How to Increase Sales By Up Selling and Cross Selling To Customers

If you already prepared everything—you have great products, you’ve already researched your niche and target audiences, have had a solid marketing program, then, it’s the right time for you to take a good marketing plan that will clearly position your brand and products in the marketplace. And to increase the margins and revenue of your products and services, up selling and cross selling is indeed a good step to drive customers to buy them. Cross selling and up selling is the art & science of introducing customers with a better complimentary product wherein they are interested in.

Though there is much confusion when it comes to the definition of cross selling and up selling, these two terms are generally different from each other. Cross selling is the term used to describe when you sell a totally different service or products to your existing customers, while upselling on the other hand is when you convince or persuade a customers to buy a expensive version, upgrades, accessories or add-ons to the current sale. Selling a product and promoting a brand to new customers can take a lot of effort, time and money.

Depending on the industry where your business is, the ‘actual cost’ of new customers acquisition can be anywhere from a few dollars up to hundreds. But placing your money and energy towards customers you already have, using cross selling and up selling can reduce the cost of your sales and increase the amount of what you’ll sell. The reality of increasing sales and maximizing your business revenue will depend on your strategy to up sell and cross sell. Remember a customer loves to buy for their own reason, thus, it is important not to manipulatively bombard them with sale pitches and/or indiscriminately pressure them with endless offerings. But intelligently informed, suggested and guided with related logical purchase can further improve the efficiency of your selling process. Below are some of the few tips that you should consider on how to properly carry out up selling and cross selling to successfully increase your margins and consequently bring your business to success:

Be Natural. Don’t be too Pushy

Cross selling and upselling works well when you are not being too assertive or pushy. Remember that you are trying to encourage your customers by gently marketing your brand to them to increase their order. However, always keep in mind that they are already making a purchase, so it is very important that you give customers different options that they may not be aware of. Some of the attitude that you should avoid when encouraging customers to buy your services or products includes the following:

• Inducing guilt on customers for not being able to make a purchase
• Repetitively offering products or services over and over again, and not taking ‘No’ for an answer
• Increasing the time or social load your customers experiences during the point of sell. They’ll definitely remember it as a hassle to checkout.

Think of how you’ll grow in the situation and dread the unseen circumstances. If your selling methods and techniques turn your customers off, they’ll definitely won’t comeback or choose your brand, or worse, they’ll walk away from the sales and damage your reputation to your customers.

Tap to Impulsive Buying

There is a certain reason why checkout lanes are loaded with small ticket items like lip balm, candy, gum, batteries or other essentials. In order for ‘impulse buying to be set in definite motion, you have to reduce the number of barriers which keeps your customers from purchasing. The products or goods you see lining in the checkout aisle has similar qualities, regardless of the store you are in. Here are some of the considerations that you need to bear in mind in selling your products:

• The products displayed can be rather inexpensive, so they do not trigger price conscious behavior among customers.
• These are products/items that most customers will likely need or use at some point, so they are not seen frivolous.
• These products should be placed in an area or space where customers can easily grab or add them to the order.
• The entire ‘plethora’ of the store inventory should not be crammed in one spot. Just place few products in place so that customers will not be paralyzed by so many choices that they are being confused or overwhelmed of what to buy or what to choose.

Online businesses can also tap to ‘checkout aisle’ however, one needs to be careful even more than a brick-and-mortar.

Reduce Decision Level

Remember that too much selection can be paralyzing for customers. And by the time that customers decided to purchase a product, they are going to undergo a tougher decision make which creates a level of stress due to the myriad of items that is displayed in front of them. To reduce the confusion among customers when selecting a product, below are few of the consideration that you need to follow:

• Offer 2 options. Refrain from offering more and upping the ante when the customers says ‘No’.
• Always make sure that the options offered are fully related to the service or products that the customer is purchasing.

By organizing the products on its proper order, you will eliminate the stress in upselling and cross selling process.

Use Bundled Techniques

Creating a bundle of products/services is one of the best way to use when up selling and cross selling without adding to that decision load mentioned above. Rather trying to up sell 3 products at the register, you can sell one bundle with 3 products on it. For bundle work, below are some guidelines to consider:

• The total price of your bundle should be slightly less than buying the services or products separately.
• Larger items or one big ticket with few smaller or related items can make a good bundle. Smaller items are often viewed as FREE, while big ticket items is the product that your customer is looking for.