What Your eCommerce Cross Selling Strategy is Missing

Customer acquisition is critical to the success of any eCommerce business. But to drive sustainable revenue in the long term, you need to ensure that those customers make more than just one-off purchases.

While cross selling and upselling are effective ways to maximise the revenue potential of each customer, many retailers struggle to get this right. Instead of offering products that customers actually need, they push endless adverts and broad product recommendations that put customers off.

To support the customer journey and drive conversions, retailers should focus on a cross selling and upselling strategy that’s personalised to their customers’ needs . Research shows that 83% of customers are willing to share data with retailers if it results in a more personalised experience,¹ while 84% say that being treated like a person, not a number, is critical to winning their business.²

In this article, we’ll explain how improving and personalising your eCommerce cross selling and upselling strategy can help you:

Acquire new customers.
Improve customer retention.
Boost conversion rates.
Improve the customer experience across your online store.
Stay competitive in today’s challenging economic environment.

Suggested reading: You can learn how 14 eCommerce brands built flawless promotions with Uniqodo in our eBook.

Narrow your focus

An effective upselling strategy that encourages customers to consider more sophisticated versions of what they’re browsing should be straightforward. However, many eCommerce businesses get it all wrong, bombarding their customers with too many alternatives at once.

Similarly, some businesses fail to understand what their customers need in the first place, offering products that are unrelated to their interests. A customer searching for running shoes won’t be interested in roller skates, for example. Not only does this not result in a successful upsell, it makes your customers feel like you can’t cater to their needs and will cause them to shop elsewhere, harming your bottom line.

Successful upselling involves recommending a smaller range of products that are an upgrade on the one the customer is looking at. You should keep recommendations to a minimum of highly relevant and helpful options. According to Accenture, 91% of customers are more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations.³

You do this by tracking your customers’ behaviour and understanding their demographics and needs — which is where a promotion experience platform can help. By offering exclusive, limited-time offers for relevant products at a one-time price, you can drive conversions, shift stock, and gain customer loyalty through personalisation.

How Uniqodo can help

Tracking customer behaviour can seem like a huge undertaking, but it doesn’t have to be. Uniqodo removes all the guesswork and added costs, enabling you to:

Capture first-party data and run promotions that drive conversions.
Select product offerings that are highly relevant to customer needs.
Target customers through custom landing pages, overlays, and banners.

Offer bundles

Bundles are a great way to offer additional products that are highly relevant and useful. Instead of offering a single alternative product, you can offer two or three at a slight discount, presenting them as a set of complementary items that will improve or complete the product experience. This makes the customer feel like you care about their user experience, but also helps you to shift stock and boost AOV.

With the right promotion experience platform, you can make the most of this powerful eCommerce cross selling technique:

Deliver seamless customer journeys with the minimum number of steps, thus boosting customer loyalty.
Avoid the risk of over-discounting by running promotions using unique, single-use codes.
Access highly-capable technology through a simple API integration that runs successful promotions.
Protect your bottom line and grow your business in a cost-effective way.

How Uniqodo helped a popular travel company overhaul their promotion offerings

Challenge: Travel Client X had been using discount codes for a long time. But with codes available in multiple online locations, it was too easy for customers to abuse them. What’s more, the company wasn't able to track results for specific voucher campaigns due to disconnected data.

Solution: Uniqodo helped Travel Client X offer unique codes tailored to specific customer needs. We also set up code tracking to gain a better understanding of promotion performance.

Results: Thanks to Uniqodo’s single-use codes, Travel Client X can now offer various combinations of promotions, ensuring customers get access to offers that resonate with them and are more likely to make repeat purchases. Single-use codes also help to reduce code misuse and the associated drain on revenue. The ability to run creative promotions and track their success is proof of how Uniqodo can help your business offer a seamless cross selling promotion.

Suggested reading: Find out more about ensuring your promotions are successful through our blog, How to Tell if Your Online Sales Promotion Strategies Are Working.

Offer side-by-side comparisons

Most customers are willing to pay extra for a superior product. But without a clear understanding of why one product is better than another, they’ll inevitably go for the cheaper option. This is where side-by-side comparisons can be useful.

Comparisons enable customers to make informed decisions about which product is better quality or more suitable for their needs. Customers effectively upsell themselves, without the need for off-putting sales tactics.

For example, a lot of technology retailers offer product comparisons so that you can see differences in screen clarity, storage, size, features and battery life. If presented effectively, a consumer will go for the more expensive option as it feels like better value for money. This has a variety of benefits for your business:

Customers remain loyal to your brand as they feel you’re being transparent about your products’ features and pricing.
Shoppers are more likely to make a more expensive purchase, boosting AOV and enabling you to meet revenue targets.
It’s a cost-effective marketing strategy, enabling business growth without exceeding budgets.

Promotion experience platforms can help you build this type of functionality by understanding the needs of your users, building out the custom web page and making sure your customers get a seamless promotional journey.

How Uniqodo helped Samsung drive leads and shift stock during Black Friday

Challenge: In the run-up to Black Friday, electronics giant Samsung had two key objectives: to drive lead generation and encourage customers to buy overstocked products. They turned to Uniqodo for help.

Solution: We implemented a unique early-bird promotion targeted at new leads and hand-raisers. Early-bird subscribers received a unique code via email, giving them access to a custom landing page where products were divided into four different discount tiers. They could then choose one product from each tier.

Result: With 300k customers involved in the campaign, Samsung was able to achieve both of its objectives and enjoyed a whopping return on investment. Uniqodo enables Samsung to present discounts in a way that’s engaging and shifts excess stock, an idea that translates to upselling through product comparisons.

Upselling post-purchase

Upselling doesn’t have to be limited to your website. Once your customers have made a purchase, it makes sense to re-engage them through targeted emails and limited-time second-purchase offers.

Using a secure code sent by email, for example, you might offer a customer who bought a laptop the chance to buy a complementary product, such as a monitor, at 25% off for a period of 24 hours. This approach helps to:

Create a sense of urgency and exclusivity through limited-time offers.
Foster customer loyalty.
Leverage secure, single-use codes that can only be used by the recipient.
Shift excess stock faster.

How Uniqodo helped TUI maximise their revenue potential through post-purchase promotions

Challenge: In an industry where one-off purchases are common, Travel company TUI were looking for ways to maximise their revenue potential. They turned to Uniqodo for help.

Solution: By issuing a code on the post-purchase confirmation page, we incentivised TUI customers to return and make repeat purchases.

Result: This strategy was highly successful, helping TUI to improve their conversion rate while boosting customer loyalty. It has since become a business-as-usual strategy for TUI to encourage customers to book for upcoming holiday seasons. Uniqodo’s ability to encourage upselling post-purchase can be realised in a range of formats depending on the specific needs of a business, from the codes offered for TUI to email nurtures sent to established customers.

Suggested reading: We talk more about boosting customer retention in our blog, How to Effectively Retain Customers in eCommerce.

Combining upselling and cross selling

When it comes to upselling and cross selling, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. In many cases, these two strategies can be combined to great effect. For example, if you upsell a more expensive pair of glasses to a customer, you can then target them with an overlay at checkout that offers lens cleaner at a discounted price.

This combination helps with increasing revenue potential while ensuring your customers get the products they need at a competitive price. This will make your customers feel cared for, will help you with overstock, and will importantly boost growth and customer loyalty for the long run. A promotion experience platform can help you by:

Allowing you to offer exclusive promotions for a limited time.
Providing unique, single-use codes that cannot be leaked.
Handling the necessary integrations and technical aspects so that you can focus on providing great products to your customers.
Protecting your bottom line, driving conversions, and improving customer relationships.
Meeting your every need in a cost-effective way.

How Uniqodo helped Beauty Bay inject customers into the sales funnel

Challenge: Popular cosmetics retailer Beauty Bay was looking for smarter ways to engage customers and drive conversions, but they needed help with the technical know-how and implementation. Enter Uniqodo.

Solution: We built and deployed a custom overlay that appears when new customers land on the site, offering unique, single-use promotion codes upon sign-up.

Results: The campaign was wildly successful, helping to drive increased conversions and revenue. While it originally targeted customers making an initial purchase, the same approach could also target existing customers to increase upselling and cross selling opportunities.

Uniqodo makes upselling and cross selling feel like second nature

Upselling and cross selling are tried-and-tested strategies for maximising revenue potential. But to be successful, they require a deep understanding of customers as well as technical and industry expertise. This is where Uniqodo can help.

Our promotion experience platform ties together site optimisation and an enhanced customer experience to deliver seamless and secure promotions. With Uniqodo, you can deliver upselling and cross selling strategies that transform how you engage your customers. The result is increased conversions and improved revenue.

Whether it’s improving on site functionality, recognising customer behaviour, or running secure promotions, Uniqodo is the go-to for successful upselling and cross selling eCommerce campaigns.

If you’d like to find out more about how Uniqodo could help your eCommerce business deliver smarter promotions, book a discovery call.