Here's How Upselling and Cross-Selling Could Increase Your Revenue by 30%!

Launch Your Online Business in Just 7 Days

Upselling and cross-selling aren’t exactly new sales techniques — and they’re definitely not new to ecommerce.


That said, a lot of people still don’t know:

  • The differences between these 2 sales strategies
  • The true impact of these strategies on increasing sales and revenue
  • How to effectively cross-sell and upsell

And for those people, this post is for you!


(Plus, stick around to find out how you can open your own ecommerce store for free, today!)

What is upselling and cross-selling?

To know when and where to upsell or cross-sell your customers, you first need to understand what each term exactly means.

What does it mean to Upsell?

It means offering an upgrade, add-on, or a premium version of what an existing customer has already agreed to and/or planning to buy.


Example: You walk into a dealership to buy a new car. You put $100k in cash on the table — because you like to flex like that — and ask for the latest Lamborghini Huracán STO…


Naturally, the sales rep's jaw will drop, and the very next thing they’ll say is, “Do you want it fully loaded with all the options and extras”?


And there you go, an upsell just happened!

What does it mean to cross-sell?

It means offering supplementary, additional, and complementary products that would provide a convenient and/or better experience for customers who are set on/already buying something.


Example: The sales rep of the dealership in the previous example would offer you life insurance when signing the papers for your new Lamborghini.


(Yes, they expect you to crash it)

How upselling and cross-selling increase average order value

Your average order value (AOV) is a performance metric that’s calculated by dividing revenue by the number of orders you’ve received.


For example, if you have an online store that generated $5,000 with 50 orders last month, your average order value would be 5000/50 which is $100 per order.


This is important because it indicates how much existing customers are spending each time they make an order, and it signals how much money you can generate from new customers.


And considering the fact that upsells and cross-sells can happen pre-purchase, mid-purchase, and post-purchase, it’s no wonder they can increase your revenue by up to 30%!


Still not convinced? Well, check the following statistics then.

Stats about upselling and cross-selling

Stats about upselling and cross-selling
Stats about upselling and cross-selling

What does all this tell you?

1. The cost of generating revenue from current customers is way cheaper than the average cost of customer acquisition

2. Start personalizing. Once you begin delivering relevant offers to customers, you’ll start building your customer retention and getting an overall higher profit margin

3. When you upsell or cross-sell products, you’re effectively providing a better experience for your customers to make them want to come back

4. Using the right sales techniques at the right time is crucial for getting the highest customer lifetime value (CLV)

So, it turns out that not only are upselling and cross-selling good for your bank account, but they're also preferred by customers!

How to utilize upselling and cross-selling in ecommerce (with examples)

Since you probably don’t have a car dealership and you’re more into the world of ecommerce…


You’ll need an effective upselling and cross-selling strategy that’s going to give your ecommerce website more conversions, more sales, and more revenue.


That strategy is to ensure that you upsell and cross-sell everywhere in your buyer journey, but do it intelligently and intentionally.


And here’s how to exactly do that.

Categorize everything

It doesn’t matter what you’re selling — physical products, digital products, or even services — have a list of everything you’re offering.


Start grouping offers that go well together, identifying premium offers, and figuring out complementary products that would provide your customers with the most satisfying experience while they’re on your site.


This is essential because it’ll allow you to create bundles that you can easily upsell, define opportunities for offering free bonuses, and would let you know what to offer your customers at different places, like:

  • Product pages
  • Landing pages of your ecommerce business
  • In a specific step of a sales funnel
  • Marketing and promotional emails
  • Long-form sales pages
  • Customer education through customer support

Amazon excels at this, if you look at their homepage, they have a flat design where everything is 3-4 clicks away in clear categories.


And suitable suggestions are right there in front of you on the homepage as well.

Amazon homepage

Source: Amazon.com

We’re going to mention Amazon a couple more times because they take upselling and cross-selling to the extreme.


And by “extreme” we mean that Amazon generates more than 35% of its revenue from cross-sells and upsells!

Know when and what to upsell and cross-sell

As mentioned earlier, upselling and cross-selling can happen at any stage of the buyer’s journey.


Here’s what to upsell and cross-sell at each point.

1. Pre-purchase:

Upselling at this point usually happens on sales and product pages where you can easily offer more premium versions of a product/service. (dedicated section or not)

Amazon example upselling

Source: Amazon.com

This section was presented right after the main iPhone 12 sections. It upsells 2 more premium versions and 1 lower version to accommodate all budgets.


You can also cross-sell entire categories on the same product page, like this.

Amazon example cross-selling

Source: Amazon.com

Notice that you can upsell and cross-sell in multiple places on the same product page.

2. Mid-purchase and/or checkout page:

This is your best chance to upsell add-ons to your offer, such as convenient services, bundles, or even warranties.

Apple example — Upselling

Source: Apple.com

It’s also the perfect time to cross-sell relevant suggestions that a customer would instantly catch on to their importance.

Apple example — cross-selling

Source: Apple.com

In the above picture, Apple cross-sells AppleCare+, a support package that would guarantee customers priority support.

3. Post-purchase:

It would be a bad idea to upsell a superior version of whatever your customer just bought.


But customer support teams upselling add-ons to someone who has already purchased a product is actually a pretty common sales technique.


And for cross-selling, you’ll have to carry out marketing campaigns that provide previous customers with personalized offers.


Your options vary in terms of what campaigns you should run, but you can never go wrong with automated email marketing campaigns, as email marketing still has an outstanding ROI of $42 for each $1 spent.


Make sure to have enough data on your customers’ past purchases; that way you’ll know what they’re interested in and can extend their customer lifetime value.


(This will also increase brand loyalty and customer retention in the long run)

A/B test everything

Do you want such results when upselling existing customers?

Results of upselling at systeme.io

(Revenue generated from upsells in an old systeme.io email campaign)

If so, then you’ll need to highly optimize your offerings for said customers, and you can do that by A/B testing.


Simply put, A/B testing (also known as split testing) would split incoming online traffic into 2 pages of your choice.


Why is this extremely important?


Because it will allow you to decide with certainty what works and what doesn’t.


For example, say you have a product page and a variant of that page that looks exactly the same but has a different title, or more products to be cross-sold…


If you conducted an A/B test between the pages and the variant page delivered better results in terms of revenue and other metrics, you’d know exactly what worked better for your customers!


And considering that the same concept could be applied to all sales funnel steps, checkout pages, order bumps, and even the homepage of your online store, you begin to understand the importance of A/B testing.


So if you’ve read this far, you know:

1. Know what upselling and cross-selling techniques are

2. Understand why they’re widely used in ecommerce to generate more sales and revenue

3. Have the knowledge necessary to use them in your ecommerce websites

But what if your problem isn’t strictly a lack of knowledge?


What if you’re looking for a platform that’ll allow you to easily sell all kinds of products, services, and online courses?


You join systeme.io today — for free!

Systeme.io — Open your ecommerce store for free!

Systeme.io’s logo

Systeme.io’s logo

Alright, what do you actually need to open an entire ecommerce store today?

  • A custom domain, an SSL certificate for a secure connection, and hosting so you can be found online
  • A website for your online store that visitors can explore and buy from. More importantly, you want it fast and with as little hassle as possible
  • Options to add products (digital and physical), services, or even online courses
  • Integrate payment processors like Stripe and PayPal to collect payments (one-time payments, subscriptions, memberships, etc)
  • Ability to build a customer base that you can later accurately target with marketing campaigns

What if we told you that we provide all that at systeme.io for free, with 0% transaction fees!


But wait a second, what is systeme.io?


It’s an all-in-one platform that was built to create, sustain, and grow online businesses.


And here’s how we can help you on your ecommerce journey:

  • Ecommerce: Sell memberships, digital and physical products, and subscriptions
  • Website builder: Build your website in minutes with a sleek, drag-and-drop builder (no code needed) and proven templates
  • Email marketing: Carry out highly targeted email campaigns by sending unlimited promotional emails to perfectly segmented customers
  • Affiliate program management: Develop your own affiliate program, and grow a team of affiliates to sell your products/services
  • Marketing automation: Design automated workflows to massively scale your digital marketing efforts
  • A/B testing: Easily figure out what works and what doesn’t with curated split tests for your offerings

And there’s more!


Stuff like online courses, deadline funnels, fully fleshed out blogs, evergreen webinars, and order bumps are all there waiting for you!


Pair that with an amazing customer support team that has an average response time of under 2 hours...


It’s no wonder we have more than 1,000 reviews on Trustpilot with an amazing average rating of 4.8/5!

Systeme.io’s rating on Trustpilot

Systeme.io’s rating on Trustpilot

Selling with systeme.io

One of the most compelling things about selling with systeme.io is how easily you can create a vision of your customer journey via steps in your sales funnel.

buyer's journey on Systeme.io

If you take a look at the picture above, you’ll notice that the buyer's journey was as follows:

1. The customer lands on a squeeze page

2. If they opt-in, they get to see the first part of the course for free

3. Then they have to decide if they want to pay for the course

4. If they say yes to the course, they move to the first upsell

5. Subsequently, if the first upsell was successfully purchased, another upsell is offered

6. And finally, a thank-you page

At any point of the funnel, if a customer says no to any offer, they get redirected to a step in the funnel that we previously set (normally a thank-you page).


Moreover, once you throw in automation rules, A/B testing, and integrated email marketing into the mix, you’ll have a powerhouse of a platform to sell personalized offers to customers.


Not only will you be able to fully utilize upselling and cross-selling, but you’ll also have a fully functioning ecommerce business that’s running on a single platform!

Systeme.io’s pricing

Systeme.io’s pricing

Systeme.io’s pricing

We have 4 plans:

  • Free plan: $0/month
  • Startup plan: $27/month or $228/yearly (save 30%)
  • Webinar plan: $47/month or $396/yearly (save 30%)
  • Unlimited plan: $97/month or $828/yearly (save 30%)

The Free plan is free forever — get full access to the website builder and library of templates, a custom domain with unlimited hosting, a blog, A/B tests, coupons, and run your own affiliate program.


(You can even sell products/services with 0% transaction fees!)


Plus, the ability to send unlimited marketing emails, access to tags, automation rules, and so much more!


As you go up in the plans, you’ll get higher limits on all the tools you have in the free plan, and unlock new features as well.


Once you reach the Unlimited plan, you’ll have zero limits on all the tools we have at systeme.io — and while you’re at it, don’t forget to get a 1-1 coaching session.


(Plus, you get free migration for your entire online business with the Unlimited plan or any annual billing plan)


If any of this sounds interesting to you, go get your free account now and try it out for yourself. We won’t ask for your card info!

FAQs

Below we’ve compiled a list of questions that kept popping up when writing this post.

Upsell vs cross-sell — which one to use?

Upsells and cross-sells go hand-in-hand with each other, at every possible point where you can upsell something, you can probably cross-sell something else as well.


Look at what you have to offer, define opportunities to upsell and cross-sell, then A/B test what works best and where.

Is upselling and cross-selling existing customers easy?

It’s 100% easier and cheaper than acquiring new customers.


Here’s why…


For customers who have already made a purchase in the past, it’s way more convenient to buy a personalized offer that pops right on their screens from a source (you) they already trust.


Compare that to the process of paying for marketing to bring in prospects, nurturing them to turn into warm leads, and then running re-targeting campaigns for them to finally make a purchase…


You start to notice how clear the difference is.

What’s the biggest difference between upselling and cross-selling?

When you upsell someone, you offer them an upgrade or a premium version of a product they’re set on buying.


But when you cross-sell someone, you offer them supplementary products that go well with the product they’re set on buying.

What is an example of cross-selling?

You walk into a fast-food place and order a burger. They ask, "Do you want some Coke with it?”


You reply with "Sure," and just like that, you just got cross-sold.

Conclusion

Time to wrap this post up. What did we learn today?

  • The meanings behind upselling and cross-selling, and why they go hand-in-hand with each other
  • We explored arguments why those sales techniques are super effective, and backed them up with stats as well
  • Gained the knowledge necessary to properly use upselling and cross-selling

And of course, we introduced you to systeme.io, an all-in-one platform that you can use to either kickstart your ecommerce journey or completely take it to the next level.


But why just take our word for it? Go grab your forever-free account right now and experience it for yourself!


Cheerio!

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