g2

Cross-Selling and Up-Selling at a glance

Site Genre: Pattern Group g

magnify imageFigureG2.1 Cross-selling and upselling mean promoting products and services that are highly related to the current product. On this page of The Knot‘s Web site, the assumption is that people who are interested in wine goblets might also be interested in place cards, champagne glasses, and nicer goblets. These crossselling and up-selling links reduce people‘s shopping time by helping them find many things they might want at the same time.

Background

In PERSONAL E-COMMERCE (A1) we provided a solution for building sites and promoting sales within those sites. Recommendations can make customers more confident in their choices and help close more sales. This pattern, along with FEATURED PRODUCTS (G1), PERSONALIZED RECOMMENDATIONS (G3), and RECOMMENDATION COMMUNITY (G4), describes how to provide useful recommendations. Specifically, this pattern describes cross-selling and up-selling that is, recommending additional products according to the interests that the customer has already expressed.

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PROBLEM

When choosing a product in stores, people appreciate hearing about related products that are complementary to or better than the products that they‘ve chosen. Doing the same thing online requires prudence and planning.

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SOLUTION

magnify image FigureG2.7 Use cross-selling and up-selling to promote products related to the interests already indicated by your customers.

In a subtle and careful way, cross-sell and up-sell related products by indicating the benefit they provide to your customers. Customers will be seduced and will not need to go far to make a purchase if you make it quick and easy to add a related product to a shopping cart without leaving the context of the current page. Make a visual distinction between these promotions and the other content on the page. Sell the related products again later in the checkout process, in case customers missed them the first time.

Other Patterns to Consider

Editorialize about related products so that customers get a preview of the CLEAN PRODUCT DETAIL (F2) page. For accessories and other related items, add a quick-purchase ACTION BUTTON (K4) to the SHOPPING CART (F3). Highlight related products in separate CONTENT MODULES (D2), each with its own title showing how the products are related. The titles give customers a quick way to scan the boxes and items in the list. Customers may want to purchase related products after making a purchase. Adding products to a SHOPPING CART (F3) always takes customers forward in the QUICK-FLOW CHECKOUT (F1), and if they want a product that was promoted on an earlier page, they can hit the Back button. If the customer has not purchased important related products, suggest them again from the SHOPPING CART (F3), the ORDER SUMMARY (F7), and the ORDER CONFIRMATION AND THANK-YOU (F8) pages.

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