Cross-selling is a science. It takes skill and planning. But don’t be intimidated! We got your back with advice from a cross-selling pro. We interviewed Marketing Manager Jeff Moriarty from My Supplement Store and got some great tips for cross-selling products to your customers.
Continue reading to learn more about cross-selling in eCommerce.
The value of cross-selling
Cross-selling is an excellent way to increase revenue. It takes into account that it’s easier to sell more to current customers than to try to attract completely new customers.
In fact, cross-selling is not only easier to implement than marketing to new customers, but it’s also cheaper. According to a study done by Harvard Business Review, depending on the industry, acquiring new customers can be up to 25 times more expensive than keeping current ones.
When you’ve already convinced the customer to buy from your store, it is easier to also influence them to add more products to their shopping cart.
Cross-selling is also beneficial to the customer because it can remind them of complementary products. Products they may have otherwise not realised they needed.
For example, if a customer is planning to buy a battery-operated computer mouse, you can suggest to them to also add batteries to their shopping cart.
Cross-selling helps amidst the economic downturn
Many eCommerce businesses are currently worried about the current economic downturn, and shipping costs have become more expensive due to the rising price of gas. The recession has highlighted the importance of cross-selling in eCommerce, Moriarty explained.
“People are worried. You have to figure out different ways to continue to increase revenue.” Moriarty said.
“That's why I think that cross-sells and upsells are valuable. We've already got the customer there. Now, we should make them spend more money or help them figure out and decide what products are best for them.”
Tips on how to cross-sell like a pro:
1. Use data to cross-sell
Cross-selling won’t be successful if you do it randomly. Some stores try to get rid of overstocked products in cross-sells, but that is usually not so effective, Moriarty says.
For cross-selling to actually work you will need to do a deeper dive into your customer data and see what people usually like to buy together.
“You have to make sure it makes sense for the customer,” he explained. “Use the data that you have at hand. It’s easy to run reports to see what people are purchasing together. “
2. Automate cross-selling
My Supplement Store used to have a manual cross-selling process.
“We started doing it manually for just some of the top products. It takes forever. We have over 5,000 products, so doing it manually just took a very long time.”
That is when the eCommerce store started looking for solutions that would make the process easier. They wanted to start using tools that would automate the process with the help of AI. Currently, they are using two different AI tools for cross-selling.
“After we saw that the manual cross-sells actually worked for us, that's when we started looking at companies that could do it in a better way. We looked for the AI-backed ones.”
3. Consider customer experience while cross-selling
Cross-selling is a learning curve, and you will need to test and find the best recipe to cross-sell your goods. Additionally, you need to make sure that your cross-selling process doesn’t hurt the overall customer experience on your website. Conversion rates are a good indicator of this, according to Moriarty.
“We definitely look at conversion rates because that tells you if something is not working. if our pricing is good, if the product's in stock, and the descriptions are all good what's causing the customer to not want to complete their order? So it's definitely something we're always looking at. “
Need more eCommerce sales tips?
If you’re ready to get better at selling more products to your existing customers check out our blog on the do’s or don’t of upselling.