Cross selling: the easy way to increase sales

Cross selling is an important marketing strategy to boost sales. It works by offering customers suitable al­tern­at­ives to the products they are pur­chas­ing online. In this article, we’ll tell you what exactly cross selling is and how it works, the pros and cons of the method, and what you should bear in mind when using it in your web store.

The goal of cross selling is to increase sales per order by offering customers ad­di­tion­al products or services that match their purchase. This is done either directly as part of the pur­chas­ing process – in an online store, for example, by means of overlays such as ‘Is often bought together’ – or after the product purchase via re­com­mend­a­tion systems such as news­let­ters. The latter is primarily used to persuade existing customers to return to an online shop they’ve pre­vi­ously visited.

Many people are familiar with this marketing method, es­pe­cially in the context of online shops, but there are also cross selling examples from the offline world.

Re­gard­less of whether online or offline, products or services are par­tic­u­larly suitable if they match the pre­vi­ously purchased product or if the need to continue pur­chas­ing arises from the purchased product. Some typical cross sales include:

• A smart­phone case
• A keyboard and a mouse after buying a laptop
• A pair of training shorts to go with the football shirt a customer bought
• Care products applied by a hairdress­er and sub­sequently offered to the customer for purchase
• A household insurance policy as a suitable sup­ple­ment to the car insurance policy just taken out
• Suitable winter tyres for a new car.

When properly planned and im­ple­men­ted, cross selling offers real benefits not only to sellers but also customers. Retailers, for example, gain the advantage of being able to control the sale of select products or strengthen their as­sort­ment. Another advantage is that existing customers can be re-engaged. Since they are familiar with the shop and products, user ac­quis­i­tion costs lower. At the same time, existing customers are less price-sensitive: they are willing to spend a little more, so that even more expensive items may sell.

At its best, cross selling provides customers with real added value: being offered the right products or services at the right time via the right channel. Thanks to marketing auto­ma­tion, online store operators in par­tic­u­lar do not need to keep track of each and every customer, but can automate the ap­pro­pri­ate customer approach via the use of tools.

In online marketing and online retail, cross selling plays an in­dis­pens­able role. It’s an op­por­tun­ity for big shops with a broad product offering to introduce customers to the diversity of their product range. Besides high-end product imagery, in­form­at­ive de­scrip­tions, and a user-friendly structure, cross selling is con­sidered one of the most effective tools to succeed in the world of eCommerce.

Even novices can achieve great results and fast thanks to today’s tech­no­logy: suf­fi­cient data makes it easy to (re)target customers and modern store software makes the main­ten­ance of cross selling in­form­a­tion child's play.

Depending on the shop software you use, there are usually different options for cross selling online:

• Keywords: If a customer searches for a specific product or keyword, other products and keywords are auto­mat­ic­ally linked to it and displayed to the customer.
• Item-based links: Other items are linked directly in the item’s data record in the shop system.
• Purchase and search history: Based on viewed, searched and/or purchased items, matching products are filtered and displayed to the customer. You can even use results not only based on in­di­vidu­al customers, but also based on customer groups (with similar interests or buying behaviour) and in­cor­por­ate cor­res­pond­ing cross sales sug­ges­tions.

As a customer, you’re probably familiar with many of the following phrases and rep­res­ent­a­tions of cross selling in online shopping:

• Is often bought together
• Customers who bought this item also bought
• Our re­com­mend­a­tion
• Matching items
• Similar items
• Ac­cessor­ies for this item
• Best sellers or top sellers, etc.

If you want to strengthen sales via your own online shop with the help of cross selling, there are some tips you can implement to get started:

Put together relevant cross selling bundles: First, analyse your product range and the pur­chas­ing behaviour of previous customers to find out what belongs or should belong together. Ideally, you will have extensive user data at your disposal, so that you don’t have to listen to your gut feeling, but can fall back on facts. In addition, always keep in mind whether you’re providing real added value to your customers and aren’t just trying to achieve the highest possible sales.

Target the right customers at the right time. Here, too, user data can help you determine which customers are receptive to which offers. For example, a customer who has just bought a new computer is at a different point in their pur­chas­ing journey than a customer who already has all the ac­cessor­ies in their shopping trolley. CRM tools support the design of the customer journey.

Integrate cross sales into your marketing mix. Often, cross selling is not only possible via your online shop or a down­stream news­let­ter, but also, for example, when con­tact­ing customers via the service hotline or at events.

Get the most out of your existing customers. Establish forums or groups on social networks where customers can exchange ideas and share their ex­per­i­ences with your products. In­flu­en­cers on Instagram and the like also often offer a lot of potential for cross selling.

For search engine op­tim­isa­tion, cross selling is an in­dis­pens­able tool. Save for product de­scrip­tions, Google and other search engines crawl for little content that is used to evaluate the relevance of shop pages. Well-for­mu­lated CTAs and internal links, es­tab­lished by way of cross selling, are all the more important.

Today’s shop systems are well-equipped for this. Cor­res­pond­ing functions provide the support you need to realise a strong linking structure and ensure that all items (and also subpages) are suf­fi­ciently linked and can be easily found.

Less of a dis­ad­vant­age and more of a danger of cross selling is that customers may perceive the cross ref­er­ences as in­ap­pro­pri­ate or mis­com­mu­nic­ated. This can happen quickly when a customer is re­com­men­ded the same products over and again at each step of their online pur­chas­ing journey. If, after pur­chas­ing a pair of shoes, ad­vert­ise­ments for the same shoes appear in their email inbox, this tends to have a negative impact on customer sat­is­fac­tion.

The dis­ad­vant­ages that can arise from cross selling are therefore mostly due to shop operators sending the wrong messages – pre­sum­ably because the data at hand is being used in­cor­rectly. Therefore, if you haven’t already done so, establish careful tracking of user data and invest suf­fi­cient time to set up a suc­cess­ful and sus­tain­able cross sales campaign.

Never forget that there are customer groups that are not suited to cross selling. These could be customers who fre­quently return goods or complain to customer service, for example. Again, observe and analyse user be­ha­viours to derive useful insights, and apply these to your online marketing strategy.