Top 5 Best Ways to Upsell and Cross Sell in WooCommerce

Apr 2, 2022 | eCommerce, WooCommerce

Reading Time: 5 minutes
Kevin Fouche

Top 5 Best Ways to Upsell and Cross Sell in WooCommerce

Posted by Kevin Fouche, Pixel Fish Director

Kevin handles the planning, design, launch and training of every website that Pixel Fish creates. He ensures that every website is highly engaging and aligned with our client’s goals. With over 20 years of design and web industry experience to draw upon, Kevin aims to pass on his knowledge to our clients and like-minded businesses wanting to grow their online presence.

We can all agree that selling to existing customers is much easier than acquiring new ones. And, when customers spend more in your E-commerce store, your revenues increase, costs go down, and customer lifetime value increases. Let’s explore Ways to Upsell and Cross Sell.

Upselling and cross-selling are two of the most effective ways to increase average cart value. If you get them right, upselling and cross-selling also make the buying process much easier for the customer and can help build deeper customer relationships and encourage repeat sales.

WooCommerce comes with upselling and cross-selling tools that you can leverage to generate more revenue. Let’s see how you can use the platform to cross-sell and upsell effectively.

Upselling vs Cross-Selling in E-Commerce

Upselling means encouraging the customer to buy a higher-priced product, such as a bigger bag of coffee or upgrading to a premium subscription. On the other hand, cross-selling means offering complementary products or services, such as offering notebooks with pens.

In other words, upselling means you offer a more expensive version of the same product, while cross-selling involves offering related products. In either case, you’re recommending products to customers that give them more value and make it easier to find other products they might need.

If you’ve ever found something you really want on Amazon’s “people who bought this also bought” section, you know what cross-selling is. Upselling and cross-selling can increase your revenue by 10%–30% while being 68% more affordable than acquiring new customers.

Upselling and Cross-Selling Techniques

One of the easiest ways to upsell and cross-sell is to recommend some of your most popular products. Sheer popularity and the effect of social proof means you will have better chances of selling more of that product.

That’s one way of doing it, but you can use several other tricks and techniques to upsell and cross-sell effectively.

1. Recommend Products that Add Value for the Customer

Every product you recommend must be relevant and valuable to the customer, or you risk pushing them away. Whether it’s a product with more features (upsell) or a complementary one (such as coffee filters with coffee beans), make sure the customer sees the value in it.

2. Pair the Sale With Helpful Products

Some products may not be directly related but can be helpful when bought together. The customer gets to solve two problems at once, and you sell more. For example, a bakery can also sell cards, candles, and anything else customers may need for a party.

Even better, the baking company could offer an annual subscription service for events such as birthdays and anniversaries for families and corporates. The subscription package might include cakes, pastries, and card delivery services, and customers will appreciate the convenience.

3. Add Some Desirable Products

Some products sell themselves. Thanks to impulse buying, there may be products in your store that customers can’t resist, such as discounted products or new releases. For example, the latest Apple products or a new book from a popular author are likely to get sold.

If you have advanced tracking tools, you can use each customer’s browsing data to recommend related products they might find appealing. If not, use the classic three-pronged approach: your most reviewed, most relevant, or best-selling products or services.

4. Create Urgency

Urgency is a highly effective tool for overcoming buyer hesitancy. If you have products that are on limited-time sale, available seasonally, or about to go out of stock,  recommend them. This sense of exclusivity or perceived scarcity strongly motivates customers to press “add to cart.”

5. Offer Bundled Packages

Another way to offer convenience while upselling and cross-selling is to offer bundled products. For example, you can bundle products that are often bought together to save the customer the effort of browsing and deciding whether they really need the products.

Better still, offer a discount for bundled products or offer free shipping. WooCommerce already has a feature for creating product bundles, making it easy to increase cart value for each customer.

Why Upsell and Cross-Sell on Your Store?

Contrary to what you might think, selling more stuff to your customers doesn’t turn them off. In fact, upselling and cross-selling, when done right, mutually benefits you and the customer. Here are some advantages of upselling and cross-selling:

  • Increased revenue and higher margins
  • Higher conversion rates
  • An easier, more satisfactory customer experience
  • Increased customer loyalty
  • Improves product visibility, especially for new or less popular products
  • Increases average order value (AOV) and client lifetime value (CLV)

By some estimates, 35% of Amazon’s revenue comes from cross-sells. This shows the value of cross-sells and upsells when timed and personalised.

Easy Upselling and Cross-Selling With WooCommerce

Upselling and cross-selling can be difficult. However, the right tool can make it easier for you and the customer. WooCommerce already has a product recommendations extension, but you need a plugin for cross-selling and upselling called WooCommerce Booster Plus.

When you have installed the plugin on your WordPress site, go to the admin panel and select WooCommerce>Settings>Booster to access the Upsells and Cross-sells modules.

How to Set Up Upselling on WooCommerce Booster Plus

From the upsells module, you only need to configure a few settings.

  • Upsells Total – choose 0 as the default or -1 for unlimited upsells
  • Upsells Position – choose where the upsells fields are displayed, such as After Single Product Summary, also choose the position priority here
  • Global Upsells – used for products that you want to promote

Once you save the changes, the Booster Plus plugin will do the rest and display recommendations for each product. However, you should have already set up product categories and tags for best performance.

How to Set Up Cross-Selling on WooCommerce Booster Plus

Setting up cross-selling on WooCommerce Booster Plus works the same way. On the module settings, select your preferences for fields such as Cross-sells Total, Cross-sells Columns, Cross-sells Position, and Global Cross-sells.

For example, you can set up the Cross-sells order to ascending, descending, or default option (No Changes).

WooCommerce also allows you to choose the pages where recommendations appear, such as product or category pages, the order confirmation page, or the checkout page. You can also offer Trending and Top Rated recommendations.

You can even edit the language you use in the recommendations, which helps to show relevancy and value. For example, an apparel company could use the phrase “complete the look,” or a “forgot these?” section for the products they viewed but didn’t buy.

Let Pixel Fish Help

Even though the product recommendations extension and Booster Plus plugins work automatically, setting them up properly can be daunting. In fact, your entire website should be optimized for upselling and cross-selling.

Here at Pixel Fish, we help you create, maintain, and upgrade your WordPress E-commerce website so that you can sell better. We’re located in Sydney, but we’re happy to work with E-commerce business owners throughout Australia.

Connect with us now for a no-obligation consultation and get on the path to higher revenues, thanks to better cross-selling and upselling.

Let Sydney’s leading Web Design Agency take your business to the next level with a Pixel Fish Small Business Website.

Check out some of our latest Website Design projects.

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Kevin Fouché, Pixel Fish Director