Cross-selling

You encounter cross-selling in your everyday life both online and offline in sales processes:

• When you go to the movies, you are sold snacks and drinks from the peripheral assortment in addition to the main product (movie tickets).
• A company orders hundreds of lamps for an office building as its main product and also receives an offer for installation and maintenance. In this case, cross-selling is a service.

Cross-selling offers are also ubiquitous as a sales method on the internet:

• You buy a main product online, such as a smartphone, and are also offered a phone case and a screen protector as cross-selling offers.
• You buy a care product and receive offers for additional care products. This care product can be, for example, a mask brush from the peripheral range that matches the selected face mask.

You have probably also heard the term upselling. Although both sales strategies, cross-selling and upselling, aim to influence the customer's purchase decision, they should not be confused.

While cross-selling involves offering additional items that complement the initial purchase or the main product, upselling aims to sell the customer a more expensive, higher-quality version of the product they are looking for. Various sales arguments are used, such as a better price-performance ratio or technical superiority, to influence the customer's purchase decision. For example, if the customer buys a cell phone, they are offered an extension to their chosen cell phone contract. It should be noted that the higher-value product suggestions or extensions are a maximum of 30 percent more expensive than the customer's original product selection.

Both sales strategies can also be used in parallel, but they have different effects on the business in terms of profit margin. Upselling encourages the customer to choose a higher-quality product from the main range. This increases the profit margin. Cross-selling, on the other hand, does not always result in a higher profit margin, but increases the order value by adding secondary products.

Targeted cross-selling has numerous advantages from which both your company and your customers can benefit.

Reduction of acquisition costs through cross-selling

Maintaining existing customers is considerably cheaper than acquiring new customers due to the elimination of acquisition costs. With cross-selling, there are no acquisition costs, as the existing customer - unlike a new customer - is already familiar with your company, has customer loyalty and shows interest in your products/services.

Reduction of price sensitivity on the customer side

Existing customers are already aware of the quality of your products, which makes the sales process much easier. This existing customer loyalty means that customers tend to be more willing to invest more money or buy more expensive products. The reduced price sensitivity increases the likelihood of buying additional items and ultimately leads to an increase in sales.

Search engine optimization of online stores through internal links

Online stores usually have little search engine optimized content. Internal links are therefore all the more important if your website and the individual product pages are to be found by the search bots (crawlers) of your search engine. Cross-selling helps to achieve a more pronounced internal linking of the product pages and thus a higher visibility and a better ranking of your website within the search engine.

Improved sales efficiency through additional sales

Sales efficiency describes the amount of effort required to close a deal. With cross-selling, this is very low, as only additional items are offered in addition to the main product range, which already match the customer's interests. Acquisition costs are also eliminated. If the customer decides to make an additional purchase, this is done without any major additional expense for the company. Sales efficiency has been improved by cross-selling: sales increase without considerable effort.

There are a few things to bear in mind so that the disadvantages do not stand in the way of the success of this sales method. With our expert tips, you can ensure successful and profitable cross-selling that will inspire your customers!

Support the purchase intention of your customers

First things first: think about your customers! A product from your fringe range may be great - but unfortunately it's no good if it doesn't match the customer's initial purchase. If you want your customers to feel seen and advised by your company during the purchasing process, the product suggestions must ideally match the customer's previous purchases. This is the only way to effectively influence the purchase decision and strengthen the customer relationship. Customers have the feeling of being comprehensively informed by the recommendation of supplementary products. Presenting the complementary product range to the main product is like giving the customer individual advice and ultimately leads to an optimized customer relationship.

Many paths lead to additional sales. Choose the path that your customer has already taken to reach you. In concrete terms, this means: If a customer buys a main product in your local store, personal or telephone cross-selling is likely to be successful. However, if a customer prefers to buy via your website, emails or targeted ads are likely to be the best way to cross-sell.

Offer cheaper bundles in the purchasing process

Your sales strategy is particularly successful if you offer your customers a good price. For example, products that go together can be offered as a bundle with a discount. You can also point out that shipping costs will be waived if a certain order value is reached. This increases the likelihood of a supplementary product being purchased, as the customer wants to reach order value X.

Too many product suggestions can quickly overwhelm and deter customers. When cross-selling, pay attention to clarity and rather offer few, but carefully selected complementary products than confronting the customer with all the products in your peripheral range.

Offer your customer groups added value through cross-selling

Explain to your existing and new customers the added value that the complementary product you offer has in cross-selling. These reasons can be both emotional and rational. An emotional reason could be, for example: "With this tripod, you can take family photos quickly and easily". An additional sale could be rationally justified as follows: "Shipping is not included if you buy this phone case". Such remarks exploit the potential of the sales strategy

Have the advantages and tips convinced you to use the cross-selling sales strategy for your company? Then the question now arises as to where the complementary goods should best be placed. The targeted placement of cross-selling content draws the attention of your customer group without overwhelming them with offers. There are basically three ways to advertise additional items in your peripheral product range:

Before the purchase on a product page, during the purchase in the check-out process, after the purchase through "follow-up emails" to your existing customers. Just decide on a strategy. The targeted placement of cross-selling content draws the attention of your customer group without overwhelming them with offers.