Article

How to Reshape Your Upsell Strategy for the New Year

If you’re a Shopify store owner, you’re likely familiar with “upselling” and “cross-selling.”

While these terms are actually different, they’re often used interchangeably, nowadays, to describe the act of getting your customers to buy more products and increase your average order value (AOV).

However these terms are used, the goal is the same—to find new ways to reshape your upsell strategy for the New Year. 

Doing so can increase sales and make you more profit than the previous year.

Continue reading to learn how cross-selling and upselling can offset rising business costs, and help you earn more revenue by following our seven upselling strategies for the New Year.

Why are upselling and cross-selling important for Shopify merchants?

Finding subtle ways to get your customer to add just one or two more items to their shopping cart can have a serious impact on your bottom line. Upselling has the potential to increase sales by 10-30%

Shopify merchants have found that it’s more cost-effective to upsell and cross-sell more items to their existing customers rather than spending more on marketing toward new customers.

In other words, your existing customer base is easier to sell products to. 

Each time an existing customer shops at your store, they tend to spend 67% more money than brand new customers.

Upselling and cross-selling not only boost revenue but also enhance the customer’s experience. 

Your business will provide a personalized shopping experience through targeted upsells based on their interests and shopping history.

When is it best to upsell a customer during the shopping process?

Now that you know how impactful cross-selling and upselling are for your store’s revenue you may be tempted to upsell your customers at every turn of their customer journey. 

But that’s not the best approach. Be careful not to place too many upsells during the “pre”-purchase phase of the customer’s journey. 

Too many upsell popups and options during the shopping process can detract from the shopping experience, or worse yet, drive customers away before they even checkout. This is known as “cart abandonment.”

Instead, the best time to show your customers a targeted upsell is at the end of the checkout process using a “one-click upsell funnel.”

A one-click upsell funnel is a special post-purchase offer that’s shown to your customers after the checkout page, only showing them targeted upsells once their order has been secured, thereby reducing the risk of cart abandonment.

Using CartHook’s app, Shopify merchants can show up to two post-purchase offers that customers can “accept” or “decline” with just one click to add more items to their cart before finalizing their order.

By showing the offers after purchase, your customers will still be feeling the excitement of their order and be more willing to spend more money.

Upselling tips on upselling customers in a thoughtful way

Make sure that the product suggestions you’re displaying to customers aren’t the same items that are already in their shopping cart, or else they’ll have no reason to accept the offer.

Instead, use CartHook to build an unlimited amount of “upsell funnels” to craft several different post-purchase offers that are triggered and displayed by the shopping cart contents of each of your customers.

By recommending relevant and related product upsells to your customers, they’ll be more willing and interested in accepting the offers, instead of just giving each customer the same exact product offer.

Use CartHook’s built-in analytics to test and monitor your upsell funnel conversion rates and continually improve your upsell funnel offers.

Explore these 7 upselling techniques to boost sales in the New Year

One key metric tied to upselling is the average order value (AOV) which can be accessed in the Shopify Dashboard menu.

This key performance indicator (KPI) is often directly tied to your upselling opportunities.

If you want to sell more products in the New Year, then try these seven proven upselling strategies.

1. Boost sales with CartHook

Download a free trial of the CartHook app to begin building out upsell funnels that display to your customers at the end of the sales process.

Most merchants who have used CartHook will see a 15% acceptance rate for their upsell offers and a 10% boost in their total revenue! 

2. Build upsell funnels based on your most popular items first

Upsell funnels are triggered and displayed by the contents of your customer’s original purchase. Therefore, the more upsell funnels you create for each product, the more targeted and relevant your upsell offers will be.

However, if you’re running short on time or have a best-selling item, this might be your default upsell funnel to display to customers if it’s shown to have a high conversion rate.

On CartHook, you can use the “clone” function to quickly copy your existing upsell funnels and create variations for different products. This is useful for building out several different upsell funnels quickly.

3. Show the discounted price for the upsell offer

To make your upsell offers more enticing, make sure to show the product’s initial purchase price and the discounted upsell price, so the customer knows they’re getting a good deal.

If you don’t show the higher price, your customers may not recognize that they’re getting a deal or be as willing to purchase the item if they know they can just buy that item at another time.

4. Show up to two upsell funnel offers (and downsell offers in case they declined the first offer)

With CartHook, you can show up to two targeted upsells at the end of your customer’s purchase. 

If they decline the first offer, you may opt to show them a lesser-priced item for the second offer. This is known as a “downsell” and it may be enough to convince your shopper to add another item to their cart before completing their purchase.

5. Sell subscriptions through upsell funnels

Subscriptions are one of the biggest and most promising trends in ecommerce.

When you sell a subscription to a customer, you’re instantly improving your average order value (AOV) while boosting customer lifetime value (CLV) by ensuring recurring and regular payments while your customer is subscribed.

To make the subscription upsell more appealing, make sure to offer customers a “save and subscribe” type deal that incentives the customer to subscribe to receive a discounted price.

6. A/B test your upsell funnel variations against each other for higher conversions

Did you know you can create variations of the same upsell funnel to test which one has more conversions?

CartHook’s split testing function allows you to create subtly different upsell funnels and test which one sells more.

Experiment by using different product photos, calls-to-action (CTA), product descriptions, and trigger words to see which variation receives more “accepts” than the other.

7. Bundle items together for a frictionless way to multiply their order

Instead of relying on your customers to select the item quantity from a down-down menu, make it frictionless to multiply their order by giving them the bundled option on the same page.

This could be a 3-pack, 6-pack, or the 12-pack option of the same product.

If you’re selling items that are usually bought in bulk, such as clothes, socks, or consumables, give your customers the option to purchase bundles for a discount.

Download CartHook, the easy no-coding upsell funnel app

CartHook is an app that creates high-converting upsell funnels on the Shopify checkout page with no coding required!

Use CartHook to boost your sales revenue by increasing shopping cart sizes by displaying post-purchase offers your customers can accept with just one click. 

Most Shopify merchants will see an average 15% acceptance rate on post-purchase offers and a 10% boost in total revenue.

Download your free trial of CartHook today and watch your upsell conversions and AOV grow!

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