How to convince your customer to spend even more money

Probably every online retailer has experienced the following scenario: a user enters the shop, takes a good look around, and adds a few items to their shopping cart. It seems as though they’ve already decided to make a purchase – but then all of a sudden he is gone… 

We have already shared some ideas on shopping cart abandonment with you awhile ago, refresh your memory here.

Today, we want to expand our thinking to effectively create and find new solutions: We want to convince the customer to spend more money in the shop by buying more than just the one product.  Whoever wants to successfully convince their customers to add more items to their purchase can choose from a wide range of options. Today, we introduce you to a few of them.

Additional product recommendations: Cross-selling and Upselling

In order to convince users to buy more products, it is absolutely essential to provide them with meaningful product recommendations. A survey by Statista shows that 28 percent of users in Germany consider personalized recommendations to be useful, 29 percent have thus become aware of a product or two and 32 percent enjoy seeing products that match their interests. Accordingly, shops should most definitely consider using recommendations.

Convince your customer to buy an additional product with Cross-Selling 

Cross Selling occurs when you sell customers products or services that complement or supplement the selected product. For example, a belt could be cross-sold to a customer purchasing jeans.

The placement of a suitable recommendation plays a decisive role. In eCommerce, cross-selling is mainly used on product detail pages and in the shopping cart. This is supposed to make shopping easier for customers as it requires only a few clicks to add the item to the shopping cart. In addition, the user can be convinced to buy not only the piece of clothing, but also the corresponding accessories.

What does that look like in practice? We tested it with the online grocery shop getnow. Here recommendations for additional products were shown to users directly in their shopping cart, which they could then add with just one click.  The result: a 31 percent increase in the conversion rate. Of course, products can also be suggested directly on the detail page: matching shelves for the cupboard, tongs and other accessories for the barbecue and the corresponding case for the cell phone.  

A similar situation applies to (personalized) product recommendations. If you show customers items that match their preferences and interests during their customer journey, they are likely to get inspired. This might result in a few extra items in their shopping cart. For example, imagine seeing the matching necklace and ring from your favorite jewelry collection – who wouldn’t go for it?

Shops have several options for suggesting suitable cross selling products. On the one hand, they can use keywords to assign matching cross-selling items to a product. On the other hand, they can have an algorithm determine which products suit the user’s interests and passions best.

In this way, users feel well advised and the online shop kills two birds with one stone: Appropriate recommendations increase both the value of the purchase and customer loyalty.

Boosting the shopping cart value with Upselling

Upselling means convincing a customer to spend more money than they had originally planned by getting them to purchase a more advanced and therefore more expensive version as the selected product.

This method is commonly used on product detail pages or in the shopping cart. Comparison tables can also be extremely helpful for this purpose. In case of upselling, the currently viewed product or the product in the shopping cart is compared with other products of the same category or brand. The important part: the price of the recommended product is higher than the price of the currently viewed product and ideally this product also has more features to offer. The goal is to achieve an increase in sale value. For example, if a customer is currently looking at a smartphone with small storage capacity, he can be offered another one with more capacity at a higher price. However, this is also often used in other industries e.g. the travel sector. If a user wants to buy a flight ticket, he can be informed that a better travel class or more legroom is available.

However, regardless of how attractive the additional sale values seem, please stay within the limits! For one, the product should continue to meet the user’s interests and not exceed their budget too much. It does not make any sense to offer a customer a 1800€ TV if he is currently looking at one for 400€. We also recommend using an A/B test to determine how the users react to the upselling features in the webshop. It is not uncommon that customers are confronted with too much information, which can lead to a cart abandonment in the worst case.

Raise your revenue with shop the look und product bundles 

Inspirational pages and so-called product bundles are becoming increasingly popular. After all, to a certain extent they can keep up with the shop assistants and mannequins in brick and mortar retail and also with people being used to Instagram & Co. – e.g. they inspire shoppers to buy different outfit combinations

Imagine this: A user was actually just looking for a cute t-shirt – but the clever online shop reacted right away and offered a complete outfit. The result? The matching jeans, shoes and a jacket end up in the shopping cart.

Product bundles are not only offered in the fashion industry. They are also frequently used in the food industry, in the telecommunications sector, in the electronics industry etc. For example, if you offer electrical items in your online shop, you can create a bundle that enables the customer to buy accessories such as a second controller and a game in addition to the selected console. This not only saves time searching for the right accessories in the shop, but ideally also money. If you reduce the price of a bundle, you can convince the customer of the full range of products and there is nothing standing in the way of a successful purchase.

Conclusion: Boost your sales with individual offers

With a few tricks and the right recommendations you can convince your customers to add more products to the shopping cart. As not every customer reacts in the same way, you should use A/B testing to determine which method works and which one you should better not use. For a conclusive result, you can also ask your customers directly using onsite surveys.