Cross-selling strategy: How to easily increase your shopping cart value

1. Madewell

Madewell is a women's clothing brand that focuses on dresses, shoes, jeans, and T-shirts. One of the company's products is the "Linen-Blend Hilltop Shirt." Customers can get more information about the shirt by clicking on the top of the page, such as pictures, sizes, color options, etc.

As customers scroll down the page, they encounter a section titled "You may also like...", which leads to other items with complementary products that have been combined in shoppers' shopping carts in the past. This allows the clothing brand to easily recommend relevant items that a customer is likely to like without risking friction losses.

2. Lush

Lush is a brand of handmade cosmetics. One of its best-known products is a soap called "Honey I Washed the Kids," which is appropriately shaped like a honeycomb. Customers can find additional information on the product page itself, the FAQ page, the ingredients page, and the reviews page.

At the bottom of the page, under "Related Content," you will find other honey-based products that customers may also like, such as the "Scrubee" body lotion .

Here, too, the company is capitalizing on customer preferences and the trend toward honey-based products to recommend other relevant items. The company, in turn, benefits from lower acquisition costs.

3. MeUndies

The brand prides itself on having "the coziest men's underwear."On the website, customers will find many unusual designs, such as underwear printed with milk and cookies, perfect for Christmas. When customers want to purchase an item, it is added to their shopping cart. They are then taken to an overview page with details about the product before proceeding to checkout.

Below this overview page is the"Complete the Look"section with relevant items that customers might like and that complement the product they have purchased, including socks and bathrobes, for example.

Instead of relying on a generic "You might like," MeUndies is aware of the typical male weakness of not being able to put individual products into an overall context. The male target group naturally wants a complete look, and MeUndies helps with that.

This allows the company to use cross-selling to increase profits and raise the average order value (AOV) from its perspective, while at the same time making it easier for customers to find items they might never have come across otherwise.

Relevant product recommendations

Many shop systems already offer the option of displaying recommendations in various positions in the shop as standard. This feature is therefore often available, but usually offers only limited options in terms of the choice of items displayed. As a result, top sellers are often simply displayed. However, it is better to go one step further and provide personalized products as recommendations for each customer. Products that match personal preferences and are therefore particularly relevant. You can also achieve a high level of relevance if the products displayed are actually available (in the right size) and complement the items viewed or added to the shopping cart in a meaningful way, e.g., by ensuring technical compatibility.

You can use recommendation widgets to show your customers product recommendations on various shop pages that they would like to buy.

All these techniques lead to longer dwell times and thus increase the opportunities for sales.

Examples of personalized cross-selling recommendations

Personalization is a particularly effective strategy for displaying recommendations. We have compiled some examples of personalized cross-selling for you below:

Relevant cross-selling recommendations on the product detail page

Product recommendations based on a cross-selling strategy are ideal for product detail pages. This allows you to display items that match the selected product and that the customer might not have discovered in the product range themselves. The relevance of the product recommendations displayed is particularly important here. You can ensure this by taking your customers' personal preferences into account, ensuring product availability, only offering products in the right size, and presenting items that are suitable in terms of content (e.g., a matching style for an outfit, compatible accessories for technical items, or harmonizing flavors for food).

Product detail page on gepps.de with cross-selling recommendations (source: screenshot from gepps.de)

In addition, it is possible to offer customers a " like/dislike" function on the product detail page to give them the opportunity to indicate which suggested additional products are of interest to them. Shop customers can like or dislike recommended products with a single click. This information can then be used later on, and the liked products can be recommended in the shopping cart or shopping cart layer.

Product detail page on mobilezone.ch with cross-selling offers in the form of product recommendations that customers can like or dislike (source: screenshot from mobilezone.ch)

Matching outfit as a personalized product set

By offering entire product sets, customers can put together a complete outfit, for example, with just a few clicks. This saves your customer time and generates additional sales for you. Product sets also make sense in other areas outside of fashion. For example, a shop operator in the electronics sector can offer a matching case, protective film, or compatible headphones for a smartphone. Here, too, it is essential to ensure that the products are compatible, that customer preferences are reflected in the recommendations, and, as in this example, that the complementary products are the right size for the customer.

Cross-selling offer in the form of a complete outfit for women on outletcity.com (Source: Screenshot from outletcity.com)

Well-thought-out cross-selling strategy in the shopping cart layer

By clicking on the "Add to cart" button, you can use a cart layer widget to calculate personalized recommendations in milliseconds and display them via a layer. If a customer is about to complete a purchase, as in this case, the use of a cross-selling strategy makes particular sense. By specifically displaying suitable products, you can create further purchasing impulses at this point and add relevant items to your customers' shopping carts. Here, too, it is important that the products displayed are available in the customer's preferred size, for example.

Cross-selling in Zero's shopping cart layer (source: screenshot from zero.de)

1. Bundle products

You can bundle various individual services or products and sell them in a joint package. Conditioner and shampoo sets or beach kits with care products are typical examples of sensibly compiled product packages.

Some brands sell certain top products only as product bundles and not individually. This encourages their customers to try items that complement their top products.

This approach has two advantages:

• You help your customers find the most suitable items for them and prevent them from leaving your website.
• You assist your customers in finding additional items they would like to purchase.

On the Ex Libris product detail page, customers receive cross-selling recommendations in the form of a bundle, e.g., consisting of several books (source: screenshot from exlibris.ch).

2. Offer discounted prices for bundled products

Product bundles can be just as beneficial for your customers as they are for you. After all, when you offer a discount compared to individual sales, the customer also benefits financially.

A classic example of this type of cross-selling approach is game consoles sold together with games. Suppose a customer wants to buy the new game console and searches for it on Amazon: The console is available individually or as part of various bundles on Amazon. If a buyer wants to purchase the games included in a bundle anyway, or if they seem interesting enough given the total price, the customer will prefer the bundle over the individual purchase.

But be careful: you need to keep a close eye on your inventory to ensure that both bundle and individual product sales run smoothly.

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3. Use visual aids

When visual aids are used, consumers are presented with a high-quality display in order to sell additional products.

An example:
If you want to buy a new pair of pants, a website might show you a picture of a model wearing the same jeans along with matching shoes, accessories, and a top. If you like the whole outfit, you might buy the entire set. 

The same applies to furniture: you may be looking for a sofa, but end up buying a matching coffee table and TV stand as well.

Your goal is to show potential buyers an appealing picture and make it easy for them to turn that picture into reality in their lives.

4. Include complementary services

There are many ways to implement this approach. For example, an e-commerce company that ships flat-pack furniture could offer an assembly service.

This saves the buyer a lot of time. It also minimizes the risk of damaging the item or becoming frustrated while attempting to assemble it without experience. The service is also excellent for physically impaired buyers and older people who are unable to assemble the furniture themselves.

You can also use this cross-selling strategy to offer services such as extended warranties or insurance.

5. Convince with arguments in the shopping cart

Cross-selling other items is not limited to the product page. Offering a selection option on the shopping cart page can also be beneficial. This is especially true if you provide arguments in favor of adding additional items to the shopping cart.

Fackelmann has perfected this technique. When you click on the shopping cart, you will notice that shipping costs are usually charged. However, there is a note indicating the amount still needed to qualify for free shipping, as well as product recommendations to help you reach that threshold.

Cross-selling in the Fackelmann shopping cart to benefit from free shipping (source: screenshot from fackelmann.de)