The ability to upsell and cross-sell products to existing customers is a great way to generate additional revenue and grow your ecommerce business. In fact, you can grow revenue using these strategies without having to spend money on another outbound marketing campaign.
Some retailers are reluctant to include upselling and cross-selling in their marketing because it can appear “pushy” and out of place. To some customers it can seem as annoying as pop-up ads or spam. However, when done correctly the strategy can seem natural, especially during the post-purchase experience.
What is Upselling?
In retail, upselling is the action of making suggestions to upgrade or purchase additional products during the buying process. By offering the customer an option that they believe is a better value, retailers can increase the average order value. In the case of ecommerce, upselling is done by offering additional items or upgraded versions of an item when the customer has added them to their shopping cart or after the purchase.
What is the Difference Between Upselling and Cross-selling?
Where upselling focuses on getting the customer to upgrade their purchase, cross-selling is the suggestion to purchase products that are adjacent or complimentary to the original item. In cross-selling, a customer might receive an offer to add a belt to match the pair of pants they just purchased, or a discount to buy a dog collar after they have ordered a bag of dog food.
Upselling and Cross-selling in Post Purchase
While you can upsell and cross-sell products anywhere on your ecommerce website, one of the most effective approaches to promote them during the post-purchase experience. If you send order confirmation emails that link to the shippers’ order tracking page, you are throwing away an opportunity to engage with the customer. Customers check their tracking information about 4-5 times per order and order tracking emails have a 90% open rate and a 45% click-through rate.
With these statistics, adding promotions on your confirmation email and branded tracking page is like creating a super successful marketing campaign to a captive audience. Leveraging the post-purchase experience is one of the greatest ways to increase customer satisfaction, lower customer service costs and generate customer loyalty.
WISMOlabs’ Driven Approach to Upselling and Cross-selling
Creating successful upselling and cross-selling campaigns during the post purchase experience uses three main elements: Personalized communication, product selection, and customer data. WISMOlabs leverages these three elements to create a customer experience during post purchase that helps increase customer retention and increase sales.
Personalized Communication
When a customer purchases from your store, they create a relationship with your ecommerce store. How you nurture that relationship depends on how you engage with them after the purchase. Your customer communication during the post-purchase experience will determine whether that customer will buy from you again and recommend you to their friends.
During the post-purchase experience, you should personalize the communication with their name and any relevant information that shows you care about their experience. Use their customer history to create upsell and cross-sell offers that they will purchase. WISMOlabs fully customizable confirmation emails and branded tracking page let you use historical data to personalize offers and engage with customers during the post-purchase experience.
Product Selection
When it comes to upselling and cross-selling, product selection is perhaps the most important component. You must choose complementary products that make sense to the customer so that the offer doesn’t look like a sales pitch. WISMOlabs post-purchase experience platform lets you select complementary product categories, utilize customer history, and identify customer segments that let you create offers that make sense.
Customer Data
The most powerful tool in your ecommerce arsenal is the information you collect about your customers. The WISMOlabs platform lets you find actionable insights on your customer activity, marketing engagement, logistics, and carrier performance to make data-driven decisions. Upselling and cross-selling successfully is an artform and with the proper data you can generate additional sales from your existing customers.
Conclusion
Generating additional sales from customers that already show a preference for your products through upselling and cross-selling is a best practice for the most successful ecommerce retailers. With the high open and click-through rates of order confirmation emails and the high visibility of branded tracking pages, creating campaigns for existing customers is a must-do. And with the ease of use and customizable features of the WISMOlabs post-purchase experience platform, it has never been easier to integrate upselling and cross-selling campaigns into your ecommerce website.
Reach out to WISMOlabs today to find out how we can help you create effective and personalized upselling and cross-selling campaigns.
