6 Cross-Selling Examples You Can Use to Bump Up LTV
If you're not cross-selling to your customers, you're missing out on easy revenue. But you can't just cross-sell your bestsellers and call it a day. The best brands recommend complementary items and use customer data to cross-sell products the customer is likely to buy. Get inspired by six brands who do cross-selling right.
Cross-selling can help you maximize the revenue potential of each customer. You see, shoppers don't always find all the products they might be interested in.
Even if they did see that lipliner that pairs perfectly with your lipstick while browsing, they may have forgotten about it by the time they added the lipstick to their cart. Or, if they decided against it at first, a cross-selling promotion can incentivize them to reconsider.
Whether you offer discounts and promotions on complementary or related products or convenient (and cost-effective) product bundles, a cross-selling strategy can drive higher average order values (AOV) and enhance customer satisfaction.
If you want to grow your ecommerce sales this year, discover how to effectively cross-sell online with best practices and examples from top brands. Then, build cross-selling campaigns with customizable templates.
What is cross-selling?
Cross-selling is a sales technique that involves promoting an item that is related to a product a customer has expressed interest in. When done successfully, cross-selling helps shoppers find additional products that could improve customer experience, while also increasing the sales revenue for your ecommerce business.
Cross-selling is frequently confused with upselling; however, they’re different tactics. Cross-selling promotes similar products to what a customer is considering—like recommending a lens to go with a camera.
Upselling, on the other hand, promotes a similar, more expensive product compared to what a customer has expressed interest in—like an upgraded camera with more features.
You’ll want to use cross-selling and upselling at different times and for different products to maximize growth opportunities.
Cross-selling best practices
The purpose of cross-selling is to add value to the customer’s experience, not just drive up the sale price. Consider these best practices to build a successful cross-selling strategy:
Identify related products. Whether it’s a complementary product—or a supplementary service—like purchase protection—consider which items your customers are already purchasing together or would make sense to buy together.
Be mindful of price. The selling point of your cross-sells will impact whether or not a customer takes advantage of the offer. The ideal price point for your cross-sells will depend on your product catalog and price range. For low-cost items, like makeup, you can typically cross-sell products around the same price. But for larger purchases, like electronics, you’ll usually be better off recommending items that are 10-50% of the cost of the first item.
Personalize your recommendations.Nearly half of shoppers say they’ll come back to a store after a personalized experience. That can be achieved by taking all your customer data into account when cross-selling products. Recommend products that complement items customers have already purchased, left a positive review for, or abandoned in their cart—and skip recommending anything they’ve purchased in the past unless it's a consumable product.
Experiment with various formats. From product detail pages (PDPs) to in-cart popups and post-purchase email flows, test various placements to surface cross-selling offers to determine when your audience is most likely to act.
Experiment with product bundles.Product bundling is a cross-selling tactic of selling a set of products at a discounted rate. That discount can be an incentive to buy related products now instead of waiting and risking that the shopper doesn't return to make a second purchase.
Incentivize the purchase with a free shipping threshold. Boost your average order value with in-cart cross-sell campaigns that offer free shipping if a customer meets a minimum cart value. You can even gamify the experience with a progress meter in the cart that shows customers how close they are to the free shipping threshold. Then, recommend products based on what's in their cart to help them reach that goal.
6 cross-selling examples that boost AOV
As you begin to craft a cross-selling strategy for your ecommerce business, consider these successful examples.
The central focus of the Chubbies popup demands attention.
And the popup provides up to ten complementary products for each item added to the cart that the shopper can scroll through. The quick add button makes it easy for the customer to add items to their cart without the friction of visiting a product page first.
2. True Classic’s thank you page cross-sell
Just because a shopper has completed their purchase doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve maxed out what they’re willing to spend. Several brands have found success with post-purchase cross-sells on their thank you pages.
Apparel brand True Classic offers customers a limited-time deal immediately after purchase on the thank you page:
In this scenario, the customer is offered 50% off a three-pack of boxers. A timer gives them five minutes to take advantage of the offer. And a bold blue button will add the boxers to the shopper’s order in just one click.
The cool thing about this method is that you don’t risk losing the sale by giving the shopper another choice to make. You’ve already received payment for their order. And there’s no friction in going through the checkout process again.
3. Kosas' in-cart cross-sells
Makeup brand Kosas visualizes how close a customer is to earning free shipping in its shopping cart with a meter.
Then, it recommends a selection of products to help shoppers reach that free shipping threshold:
In this example, the shopper has concealer in their cart and only needs to spend $10 more to qualify for free shipping. So, Kosas recommends a $14 makeup sponge that works well with the concealer.
With the free shipping minimum met, Kosas updates the meter offering a new incentive—a free gift—if the shopper passes an additional threshold:
And the makeup brand recommends new products accordingly.
Updating the visualizer with a new offer after free shipping is earned is a smart strategy. If you show all offers at once, anything but the next offer may seem out of reach. So when the shopper reaches the first threshold, they may have already decided to stop there.
But if you show one offer at a time, each one requires the shopper to spend just a little bit more than what they’re planning to spend now. So it’s easier to grow order value.
4. Boll & Branch’s bedding bundles
Boll & Branch is an organic bedding brand that leverages bundles for cross-selling:
A bundle packages products the shopper likely wants to buy together anyway. So they gain more value from your products and it reduces the number of decisions they need to make.
This cross-sell opportunity is for the brand’s bedding sets. Through this cross-sell, customers can curate their own bundle in just a few clicks and save on bedroom essentials.
5. BlenderBottle’s product page
BlenderBottle, creators of a best-selling shaker bottle, has mastered the art of cross-selling.
On the product page for one of its bottles, the brand includes a ‘Buy it with’ tab below the add-to-cart button:
Placing this cross-sell opportunity above the fold makes it more likely that a customer will see the available products before heading to checkout.
And the offers—a straw and bottle brush—are obvious choices that enhance a customer’s use of their bottle.
6. Heroine Sport’s order confirmation email
Email is another great channel to introduce customers to products they might like. That way, you can target them post-purchase to increase lifetime value (LTV).
Activewear brand Heroine Sport includes a “You may also like” section in its order confirmation emails:
In this case, the brand recommends products from the same collection as the product purchased. This includes options for the customer to complete their set or buy the same product in another color—both great options to offer customers when cross-selling.
The customer can then click on a product to learn more about it and add it to their shopping cart.
What could level up this experience even more? A dedicated product landing page that leads from the email to a selection of SKUs the customer might like—kind of like a personalized showroom. It’s a great way to help customers discover new products and streamline the path to purchase.
Cross-selling templates
Cross-selling is an essential part of the ecommerce conversion funnel. They help customers discover new products and increase AOV, LTV, and customer satisfaction.
Getting inspired to launch your own cross-selling campaigns? It’s easy to create cross-sell popups, landing pages, embeds and more with ConvertFlow’s no-code, drag-and-drop builder.
Just choose from our library of templates. Then, customize for your brand and products.
Jessica is a copywriter and content strategist with over 10 years' experience in SaaS marketing. Her work has appeared on industry-leading websites like Social Media Examiner, SEMRush, CMX, The Next Web, Databox, Help Scout, Convince & Convert, and more. When she's not writing something epic, you'll usually find her watching Master Chef or schooling people on 90s pop culture trivia.
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