Upsell Strategies to Help Your Business Increase AOV & Profits Effortlessly

Are you looking for upsell strategies you can incorporate into your business today? You’re in luck. We’re going to provide you with a few key tactics you can use to effortlessly increase AOV and grow profits. This means you can spend more to acquire customers knowing you’re making more per transaction. And, we all know that whoever can pay more for sales wins in the end!

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AfterSell is undoubtedly one of the best upsell apps for Shopify - it takes just a few moments to set up and build your first few upsell funnels. Whether you’re looking to offer upsells directly on the checkout page or after purchase, we’re going to guide you in the right direction today. Before we share the top strategies brands are using to upsell customers, let’s provide some brief information on what upselling is all about.

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What is an Upsell Strategy?

When you think about ways to make more money in your business, the obvious first answer is to make more sales. But as the digital marketing space - and organic channels as well - become more competitive, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to grow sales through volume alone. 

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Thus, the solution is upselling: a sales technique where a business attempts to sell a higher-end product or a more expensive version of a product to a customer who is already interested in buying. Or, maybe you simply sell the customer on additional units of what they’re already buying.

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Why Upselling is Worth it for Businesses

However you go about upselling, the goal & outcome remains the same. You can increase the average order value (AOV) of a sale by persuading the customer to purchase additional or upgraded products or services.

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For example, if a customer is considering buying a basic model of a product, a salesperson may try to upsell them by offering a more feature-rich version of the product at a higher price. Or if a customer is booking a hotel room, the hotel staff may try to upsell them to a suite or a room with a better view at an additional cost.

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Upselling can be a useful strategy for businesses to increase their profits, as it allows them to sell more expensive products and services to customers who are already interested in buying. But it’s not just about growing your bottom line - although that is an outcome of upselling. This strategy also helps you move inventory faster. You can create offers for products that have underperformed and you need to get out of your warehouses.

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And, in the end, upselling creates a better customer experience, too. This is how you create customers for life. Giving them great deals on the products they need most.

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However, it's important to ensure that the upsell is relevant to the customer's needs and that the additional cost is justified by the value the customer will receive. That’s the tricky part - tailoring your upsell strategies to the specific customer in question. Fortunately, we’ll teach you how to do exactly that in just a few moments.

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First, we want to differentiate between another common sales tactic - cross-selling. 

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How Upselling is Different From Cross-Selling

Cross-selling accomplishes the same goals as upselling but in a different way. Instead of offering the same product in higher quantities, or a higher-end version of the same product, you offer complimentary products to the customer. These are products that are entirely different but are somewhat related to the original product inquisition.

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Here’s an example of cross-selling at play. Say you’re selling phones - you can offer phone cases at checkout. Or, you can offer ultra-long chargers. The point is, these products are not the same - but they do elevate the experience your customer has in relation to the first product they’re interested.

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Ideally, your store will feature both cross-selling and upselling strategies. But that’s a conversation for another day. You can learn more about the difference between cross-selling and upselling in our blog. For now, let’s get to the real reason you came here: learning how to implement upsell strategies in your e-commerce store.

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The Top Upselling Strategies for E-Commerce Storefronts

There are a seemingly endless array of upselling strategies you can employ on your storefront - but we’re going to highlight a few of the techniques we see work best for the e-commerce stores we’re integrated with.

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Offer premium versions

You can offer premium versions of your products or services at a higher price point. These premium offerings should include additional features or benefits that are not included in the standard version. For example, if you sell protein powder, you can convince customers to upgrade to USDA organic protein powder.

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Try bundle deals

Another way to upsell is to offer bundle deals, where the customer gets a discounted price for purchasing multiple products together. This can be a win-win for both the business and the customer, as the customer gets a discount and the business is able to sell more products. If you’re selling protein powder at $50 a tub, offer customers an additional tub at just $30 - or whatever margin you land on.

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Give customization options

Allowing customers to customize their purchases can be a powerful upsell strategy. For example, you can offer customers the option to upgrade materials, add custom engraving, or choose from a range of color options for an additional cost.

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Cover the shipping

Chances are, your store has a threshold at which you offer free shipping. You can entice your customers to spend a bit more to reach that threshold by showing them how close they are to earning free shipping. If all they need to do is spend another $20 to save $10 on shipping - while getting more great products - it’s a no-brainer! You can even recommend products that get them over the hump to increase your chances of conversion.

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Consider order protection

If the product you’re selling needs some sort of protection - like warranty or shipping insurance - you can offer that here to add a few basis points to your margin. This won’t move the needle a ton, but it’s worth offering alongside other offers. This is a great idea for electronics or fragile items that could become damaged in transit

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Utilize scarcity & urgency tactics

Creating a sense of scarcity can be a powerful way to persuade customers to make a purchase. If you have limited quantities of a product or if the product is only available for a short period of time, you can use this as an opportunity to upsell. This is especially helpful with widgets showing how many are in stock, or countdown widgets.

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Cross-Selling has its place, too

While you came here to discover the top strategies for upselling, it may be worth adding cross-sell offers as well. As mentioned earlier, you can position complimentary products as a way to elevate the experience for your customer - while getting great value at a discount!

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Highlight the value of upgrades

When offering an upgraded version of a product, it's important to clearly communicate the additional value the customer will receive for the higher price. This could include features, performance improvements, or additional warranties or guarantees. You won’t see great conversion rates if you’re not effectively communicating the value of your offer.

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Offer multiple options

The best way to ensure your customer spends more on your store is to prevent them with a few different choices. If you’re going with bundling, show them multiple quantities and demonstrate the savings at each break. Or, if you’re upselling to higher-end products, show them a few options - pointing out the value of each. If you just show one option in your funnel, it’s harder to consistently convert customers.

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Make it easy

You’re asking a customer to buy more than they had planned on buying. So, you’d better make it easy for them to take advantage of the offer! If you make the customer jump through hoops just to claim the deal, they’ll not only bounce - they’ll have a bad taste in their mouth about your brand. With just a click or two, they should be able to claim the offer or decline.

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Adding Upsell Strategies to Your E-Commerce Storefront: Steps for Getting Started

These strategies are all great ways to grow your bottom line. But how do you actually implement them? Keep reading how to get started using upsell strategies in your e-commerce storefront. It’s actually a lot easier than you may have originally thought - at least, with the help of our Shopify post-purchase upsell app! Here’s what you need to know…

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Integrate AfterSell into Your E-commerce Storefront

If you’re on Shopify, adding AfterSell to your storefront is as simple as downloading it from the app store and connecting with your store. Integration is as simple and straightforward as it gets. We saw how cumbersome and clunky most upselling apps were and decided to offer a better solution, investing heavily into the UX of our software. 

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You should be able to get up and running on your own in just a few minutes. But, if you do need help, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our world-class customer support team is here to assist you through integration - and we can even show you around to help you maximize the value you get from our app.

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Choose Between Post Purchase Upsell or Checkout Upsell

There are two ways you can go about upselling: offering deals directly on the checkout page or offering deals after purchase on the thank you page. Both of these can prove to be effective upsell strategies for your business, and you should experiment with both to see which works best. We have two guides that can help you with this - check out our articles on Shopify checkout customization and how to edit thank you page on Shopify. Then comes the fun part - building your first upsell funnel.

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Build Your First Funnel

Creating congruent, on-brand upsell offers is so easy in AfterSell. The design capabilities exceed what’s possible through other solutions - which is one of the primary reasons we’re considered the best Carthook alternative, Rebuy alternative, and even Zipify alternative!

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Pull ideas from the list of upsell strategies we described above. There are no limits on what you can do with our software - whether you want to add price breaks at different quantities or upsell your customer to a higher-end model. You can add multiple steps to the funnel, too. 

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And the best part is that AfterSell offers precise targeting - so you can show the right offers to the right customers, increasing your ROI from the software and earning the highest conversion rate possible. 

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Put the finishing touches on your funnel by adding widgets and previewing the offer in real time. Once you’re happy with how everything looks and feels, set it live - and watch your revenue soar! It’s really that easy.

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Improve Performance Over Time

Because AfterSell offers detailed analytics and AI recommendations to improve your performance over time, you can continue tweaking your funnels and running split tests. Each iteration will push better performance - and you’ll be enjoying the full potential of upselling in your storefront in no time. 

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Wrapping Up Our Guide on Upselling Strategies

As you can see, getting started with upsell strategies is a lot easier than you may have thought before reading this guide. If you’d like to learn more about how to upsell on Shopify, we have a more detailed guide for you. You can also learn about Shopify upsell at checkout if that’s the approach you’re interested in.

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But at this point, there’s really only one thing left to do - get started upselling today with the help of AfterSell. You’re just a few clicks away from boosting revenue and AOV effortlessly!