Common Upsell Mistakes to Avoid and How to Avoid Them
Customers want two things: a great shopping experience and even better deals. And with upsells and cross-sells, you can give them both–if you do it right.
Upselling is a low-risk, high reward strategy for increasing your average order value and revenue. But if you’re not building your offers or implementing upsells correctly, you’ll have a hard time reaping those rewards.
In this article, we’ll highlight some of the most common upselling mistakes that users make so you can bypass the growing pains and move right into growing your business.
7 upselling mistakes to avoid
With the right Shopify upselling app, building upsells is easy. But, it’s even easier to make a mistake that limits how effective your upselling strategy can be.
Avoid these upsell mistakes to maximize your growth.
1. Making offers complex with too many products
Upsells and cross-sells are simple – you offer discounted products or services to tempt customers to increase their cart total. The more you complicate them, the less they’ll convert.
In most cases, your offers will create their own value and sell themselves. You can add a time-sensitive element like a timer or limited-time offer banner to encourage customers to make a decision, but you don’t need to overdo it.
Excessive persuasive text, flashy graphics, and offers don’t have to line every page. Your offers should also be simple and easy to understand, so don’t create complicated bundles or complex discounts that make buyers second-guess whether they’re getting a good deal.
2. Overwhelming the customer with too many upsells
Nobody likes to be bombarded with excessive pop-ups, prompts, and messages. The same is true for spamming upsell offers on every page, putting multiple offers on the same page, or creating a funnel that shows every variation of an offer before they can complete their purchase.
While it may seem like a good idea to make as many offers as possible until they find one they like, offering an overwhelming number of upsells or cross-sells is annoying to deal with. Plus, it can also make you seem greedy and less like you’re trying to improve their experience with a good and convenient deal.
Try to stay between two and four upsells, cross-sells, or downsells per purchase. And if you use more, consider spreading them out to the post-purchase steps so you can confirm their initial order and reduce the chances of an abandoned cart.
3. Not A/B testing your upsells
Upselling isn’t a one-and-done strategy. You never know what type of offers are going to resonate with your buyers, so you have to cast a wide net and try a variety of strategies until you find one that works best.
A/B testing makes it easy to slowly refine your upselling approach by providing feedback into which offers customers are accepting. Even something as simple as a different heading, button color, or product image can impact conversion rates – and you won’t know what works until you try it.
Use A/B testing to isolate individual elements of your offers at a time, like discount types, different products, product images, formats, and text, then use the feedback you receive to build a high-converting offer. Then, continue testing so you can adapt as your buyers do.
4. No extra value for the buyer
Effective upsells are mutually beneficial. You get to grow your AOV and generate more revenue while your buyers get more bang for their buck or save time buying everything they need at once.
In some cases, offering an upsell or cross-sell without a discount can work if they forgot to buy a product themselves or are new to your industry and didn’t know they needed it.
However, if you want your offers accepted, adding any kind of discount, including flat rate, percentage, and BOGO discounts, will help seal the deal.
5. Making the smart rules too narrow and segmenting customers in dozens of segments
Smart rules and targeting are highly effective ways to increase your upsells’ conversion rates by ensuring you’re making relevant offers. However, it’s a double-edged sword.
If you create highly specific rules and segment your customers too narrowly, you risk some customers falling through the cracks and missing your upsells entirely.
You can target specific offers precisely, but be sure to also implement a catch-all upsell that ensures everyone gets a chance for a great deal.
6. Showing out of stock products
It sounds obvious, but offering products that are out of stock are a quick way to lose an upselling or even sales opportunity.
It’s common to create upsells with seasonal or limited products, but once they’re gone, you need to remove them from your offers. If you don’t, it’s an upsell that can’t convert or that you can’t fill, potentially hurting customer satisfaction and your reputation.
Plus, out-of-stock items can indicate you’re being deceptive or not paying as much attention to your store as you should be, which can make buyers second guess their purchase.
7. Upselling items with a high AOV
In most cases, upsells aren’t about doubling customers’ cart totals. They focus on upgrading their purchase by making it better, larger, or adding a complementary item like a warranty or accessory.
If you create upsell offers that cost far too much compared to the original purchase, you’ll have a harder time converting them – especially without a significant discount or other incentive. For example, you would have a hard time selling an Xbox alongside a Playstation.
Try to stick with upsells that are 40% or less of your average order value to increase conversion rates. You can create offers that exceed 40%, but they’re usually most successful when they’re items that are part of a set, like collectibles and other lower-priced items.
What works well with upselling
If you’re looking for the one-size-fits-all secret to upselling, you’re going to be disappointed.
Every store and industry will find success with different types of offers and strategies. However, there are a few best practices to keep in mind that will help you position your upsells for success.
First and foremost, simplicity is king. You don’t need to create extensive and complex upsells and cross-sells to convince customers to buy them. In fact, the more reading and thinking customers have to do to understand your upsells, the less likely they are to accept them.
You can use Shopify’s product recommendations API to make add-on offers customers are likely to purchase and add simple, time-sensitive text and elements to encourage action.
You can also implement upsells like subscriptions that secure you multiple months of revenue in a single transaction or create recurring revenue throughout the subscription term.
Another strategy is creating free shipping and mystery gift minimums to encourage customers to spend a bit more to save money. 78% of consumers will buy more to qualify for free shipping and everyone likes ‘free’ stuff, so the combination of discounted offers and free upgrades can drive more conversions.
Get started with UpsellPlus
Upselling involves a lot of trial and error as you work to figure out what works for your business. However, if you can avoid the common mistakes we’ve highlighted above, you can streamline your strategy and start growing average order values and revenue sooner.
But first, you need to choose an app that lets you build effective upsells and customize them to be as user-friendly as possible.
UpsellPlus is a comprehensive upselling solution that supports upsells and cross-sells throughout the entire sales process. From product and cart page ‘frequently bought together’ cross-sells to checkout and post-purchase upsells, you can create an effective strategy that engages buyers without overwhelming them. Plus, the code-free building tools and smart rules give you the best chance to convert more offers and generate more revenue.
Get the tools you need to build better upsells. Start with a free 7-day trial from UpsellPlus today.
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