Do You Want Fries With That? – The Art of Cross-Selling

You may recall the most famous instance of cross-selling was when McDonald’s raised their sales significantly by asking one simple question: “Do you want fries with that?” 

In their own way, online eCommerce stores can do the same.

First of all, people often mistake cross-selling with its cousin, upselling – the practice of persuading a customer to make a bigger order than what they’re considering. Cross-selling is introducing them to other products related to the one they are buying. For example, your customer is buying an $800 15-inch laptop. You offer them a $1000 17-inch laptop with a 1 year extended warranty, then it’s upselling. If you suggest that they should buy a chill mat for $30, it’s cross-selling.

Cross-selling brings us many benefits. According to the book “Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance”, you have a 60-70% chance to cross-sell an existing customer, while the opportunity to gain a new customer is only 5-20%. This is because a customer who says yes to one of the products is ready to open their wallet to spend some money.

However, we’re not the sole beneficiary. Our customers won’t have to surf through various pages to find other items necessary for the products they intend to buy (e,g.: When they want to buy a flashlight, we offer them a pair of batteries). You make sure that your customers have everything they need to use the products you sell. This helps save them a lot of time and makes things much more convenient, which gains you more trust from your customers.

The first thing you should do is understand what you’re selling. Try to put yourself in the customers’ shoes and ask: When I use this lamp, which kind of light bulb will I need?, or This shirt looks good, but what will go well with it? When you have the answers to these questions, you will have uncovered the key to making your customers buy more.

Cross-selling is not just making random suggestions, they must be really relevant add-ons. It’s advised on VWO that you pair up things in the same category. For example, shoes with socks, ties with tie pins, necklaces with earrings, etc. Don’t make crazy combinations like long dresses with pants or sandals with socks.

There are some ways to present additional products. You can bundle things up and give them a discount on buying the whole set. Or you can show them as matching or related products; introduce them as others who bought this also bought items. Maybe you let your customers shop-the-look. The term “shop the look” – a strange-sounding term but one usually used in fashion stores when showing your customers all of the items of clothing that make up the look of a featured model.

There are some helpful tools for cross-selling out there. Below are some WooCommerce plugins that can make this process easier for you:

Last but not least, there is no fixed formula for cross-selling, because each store has its own sales strategy. Therefore, you need to test things with your customers to see what fits them best. Then change your cross-selling plan when it seems necessary in order to gain more sales. AB Testing could be a helpful process in this area.

Cross-selling may seem appealing, however you need to be doing it right to get the best results. Here are some tips that you may want to refer to when you apply this technique on your store.

Some other great examples can be “Works best with” or “This looks great with”, etc. You can even get creative and try “Feel like you’re still lacking something?”.

Those are some simple suggestions and tips for cross-selling. Bear in mind that cross-selling is a practice to help ease the decision-making process for your customers. Do this well and you should be very successful.

Got some other interesting tips to share? Let us know in the forums!