The temptation to increase revenue by 10-30% is rather high. Upselling gives you such an opportunity. It seems so easy to offer your customers more expensive goods and add-ons. But it would be a mistake to think so as a lot of faults can arise when upselling.
In the article, let’s talk about upsell don’ts to avoid in the future.
Table of Contents
What to Avoid When Upselling
Don’t #1: Irrelevant Items
This is the main mistake that can be made. Recommending customers to purchase goods they are not interested in is the first step to upselling failure. Buyers may think that you don’t care about their needs, and their trust in your brand will hardly develop. If someone is buying a blender, there is no point to recommend a laptop. Instead, you’d better offer something related to what they need, like a better-upgraded blender or at a higher price.
According to Accenture, 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations. Thus, relevance is crucial when upselling if you don’t want to make your buyers feel that such offers are just about the money.
Don’t #2: Wrong Timing for Upselling
If you want to annoy your customers, do upselling in an inappropriate time. Too fast or too late, upselling can make your offerings seem annoying and pushy. What’s even worse, this may lead your potential buyers to ditch the online store without purchases and not to visit it anymore.
To enhance your customers’ experience and to make a better sale, it’s critical to choose the perfect timing for upselling. It will enhance your customers’ experience and make a better sale. The best time is when shoppers make a decision to buy but before the checkout. Otherwise, upsell recommendations can be displayed below the product information, so only interested buyers can see them.
Don’t #3: No Personalization
As 80% of customers prefer buying a product or service from a brand that provides personalized experiences, it can be a great mistake not to implement this rule in your online store.
Thus, in order not to lose such a large number of buyers, you’d better use personalized recommendations. To make it possible, your customer base, ask them about their needs, explore their purchase history, and address them by name.
Don’t #4: Pressure to Purchase
Upselling can’t be successful if all the participants (a vendor and a customer) don’t feel satisfied. When you force your customers to buy an item―especially if it’s more expensive than they intended to purchase―or annoy them with constant recommendations on every web page and via email marketing, they may feel the pressure. Thus, consumers are unlikely to visit your store anymore.
If you want to establish positive relationships with your buyers, pay attention to their goals and needs, don’t pressure them.
Don’t #5: High-Priced Upsell
One more fault when upselling is to make your shoppers feel like they are making another big purchase. That’s counterproductive and can create resentment. Suggested upsells should not increase the original order by more than 25%. Someone looking for a $600 HP laptop will hardly agree to buy a $1500 Apple personal computer. In this case, the buyer can only be ready to buy a laptop that costs less than 25% more than the HP.
By following the rule in your eCommerce store, you’ll avoid high-priced upsells and improve customers’ shopping experience with relevant and rational suggestions.
Don’t #6: No Extra Value for Buyers
Upselling educates shoppers about their options and why the items are distinctively priced. Not a chance to a successful upsell if you don’t make buyers realize the value of new offerings. It’s possible to spoil your existing relationship with customers by suggesting extra costs without extra value for them.
To succeed, make sure to provide customers with a win-win upsell. This model supposes that you get more money, and your shoppers benefit with extra value. You need to make it clear what they “win”, and recommend valuable goods. For example, when purchasing a smartphone, they can be suggested a gadget with larger storage or a better camera, that will improve their usage of this device. By clearly explaining the problems the upsell solves or how a customer’s life is made better and more comfortable, you will increase the likelihood of conversion.
Don’t #7: Wrong Audience
Offering the wrong products to the wrong audience is always a fail. Upselling dresses for young men or books on maternity for old women don’t make any sense. So, if you don’t know your target audience, your upselling strategy is unlikely to succeed.
It can be of help to filter who sees your suggestions and when. All you have to do is to select which upsells should be available to which type of your customers.
Don’t #8: Too Many Recommendations
Forcing your customers to choose from too many items will undoubtedly overwhelm and confuse them. It might also cause them to back away slowly without conversion. When upselling, more suggestions do not necessarily increase the chances of a sale.
When making recommendations, you should provide customers with a solution to their problems and needs, but not generate more confusion and questions. Thus, it’s enough to offer just two-three well-targeted upselling recommendations to maximize your successful sales.
Computer manufacturer Dell not only provides customers with a limited number of offerings but also helps make a decision. Dell has the “Help Me Choose” feature where buyers see all the recommendations from the manufacturer. One of them is marked “Dell recommended”. Thus, unobtrusively, the company gives its customers advice and solution, and of course, upsells more effectively. It’s a great upselling example, isn’t it?
Don’t #9: Weak Imagery
67% of customers say images are critical when making a purchasing decision. Make sure your buyers see the advantages they can get from the recommended products in comparison with the original choice. Otherwise, they hardly will pay attention to these items.
When upselling, you should show all the benefits buyers will get if they select this very product. All the pictures must be high quality, realistic, not overwhelmed with useless elements, focused on the product, and unique. Using appealing images can help increase your consumers’ interest in the product you are trying to upsell.
Don’t #10: Wrong Upselling Phrases
Not only images can influence the decision-making process of customers, but upselling phrases as well. Selecting the wrong words can spoil buyers’ impressions on what you offer and prevent them from purchases.
Customers don’t like to feel tricked. What’s more, they don’t want someone to make a decision instead of them. That’s why such phrases as “We’ve Chosen for You” or “You’d Better Choose” won’t appeal to them and can even lead to the abandonment of your eCommerce store. Thus, using appropriate upsell phrases and tags is very critical if you don’t want to lose your customers.
As a better choice, you may select something like “You May Like” or “Recommendations for You”. In this case, buyers will be sure that these are they who make a decision without any pressure.
Wrap Up
When doing business and implementing different marketing strategies, faults are inevitable. But when you know all the possible mistakes in advance, it’s much easier to avoid and prevent them.
We hope you consider all the mentioned upselling don’ts and avoid them in your online store successfully.
Have you made such mistakes when upselling? Share your experience with us.