter for car, $79 ➡ Cross-sell
You May Also Like?
Cross-selling comes back to alternative or complementary products and product recommendations. Common labels are:
✓ Recommended products
✓ You may also like
✓ Customers who bought X also bought
✓ Customers who viewed X also viewed
✓ Frequently bought together
✓ More from this (collection, vendor, brand)
✓ Looks hot with
✓ Complete the look
When done correctly, cross-selling can be gold money. Amazon.com, for example, reports that as much as 35 percent of their revenue is from cross-selling.
Would you like fries with that
➡ Cross-selling accessories
Let's dig into a concrete example using the Ultimate Upsell App. Let's say I'm selling my cat, Pookipsi. A great cross-sell would be to suggest cat toys.
Full disclosure: I would never sell my cat
Now in my Shopify store, what I can do to make this upsell happen is:
1. 👉 Try the Ultimate Upsell app for free.
2. Create a new upsell.
3. Choose to upsell products individually in the Upsell type (A la carte).
4. What → Select the products to upsell: Hypno Mice and Spring
5. When → Select to trigger the upsell on the Old TV Screen product page OR when my Nice cat is in the shopping cart.
6. Where → Select the location of the upsell: in theme, notification or popup. I choose to cross-sell on the product page of my cat and inside the cart page.
You can preview different locations. Once you're satisfied, click Save and close the window.
Cross-sell on the Product page
Cross-sell on the Cart page
7. You can add a title to the upsell offer to make it more attractive! Then Select "Published" in the dropdown menu and click the Checkmark icon to Save the Upsell.
8. Sit back, relax and check your numbers grow!
That's it. You are ready to cross-sell customers who visit or add my cart to cart with a hypno mice and a spring.
If you're not satisfied with my cat example, Kevin Carlson, WP at Optaros, give other great example in this post.
If a consumer is browsing your site and adds rechargeable batteries to the cart, cross-selling a battery charger makes sense.
The opposite would also hold true: the addition of a battery charger initiates the offer of some batteries.
If a musician visits a musicians supply site and orders a new guitar, cross-selling guitar strings would make perfect sense.
However, for someone purchasing strings, it would be a bit odd to try and sell a guitar to go along with them.