In the world of online shopping, the common mistake is to forget the average shopping cart. This is a metric that affects profits, as many managers overlook this parameter. So, to increase your turnover, you need to increase the average value of your shopping cart.

It also cuts costs and improves your profit margin. There are several ways to increase the average basket, including cross-selling. What is cross-selling? How to boost your sales with this method? Find out below the answers to these questions.

What is cross-selling?

Cross-selling is a set of sales methods that a seller puts in place during a transaction whose goal is to increase the value of the customer's basket. This method allows the seller to present complementary products to the one purchased by the customer during the purchase. This is the principle of complementarity.

illustration by Bel Tsang

The products purchased generally form a range or a collection. When these products are together they have more value. This is an asset that will encourage the customer to buy the set of products.

He will find it a good idea to take them at the same time. With good products, you will not only increase your sales but also help customers. This approach allows customers to get more value from purchases or from having to resolve need issues.

This is one of the principles used by supermarkets in their merchandising methods. Indeed, these supermarkets strategically place all the products designed to be used or consumed in the same collection or range.

An example of cross-selling

Cross-selling is a tactic widely used by e-commerce stores. Amazon is the best platform that best applies this method. To increase the value of customers' cart, Amazon is optimizing its product pages by offering other similar items to buyers.

What is upselling?

It is a technique that allows you to sell and make a profit. It consists of offering the buyer more improved and therefore more expensive characteristics of a product that interests him.

Upselling is a marketing method wherein the customer is convinced to buy a similar product of higher value than the one he originally set out to buy. So ultimately, even if he has to buy something more expensive, he will gain in terms of specificity and efficiency. This method aims to provide maximum value to the customer while increasing revenue.

Boost sales with cross-selling

Cross-selling is one of the effective methods of increasing your online sales without acquiring more customers. On the other hand, to better benefit from them, it is necessary to know how to set them up correctly. Below are some tips to achieve this.

Study what your customers want

By collecting data regarding the purchasing behavior of your customers, you will be able to use cross-selling methods. However, you need to give some thought to the items your customers buy most often and the value of your shopping cart. After this analysis, you should be able to set up your cross-selling or cross-selling methods.

For any effective cross-selling, it's best to determine what the customer wants to add to their cart or pay for. So, if you don't have this information, you risk missing your goals. In this situation, your turnover will not change.

Cross-Selling: Delivering the right message at the right time

Pictures weren't enough to get a customer to buy. These images can just give an idea about a product. What is most important in this technique is the message that accompanies the text and the image. This message must be clear, precise, and above all-powerful. Therefore, the customer will be called upon to make a decision in favor of the message. It is important to test the message that should accompany the cross product. This allows you to see what is working with your targets.

To accompany your message with a text, you must first analyze the context. Is your goal at the start of the purchase or at the end of the purchase? Introducing grouped items at the right time into a customer's buying process has a positive impact on their engagement.

However, some customers don't like too many suggestions on an item. It is advisable to find the balance between the message & image. With the tests, you will be able to determine your customer's needs. You just have to avoid aggressive messages. Just be simple and understanding.

In addition, cross-selling can be done later. When the customer buys a product, you can send him emails to suggest other products that can be used or that can accompany the product he bought. You can do this by adding some discounts to it.

Make the ordering process easier

After finding the message and optimizing the placement of your products, the customer must be interested in them. You need to have compelling cross-sell marketing that entices the customer to buy. Then you need to be convinced of the security of your customers' payment methods.

It must be transparent and barrier-free. The goal of this technique, cross-selling, is to increase or change the average basket value of your online store. For this, it is important to ensure the successful implementation of this method. This success goes through the payment flow which is optimized to reduce cart abandonment.

Cross-selling is also about having a good brand image. The latter is actually a reflection of your sales site. And during the customer experience, it's important that it's always positive for the customer. Once this is done, customer confidence will increase and improve the chances that the customer will make purchases and come back to your store another time for other items or for the same.

Cross-Selling: Don't skip the steps

The goal of cross-selling or upselling is to highlight a product that has more value in the eyes of customers without asking for a return from the latter. For example, if the customer returns to buy a product for $ 100, you should not offer them another that costs $ 1000. In this case, he can stop the transaction and abandon the basket for this purpose.

Conclusion

If customers feel good in your store, they will stay there for a long time and buy a lot of items. A store that offers several additional benefits will have more customers and will see them buy more than one product. These additional benefits keep customers' attention and time. A shop that presents a nice script and with a good atmosphere will keep its customers more. It also allows customers to take a tour of the store to better see the offers available.