Everything you need to know about cross-selling

Have you ever bought something in a store and been offered an additional product that might interest you? If so, congratulations, you have witnessed cross-selling. Don’t you know what it is? We explain what it is, how it works and why it is used cross-selling.

What is cross-selling?

Cross-selling is a marketing technique in which additional products or services are offered to the customer who is already buying something. The goal of cross-selling is to increase the value of the total sale and improve the customer experience.

Instead of simply selling a product, cross-selling offers the opportunity to add extra value to the purchase.

How does cross-selling work?

Cross-selling works by offering additional products that complement or improve the original purchase. The most common example: you buy a mobile phone and they offer you the option to buy a case or a tempered glass screen protector. Or, for example, a digital camera and before you go to checkout you get a message asking if you want to buy a tripod to improve your photography experience.

Why is cross-selling used?

Cross-selling is used for several reasons. The most important is that it allows increasing the value of the total sale. If someone who came for a mobile phone takes a case and tempered glass screen protector, a €200 sale has become a €220 one.

At the business level, it helps build customer loyalty by offering a more complete shopping experience, based on their purchasing behavior. And it also helps the business diversify its sources of revenue, so that dependence on a single product or service is reduced.

Examples of cross-selling

There are many examples of cross-selling in different industries. One of the most common is fast-food chains, which offer full meals instead of just burgers or pizzas.

We don’t only see cross-selling in the sale of physical products or through online stores. We also find it in services. To give a familiar example, the shipping of a package and the purchase of additional insurance would be cross-selling.

We often come across cross-selling in our day-to-day lives, without even realizing it:

• When we take out home and life insurance because it is cheaper this way.
• When the bank where we have our checking account calls us, offering a credit card or a personal loan on better terms than if we were not customers.

How can cross-selling be applied in a business?

First of all, and without a doubt, the most important thing is to know customers and their needs well. If we are clear about this, offering complementary products or services will be easy, thinking about what can add value and improve their shopping experience.

If it is not clear what could be offered to customers as cross-selling, different tests can be carried out, especially in the case of e-commerce, such as related product modules, messages in the shopping cart, etc., to measure results and see which ones have worked best.

And, if you make shipments in your physical store or e-commerce, at InPost we have something that may interest you: our shipping offer for businesses, with a 10% discount on all your shipments. And with all the advantages that shipping to pickup points brings you.