Whether it is a person who builds an independent station at Shopify or a person who is a platform, the biggest problem facing them is to increase sales. What is the reason for everyone's hard work to attract traffic, and not all to increase sales.

Today I will introduce you to a few simple and effortless sales methods, hoping to help you increase sales.

Upsell, cross-sell and downsell are these three sales methods, they can save the time and energy spent on advertising, and easily help you get more revenue with the least cost.

There is no need to find new customers. It will cost a lot to cultivate new customers from scratch. As long as the increase sales method provides additional sales opportunities to existing customers, it can effectively increase the average order value and increase sales revenue.

01: Definition

So what are Upsell, Cross-sell and Downsell?

Upsell, can also be called "upsell". When a customer intends to purchase a certain product, a new supplementary advertisement is used to promote more expensive products or upgraded versions of products to achieve additional sales and increase the value of the order.

Because when customers are already interested in buying a product, it will be easier to promote the upgraded version of the product.

The use of this psychology in sales is upselling. If you are selling sunglasses, you can use anti-ultraviolet or polarized lenses to make upsell.

Provide customers with an upgraded version of the product. Customers will think that this is a good reminder for them, because if they don’t know some of the advanced features of sunglasses, they will be interested in these additional information.

Cross-sell, that is, cross-selling. Cross-selling is to achieve more sales by promoting related products or supplementing products to customers.

For customers, cross-selling must be able to improve the buying experience and help customers obtain more value on the basis of the initial purchase.

If a customer has made up his mind to buy a certain product, introducing some auxiliary products to him at the right time will have a very good effect in increasing sales.

For example, if a customer wants to buy a badminton racket, then he may also need a badminton racket. At this time, he can use the badminton racket for cross-selling. Cross-selling is to provide users with more.

The above are upsell and cross-sell. They are very simple and common. They are generally set to automatically pop up windows, and some will also appear on the product page.

Both are to increase the average order value by reminding customers to pay attention to other products and product changes. If the effect is good, it can also extend the life cycle of customers, allowing them to buy back multiple times.

Downselling, this is a sales method opposite to upselling. It is not to recommend more expensive products to customers, but to increase profits by providing customers with lower-priced products.

When a customer is ready to withdraw from the purchase, you can adjust the quotation according to the customer's budget, recommend cheaper and more affordable products to the customer, and increase their chances of buying.

The most common example is 3C products that are quickly updated. If a customer cannot afford the latest version of an Apple phone, you can recommend a lower-priced Apple phone that is the model of last year. This way customers have the opportunity to buy.

Downsell allows you to sell high-quality products even when customers can't afford them. It also helps to build brand loyalty by comparing customers' choices at different prices.

02: Use caution

To make good use of these three sales strategies, you need to remember a few things:

1. Put customers first

Although up-selling and cross-selling are strategies to increase sales, if you do well, you can also increase customer loyalty and increase repurchase rates.

So, you should understand the needs of customers, realize this value by providing other products or functions, and improve the customer experience.

To put it simply, your increase in sales has actually helped customers, making them feel that the choices you provide have brought them great convenience.

But if customers think that your means of increasing sales have nothing to do with their needs and goals, and the choice you provide is not an upgrade of the product or is not useful, this will arouse customer disgust.

Putting customers first means that your sales are not pure sales, but sales that provide customers with directions and choices.

2. Don't overdo it

If the increase in sales can bring convenience to customers, they are very happy to accept it, but if the promotion is excessive, it will make customers disgusted, and no one likes to over promote.

Excessive promotion can also damage the promotion of brand image, so even if it is promotion, we must focus on improving the customer experience. Don't provide customers with too many choices. Too many choices will cause their "difficult choices".

It is recommended that you focus on promoting the most relevant and attractive products that are relevant to the products your customers have purchased. Three or four are enough.

3. Don't be too expensive

A customer may choose a product with a higher value, but if it is too expensive than the product he originally intended to buy, he will easily give up.

Under normal circumstances, the value of the up-selling product should not exceed 1.25 times the original product, that is, the up-selling value should be less than 25%.

If the original product is US$100, the additional product should be less than US$125. Upsell value is less than 25%, both have the opportunity to increase the average order value without scaring away customers.

4. Demonstrate the value of promoted goods

The increased sales of goods are simply listed, which is not very convincing. It is also necessary to convince customers of the value of these products. It is recommended to add recommendations or customer reviews on additional pages, or send emails to list the value of the products, so as to strengthen their shopping enthusiasm.

5. Use the product life cycle to promote sales

You can promote the customer again according to the life cycle of the product. For example, if you sell daily necessities and you are used up in 3 months, then you can send an email to the customer to increase sales after 3 months to give the customer a reminder , So that customers can easily recall your brand and products, thus increasing the chance of repurchase.

6. Incentives

If the goal is to increase the value of a single purchase, then the more products customers add to the shopping cart, the better.

There are some incentives that can also serve the purpose of increasing sales:

✔ Set a consumption amount, free shipping as much as you reach;

✔ Free gift cards can be given for purchases over a certain limit, or discounts or free shipping;

✔ You can enjoy discounts when you purchase a few items.

Regarding upsell, it can be divided into pre-purchase upsell and post-purchase upsell, that is, upsell can be done before the customer checkout, or upsell can be done after the customer checkout.

The same goes for cross-selling, but when is the best time to use these upsell strategies? Where can it be used? Let's talk about it in detail with an example.

01 Up-sell and cross-sell on the product page

Up-selling and cross-selling on the product page are the most common. For example, you might also like, or recommended for you, seller recommendations, more to love on AliExpress. These parts are all places to increase sales.

If you are using Shopify, the upsell product feature may be built into the theme of Shopify.

At the same time, shopify's theme store also has some software that can be used for upsell and cross-sell, such as OneClickUpsell, CartHook, Sweet Upsell, Product Upsell, etc.

02 Up-selling and cross-selling during the checkout process

As shown in the picture, after I add a laptop to the shopping cart, I will immediately jump to a cross-sell interface. The most purchased products with this computer are the following product combinations (similar to bundling sales) , This is to increase the value of customers' orders by means of cross-selling, and can also provide customers with comprehensive products and services.

The products sold during the checkout process must be closely complementary to the purchased products, so that customers can purchase them together.

If you also provide a lot of irrelevant products for customers to choose, it will interfere with customers' desire and determination to buy, and it will not help increase sales.

Therefore, the timing of increasing sales and product selection must conform to the psychology of customers, and must actually arouse their interest.

03 Up-sell and cross-sell in email receipts

First of all, I want to say that you must pay attention to email marketing, because compared to social media, content marketing, and pay-per-click advertising, email marketing is a marketing method with the highest return on investment, with a return on investment of 4300%.

In email marketing, the open rate of purchase receipt emails is as high as 71%, which is much higher than the average email open rate. Since the purchase receipt email has such a high degree of participation, it is very suitable for sales promotion.

For example, in the purchase receipt email sent by Wal-Mart, the recommendation column on the right is some related up-sales products. When customers check the purchase receipt, they will see these products. The up-sales email provides customers with more purchase information. Increased their chances of additional purchases.

Providing customers with gift cards, discounts, or free shipping for their next purchase can motivate them to make more purchases.

The email service provider can set up such purchase receipt emails, such as Drip or GetResponse.

The shopify software store also has such software that can set up receipt emails, such as Conversio, which can customize email receipts or provide customers with additional discounts.

04 When the customer intends to leave the product page

Use downsell

Down-selling is not to recommend more expensive products to customers, but to increase sales by providing customers with more affordable and convenient downgraded products.

The most common example is 3C products that are quickly updated. If a customer can't afford the latest version of Apple's mobile phone, you can recommend a lower-priced product, such as last year's model. This way customers have the opportunity to buy.

Down-selling is not as much used as the first two methods, but it also has a unique role. For example, for daily necessities such as plastic gloves, 50 pairs are sold for $20. If you offer a downgrade sale of 20 pairs for $10, more people may buy it.

The focus of the downward sales strategy is that it is not only for the sake of customers, but also to make its sales methods more diversified and adaptable.

05 Stimulate customer purchases to increase sales

In fact, in addition to providing customers with related products or high-level (low-level) products, you can also set a consumption amount, which can be rewarded when the consumption amount is reached, or provide free shipping services, which can also increase the average order value. This is the means used to stimulate customer consumption.

The example is that you can get a free gift if you spend more than $50, which is also a stimulus to increase sales.

The plug-in Sales Motivator on Shopify can be used to set up such consumer stimulation. If the customer's consumption reaches a certain amount, you can choose to provide them with discounts, free shipping or free gifts.

The effect of these means of increasing sales is very obvious, and sales can even increase by 15%. As long as you set up automatic pop-up windows, you can easily increase sales by relying on current customers.

Of course, in a word, when using these means of increasing sales, we must fully consider the customer's experience and needs, so that the additional services provided to customers will bring you the best benefits.