Running a retail business means you have to constantly work on building your customer base. Retailers are always striving to improve their bottom line, so it only seems right to want to improve the profitability of your business. Selling cross-sells and upsells can help you do that by increasing your average order value. Increasing the average order value in your store can bring a lot of organic traffic and word-of-mouth traffic to your retail store.
As a matter of fact, many retailers, including those who are selling online, are putting a lot of effort into these strategies. Retailers focus all their effort into attracting customers to buy a product. But aren’t you kind of ignoring the people who just made a purchase from you? What about those who have been loyal to your brand for years?
Upselling and cross-selling are customer retention strategies that help overcome “the dip” and give your store a more sustainable sales growth. In this post, we will tell you how upselling and cross-selling can help your retail business reach new levels by turning 1-time customers into lifetime ones. Upselling and cross-selling are the two proven strategies in both online and offline business.
What is upselling?
Upselling is a sales technique that involves offering customers products or services that are more expensive than what they initially asked for. For example, if a customer comes into your business asking for a $50 pair of shoes, you could offer them an upgrade to a $60 pair of shoes.
What is cross-selling?
Cross-selling is another sales technique that involves offering customers additional products or services related to their original request. For example, if a customer comes into your business asking for a $50 pair of shoes, you could offer them an upgrade to include socks or shoe polish at no extra cost.
Here are some tips for effectively upselling and cross-selling at your retail store:
Identify the right customers for upselling and cross-selling campaigns
Before you start an upselling campaign, it’s important that you identify the right customers for it. You want to target those who are likely to buy more than one product or service from your store or website during a single visit, such as people who come into a restaurant for dinner with friends or family members.
The same applies if you are running a cross-selling campaign – target customers who have already purchased from your store or website at least once before so that they don’t think twice about buying another product from your store
Do your research
When you are trying to sell something, you need to know what your customers want. This can be done by finding out their preferences or asking them directly. You can ask questions like “what other products have you been looking at?” or “what would you like to see us carry?”
The more information you have on your customers and their needs, the better off you will be when it comes time to upsell or cross-sell products that fit into these categories.
Know what your customers want
The first step in upselling or cross-selling successfully is knowing what kind of products or services your customers will be interested in. Make sure you know what kind of things they typically buy from your business, as well as what kinds of things they might need but haven’t yet thought about buying from your business.
You will need information so that when to try upsell or cross-sell them on something new, you can make an educated guess about whether or not they will be interested.
Offer something at a discount
Offering customers a discount is one of the most effective ways to upsell and cross-sell. It can be as simple as offering a percentage off their total purchase or as complex as offering them an additional product for free with their purchase.
The key is to make sure that there are clear benefits for the customer and that you can manage this process effectively.
Offer a variety of products
If there’s only one thing on your menu that fits into a customer’s needs they will probably go somewhere else if they can’t find anything on your menu that fits their demands – especially if they have already tried out several different places before coming into yours.
Make sure that you offer at least two options for each category so that there’s always something available no matter what type of product someone is looking for.
Conclusion
Upselling and cross-selling can be key to increasing revenue and profit, especially when a retail business is operating on the tight margins that many of them do. This is why it’s important to have a viable strategy in place for these two popular sales techniques. By following the quick tips above, you are on your way to creating a successful cross-sell upsell strategy.
About the author
Sajini Annie John
Meet Sajini, a seasoned technical content writer with a passion for e-commerce and expertise in Shopify. She is committed to helping online businesses to thrive through the power of well-crafted content.