How can online retailers cross-sell effectively?

Increasing the conversion rate and thus sales is undoubtedly the goal of every online retailer. The list of measures is long and you are spoilt for choice. Some are more effective in the short term, such as discounts, and others in the long term. One of these is cross-selling. Cross-selling is considered one of the most effective sales strategies in e-commerce if it is used in a targeted and conscious way. In addition to increasing your shopping basket, cross-selling can also ensure that your customer service is perceived as being of a higher quality. Sounds like a lot of benefits you gain with crossselling. Read this article to find out how it really works.

A little reminder: What is cross-selling?

Cross-selling primarily describes the recommendation or sale of complementary products or services that match a product already purchased or an item of interest to the customer.

Cross-selling is not based on a direct demand, but actively creates this demand through an extended offer. A synonym for cross-selling is cross-selling.

Compared to other sales strategies, crossselling is less costly. After all, you only want to encourage customers to buy more products who have already bought something anyway, are about to buy something or are interested in one.

What potential does cross-selling have?

The cross-selling potential is high and holds a lot of advantages. The two biggest are that cross-selling can help to increase both the conversion rate and the turnover in the online shop, as customers buy more than originally planned.

Another cross-selling potential can be seen in your customer service. With an active recommendation, customers feel well looked after and valued. As a rule, cross-selling is perceived positively and contributes to the maintenance of existing customers.

As already mentioned, you do not have to budget a lot of money for this. There is no need for high budgets like for acquisition, because customers are already interested anyway. If you use automated processes and intelligent software tools like uptain, it even requires a minimum of time.

With cross-selling, you can also spruce up your warehouse and promote the sale of existing products that are not performing as well as others, but still fit the customer’s needs. Cross-selling is also a good way to introduce new products.

When is cross-selling really successful?

With cross-selling, you specifically increase your turnover through more products sold and gain new regular customers more quickly. It is important for the effectiveness that your customers also receive real added value and that you offer products that fit their actual needs.

If you offer product recommendations at the right time, most customers are willing to pay a higher price. When is the right time? That depends on several factors. You can recommend suitable and complementary products before the purchase, during the purchase or after the purchase.

Accessories or add-ons let you communicate them very well at the time of purchase, while items that are relevant to the use of the product, you inform about before the purchase. For other goods, such as electronic devices, it can make sense to cross-sell only after the purchase, when the main product has already been used for some time.

Successful cross-selling increases customer loyalty and creates a win-win situation for both sides. On this basis of trust, you can further expand your customer relationships.

However, you should also bear in mind that not every type of customer reacts positively to additional offers. In the worst case, they may feel annoyed and have a negative buying experience. It can also happen that this customer then drops out of the sales process and becomes a shopping cart abandoner. But you can rest assured, because cross-selling is usually perceived as positive. You are on the safe side if you track your measures and use the correspondingly analysed data for your cross-selling strategy.

Examples of cross-selling in e-commerce

What can cross-selling look like in practice? To better illustrate this, we have put together a few examples for you below.

• Have cross-selling items appear on the product page as a dynamic element.
• Add recommendations to the checkout process.
• Point out possible supplementary products in personalised newsletters.
• Implement smart pop-ups like the one from uptain, which play out content tailored to the customer.
• Write informative blog posts and go into synergy effects of products here.
• Send emails to customers who have left your site without making a purchase and link them to personalised offers.

How can you design a cross-selling strategy to increase basket value?

Cross-selling brings you a variety of design options and you can pick out the most effective measures based on your target customers. It is important for the ongoing optimisation of your processes that you use a tracking tool to better understand the behaviour and true needs of your customers. In this way, you can refine your cross-selling in ever more detail in small steps, which will eventually make it impossible to prevent an increase in sales.

What opportunities do you have in cross-selling?

Visualise your cross-selling

Customers are much easier to engage via product images, graphics or even videos. Use visual aids to introduce complementary products to communicate the benefits more easily. Testimonials with photos can also be effective.

Create product bundles

If a customer is interested in an article, he will sometimes not even know that there are other products in your online shop that ideally support his selection, increase the effect or create a synergy effect.

By creating bundles with complementary products for cross-selling, you not only increase sales, but also help your customer to get an all-round solution that is optimally tailored to his needs – without having to spend a lot of time searching yourself. Furthermore, with a sensible bundling you can combine low and high margin products and increase the average profit.

You should offer such bundles with a discount compared to individual purchases when cross-selling. Most customers perceive this as a special service offer and strike because they save costs.

Use cross-selling across the entire customer journey

As already mentioned, the right timing is also crucial for the success of cross-selling. Therefore, use different cross-selling offers throughout the customer journey.

• Offer accessories and complementary services if the customer has already filled their shopping cart.
• Work with discounts at the immediate checkout or couple cross-selling with free shipping. Premium models can also be effective at this point.
• Send out newsletters with cross-selling offers after the purchase or conduct a customer satisfaction survey and take the opportunity to recommend complementary products.

Work with smart Tools

For cross-selling, you can also use tools that automate the entire playout. Thanks to today’s technological advances, it is no longer a problem for intelligent software to identify customer needs and create personalised cross-selling.

One example of this are the exit intent pop-ups from uptain, which use the uptain® ALGORITHMUS to play out the right content at the right time individually for each customer. The exit intent pop-ups ensure a smooth user experience with the mouse-out trigger and can be used both on the desktop and on mobile devices.

At the same time, you have minimal effort when implementing cross-selling. With just a few clicks, the uptain® ALGORITHMUS is already configured. Afterwards, the exit-intent pop-up tailored to your online shop goes live and the uptain® ALGORITHMUS takes over the optimal playout. In addition to cross-selling, an Exit-Intent Popup reliably prevents shopping cart abandonment through intelligent frequency control. If you would like to find out more, we would be happy to advise you personally.

Frequently asked questions about cross-selling

What is cross selling?

With cross-selling, you actively offer your customers related and complementary products. Cross-selling is a sales strategy to increase turnover and is also called cross-selling.

What are the advantages of cross-selling?

Cross-selling increases the conversion rate and maximises your turnover. At the same time, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty increase.

What is upselling?

Up cross-selling aims to offer the customer a more expensive or better variant with enhanced benefits for him or her.

What is the difference between upselling and crossselling?

In contrast to cross-selling, the aim of upselling is to encourage the customer to upgrade his product. With cross-selling, on the other hand, only complementary articles that bring added value are recommended to the customer.

What does cross-selling mean for search engine optimisation?

Through the internal linking of cross-selling products within the online shop, cross-selling can be effectively used for search engine optimisation. A healthy internal linking structure is one of the most important ranking factors. In addition, a longer dwell time and a high conversion rate send positive signals.

When does cross-selling make sense?

You can place cross-selling on the product page before the purchase, implement it during the checkout process and complement it with newsletters and follow-up emails after the purchase. Orientate yourself on the type of offer.