Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you are visiting a website thinking that you are only going to purchase a certain product, but actually end up buying more than that? For instance, you Visit Amazon and you want to only buy a new smartphone, but then you see a recommendation being advertised for you to buy a stereo earphone so you end up purchasing the product as well?
Well, what has actually happened is that you have fallen into the trap of cross-selling and product recommendation strategy of that website and ended up spending more than you initially planned for. Cross-selling and product recommendation is becoming very popular and is said to contribute up to 35% of overall revenues in Amazon, according to Invespcro. Moreover, statistics show that shoppers that clicked on product recommendations are 4.5 times likely to add that product to their carts. In addition to that, Forrester Research estimate that product recommendation have contributed nearly 30% of total sales of many e-commerce stores.
In other words, cross-selling and product recommendations can boost your sales and revenue if it is done right. Given the immense benefits that one derive from cross selling and product recommendations, here are three things that marketers must bear in mind.
1. Ensure that timing is right
An important aspect of ecommerce is that one must always remember that not all visitors that come to your store know exactly what they want. Maybe they just want to browse different products and see what products catches their fancy or they know what product they are looking or but they are not sure about the brand. So product recommendation can be utilized to tilt the scales to your favor. The benefits are manifold and using product recommendations effectively can help you to convert 49% of your customers.
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However, timing is important when it comes to cross selling and product recommendations. Wrong timing can result in losing up to 40% of your potential customers. The golden rule is to respect your customer’s time. For instance, do not bring up product recommendations to your users if they are in a hurry to complete a purchase. Make sure that you cross sell when they are finalizing the purchase.
2. Convey your value
Cross selling without conveying the value proposition to the buyer might backfire as doing so would portray you as being driven financially. Conveying a value when cross selling or recommending additional product will result in more purchases because doing so gives your customers the reasoning behind the recommendations. For instance are you recommending a phone casing to phone buyers because you want them to protect their new phones? Why did other users who bought phones also purchase phone casings?
3. Listen to the feedback
As a marketer, it is always important to listen to your customer’s feedback so that you can refine your future marketing efforts. Observe carefully the purchasing trends.
Cross selling and product recommendation is very effective if done right. Product recommendation can result in more repeat site visits with timely marketing messages. You think that product recommendations and cross-selling are easy ‘plug and play’? Well, you need to think again. The meat of the matter lies in executing your strategies well.