Most businesses who are selling online today realize that they need to do as much as they can to increase their sales, and a huge part of that is with up selling, as well as cross selling. Some use these two terms interchangeably, but they are actually quite different. Let’s first understand the difference between the two, and then discuss techniques that will work to increase the success of both.
What Is Cross Selling?
The term cross selling refers to a strategy that companies use to sell other ancillary products to a customer who has already bought an item from them. Let’s look at a couple of good and common examples of how this works in the real world.
If a company is selling rooms at a hotel, they might also offer car rentals for the vacationer. If a company sells a videogame console, the company might also try to sell a peripheral, such as an extra controller. This works with many different types of businesses and products, and chances are good you will find some good cross selling opportunities within your own business. Now is a good time to start coming up with some of your own potential cross sells if you haven’t already.
What Is Up Selling?
Up selling is actually a bit different, and it works like this. The person or company who makes the sale tries to get the customer to buy more than they initially were going to buy. At first, this might sound like cross selling, but this refers to an upgrade in the initial purchase. Let’s look at how this might work with those aforementioned examples. In the case of the hotel, the company might try to get the buyer to upgrade to a suite from a regular hotel room. With the game console, the seller might try to convince the buyer that buying one of the new generation systems is better than purchasing an older system. Just remember that up selling means upgrade and it’s easy to tell the difference.
Know Your Customer and Your Niche
One of the best things to do when you are trying to come up with cross selling and up selling ideas for your products is to consider what your customers really want and think logically about what they might need. This allows you to show them offers and products that are actually relevant to what they would use, and you are instantly closer to success.
How Does This Apply to Online Sales?
Check out Amazon if you haven’t in a while. You will see that they show buyers items that other buyers have bought in addition to the item you are buying. This is cross selling. They also have a section on the product page that shows you what the customers bought instead of the product on the page, often showing the upgraded items that could result in an up sell to that customer.
Cross selling can also happen after the sale, and it often does. It is important to realize just how easy it is to take advantage of this. If you sell a product to someone, and you have the customer’s email address, you can send a follow up email a few days after the sale. Thank them for the purchase, wish them well with the product, and casually mention that they might want some other products that can go along with what they bought. You may even want to go an extra step and offer them a small discount if they buy right then
These are good and legitimate selling techniques, and they have been around since the dawn of sales. Start putting them to use today.
Resource: http://www.slideshare.net/dmedeiros/crosssellecommerce07