How to Upsell on Shopify


Is your average order value on Shopify not the greatest right now? Would you love to find a way to start moving your more expensive upgrades and products? Then it would be best if you mastered the art of upselling. That’s where you convince a customer to go with an upgrade or a more expensive product. 

Upselling is a great way to boost your revenue without wasting money on marketing.

Actually, no marketing is required at all to upsell a customer on a purchase. All you need is some sales savviness to convince existing customers to either:

  • Buy a more expensive product
  • Upgrade an existing service
  • Buy more products than usual 

In this article, we’ll teach you how to upsell on Shopify. You’ll learn why upselling is a fine art, why it’s essential, and how to do it. Read on to learn some candid upselling techniques that you can use for your online store. 

The Art of Upselling Customers

Upselling is an age-old sales technique. It’s where you persuade your customers to buy more expensive items. Often, these items are upgrades or more premium versions of existing products. Upselling is a sales technique that you can find everywhere. Everybody from retailers to restaurants implements the practice in one form or another. 

If you’ve ever been persuaded to add a dessert to your dinner order, you’ve been upsold. 

The same is true if you decided to go with a more expensive computer due to a salesman’s pitch. You can do the exact same thing with the products that you sell through Shopify. A big part of the art is to only upsell to your existing customers. Brand-new customers aren’t ideal for upselling. Instead, it would help if you built their trust in your brand first. 

If you have a group of customers that have purchased from you dozens of times, they’re ideal targets. You can casually suggest a more premium version of their regular purchase. If the offer sounds appealing enough, you’ll make the upsell. 

Strategic upselling will increase your brand loyalty among regular customers. It will also increase your AOV or average order value. 

Why Upselling is Important for Your Store 

Let’s say that you’ve been selling on Shopify for three years now. Everything is going fine, but you’re looking for ways to increase your revenue. You don’t have the budget to spare for more expensive marketing tactics. As a result, you turn to upselling to fill in the gaps. By suggesting upgrades to your most dedicated customers, you’re able to grow your AOV. 

From there, you’re able to afford to start an affiliate marketing program due to the extra revenue. As you can see, there’s every reason in the world to incorporate upselling. It can help you grow your store and expand what you do. Upselling is also free. It doesn’t cost a dime to start persuading your customers to make larger purchases. 

Pre-Purchase and Post-Purchase Upsells 

The next step in learning how to upsell on Shopify is to know when to do it. There are pre-purchase and post-purchase upsell techniques, and they each have their place. Not only that, but you can even upsell during a sale. For now, we’ll focus on pre and post-purchase upsells. 

Pre-Purchase Upsells 

A pre-purchase upsell is going to happen before you even speak to the customer. It would help if you advertised your upgrades and product add-ons in as many places as possible. That way, your customers can get the chance to upsell themselves. 

Also, make use of showing off your other products on the cart page. Adding a simple ‘Customers also bought’ can do a lot for pre-purchase upsells. It gives your customers the chance to add a few more items before checking out. 

Post-Purchase Upsells 

A post-purchase upsell happens when a customer is checking out. It’s between the checkout and thank you page online. It’s here where you need to place product add-ons, upgrades, and other items. 

A post-purchase upsell will show your customer how to make the most of their recent purchase. A post-purchase upsell page is very flexible and low-risk. 

The significant part about a post-purchase upsell is that it’s at no risk of losing the customers’ initial order. Since that purchase is complete, you’re at no risk of losing any revenue. Instead, you only stand to gain from attempting an upsell. 

Benefits of Post-Purchase Upselling 

When you take part in post-purchase upselling on Shopify, you’ll enjoy these benefits:

  • Higher average order rate. If you score an upsell after a purchase, you’ll add to your AOV. In fact, post-purchase upsells have the most impact on your AOV. They’re impulse purchases, akin to buying a candy bar in the checkout area of the grocery store. 
  • Higher conversion rate. Your conversion rate will increase as well. That’s thanks to the fact that your users won’t have to re-enter payment information. 

Post-Purchase Upsell Techniques

You may not be sure how to add a post-purchase upsell to your sales funnel. Not to worry, as we’ve prepared some of the most common techniques. You can try:

  • Offering complementary products. A superb way to upsell is to offer a product that complements their original purchase. A simple example would be offering tennis balls to a customer that just bought a tennis racket. You get the bonus of helping out your customer while increasing the size of the sale. 
  • Discount coupons. Offer your customers a discount coupon for the next time they visit your store. The upsell comes into play when you recommend the items they can use them on. Make sure to put your most premium products on the list. 
  • A free gift. A small freebie can incentivize your customers to go for a more significant purchase. It can be as simple as a digital product like an ebook, PDF, or short video. 
  • Free samples of products. Want to spread interest in your new premium product? Then include a small sample in all your orders. That can lead to larger purchase orders later on. 

Use the Bold Upsell App 

Finally, we recommend making use of the Bold Upsell app. You can find it on the Shopify App Store, and it’s a fantastic tool for upsells. It offers a seamless shopping experience where offers will trigger and match upsells. It’s effortless to set up and start using, and there’s a 14-day free trial. 

Essential features include:

  • Tracking upsell performance
  • Data-backed upsell recommendations
  • Offer upgraded versions of each product
  • Cross-sell complementary products to your customer carts
  • You can schedule offers in advance to save time
  • Increase your conversions

As you can see, the Bold Upsell app is the ultimate tool to use for upsells and cross-sells. If you want to boost the sales of your Shopify store, then it’s a necessity. If you want to start upselling using the Bold app follow this link.

How to Upsell on Shopify ( quick video )

Takeaways

Now that you know how to upsell on Shopify, what do you think? Are you ready to increase your average order size? Do you want to sell more products without doing any marketing? Then we hope you can use this guide to master the art of upselling your customers.  If you’d be interested in how to increase your average order value see our article at this link.

For more great content to help you develop your Shopify strategies, check out the rest of the merchant posts on the site. If you want to see a list of our top recommended Shopify apps visit this link here.

Davon Wilson

I'm a certified Shopify expert, you can usually find me on my computer coding, or thinking about business ideas. I'm an avid Ravens fan and an overall nice guy.

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