💬 I can say from experience working with a few eComm brands, that when you optimise and increase upsell rates, it can really help with scaling growth. When it's really 'humming' (i.e. working effectively), it certainly helps increase AOV, can help reduce CAC payback (i.e. recoup costs faster, especially for first-time customers), and overall revenue/bottom-line.
And the good news is that there are numerous tests and experiments you can try and optimise, which don't require significant budgeting/costings - see what I share below.
💬 Check below various upselling areas of opportunities that are worth testing and optimising - plus, there are numerous software vendors that make it easy to implement many of the below which you can see an 'attributed' ROI on (as many tools have tracking/analytics).
One of the key strategies I recommend to eCommerce brands, large scale or in the early stages of growth, is implementing a post-purchase upsell flow which has awesome UX.
I created a checklist which entails all the key factors and elements needed to create and optimise a flow that can encourage customers to add more to cart and increase AOV.
In conjunction with the above as part of post-purchase flows, you can set up your 'thank you' pages with scarcity/FOMO offers to encourage customers to check out with more products (i.e. a higher cart amount).
Free shipping thresholds are a great tactical initiative that can help with CRO, whilst also motivating visitors/customers to add more to their cart.
In relation to the above with the mini-cart UX experience, and depending on the software cart vendor you use, you should include automatic product recommendations related to the original product(s) selected in the cart.
I speak and breakdown further about carious cart optimisations, tests, experiments and tactics to deploy and see how effective they are for your store, via this checklist.
A tactical experiment to consider is adding the ability to do upsells via the checkout page - you can test discounts, complementary products, and even the likes of shipping insurance.
If you're doing bundles (or wanting to push more), and you utilise pop-ups within your marketing stack, then test doing personalised bundle offers which are dynamic based on which product pages customers/visitors view.
One of the best segments to serve and improve your chances of upsells, is by going after customers who have purchased numerous times, as well already spend a certain amount per transaction.
Naturally, these segments already know and love your product(s)/brand, so there's a greater chance they'll positively respond and uptake offers via SMS.
When it comes to doing upselling well, the offer plays a big role - so for this checklist point as a reminder, you've got to test/experiment different offers, incl. the likes of BOGO (Buy One, Get One Free), or limited edition gifts as add ons - there are plenty of ways to 'bundle' up various incentives to motivate buyers.
As potentially a more cost-effective incentive, look into giving away 'free samples' - this can work quite well as a tactic for free shipping thresholds - "Spend X amount, and receive free shipping and Y samples".
This is a bit more of an advanced strategy initiative and there's a few factors at play to implement this effectively (as few systems and work involved), but if you get get it going, it can be potentially really effective for upselling opportunities, as well as help with CRO.
I mentioned this checklist point because I personally feel it's a nice touch when it comes to greeting new customers - and can be a small tactic that can go a long way for customers to remember you.
Remember, many brands do very custom design, so sometimes plain-text or minimal design with a personalised note can work effectively (and in many ways, stand out a bit more).
Then what you can do, is that provide a special 'thank you' offer, which could be an upsell offer - ideally, this offer would be related to the product(s) purchased (which you can easily setup dynamically).
As part of the design for product recommendations on product pages, add elements that can help improve CTR and curiosity around 'complementary' and "you may also like" items.
In terms of any content or website optimisations you make in regards to improving upsells, you've got to add elements of social proof where possible - and this particularly matters for first-time customers (and also existing customer segments where you want to promote other items).
I created a free social proof checklist resource which goes into detail of areas you can add/implement.
Related to the above with social proof, effective distribution through key initiatives and social channels through working with influencers/creators, can really help drive awareness.
And as another distribution idea to consider, team up with a complementary brand that has your target segment, and collab on an offer together.
As a quick note here, it's totally worth investing in the right software to achieve many of the above areas of optimisation as part of the upselling process.
This is dependent on the software you use in terms of how easy/seamless it is to implement, but this is a really cool experiment to test.
Related to choosing the right software (and what you should look out for), lookm into whether you can do split-tests across both pre-purchase and post-purchase UX experiences.
