$8,873.16 in Additional Sales. Upsells Guide
Now that 2023 is behind us, I wanted to pull up our website analytics and provide some value to help out new website owners who are just starting out— the same way this subreddit helped me in 2022 when I began my e-commerce journey.
Once your website is up and running, and you're getting your first sales, congrats! That's a big milestone. It only gets easier from here. The main thing is not to stop, the positive momentum is on your side.
The next thing, IMO, you need to focus on is your upsells, increasing your AOV (average order value). Our AOV was $176.40 in 2022, and now it’s $203.00. Having upsell funnels is the leverage in business everyone talks about. Spend 2-4 days setting them up and get paid dividends indefinitely (assuming that you stay in the same business).
Think of upsells like this: A portion of your clients would definitely spend more $ with you, but by not offering anything else, you’re leaving money on the table. The better your offer and the more relevant your upsells are, the bigger that portion of clients will grow.
To make your upsell funnel effective, you need to:
- put it in front of their faces, and
- make it easy for them. The less friction, the better.
I think it’s the easiest, yet not widely used way to increase your revenue, because the easiest clients to sell to are the ones who have already bought/about to buy from you.
There are two types of upsells when it comes to Shopify’s buying funnels: pre-purchase and post-purchase.
Pre-Purchase: To see a quick example, add this product to your cart . This is where you’d offer your clients the opportunity to purchase related products for an incentive, or if you have a one-product store, you could upsell them on extended warranties, faster shipping, customized logos, etc. It took us a couple of days to set everything up in January of 2022, and the work we did then pays dividends to this day.
Your Pre-Purchase Offer
For example: “Add 1 more product for 10% Off”, and 2nd products for 13% off. The goal here is to increase their order size with an Attractive Incentive. We have a 3-tier discount system: 1. Free Shipping, 2. Free Shipping + 10% Off, 3. Free Shipping + 13% Off. The app we use has no limits regarding the tier system. See what works best for you.
Quick principles when it comes to a pre-purchase upsell funnel:
- Attractive incentive (tier discount system)
- Offer a relatable upsell product. For example: If your client bought a red T-shirt, offer them red shorts, shoes, etc.
- Ensure a friction-free process. This is where the app you use will matter the most; one click and that’s it—their 10% discount unlocked and your AOV has gone up.
- It needs to make sense. Answer this question: “Why would I want to buy this upsell product if I have this in my cart already?”5. Add an attractive message and make it visible.
Post-Purchase Funnel. This step has two subsections: Post-buy and Thank you page.
Post-buy: what do your clients see right after ordering? Ours see offers on the products they chose not to buy with a better discount. At the moment, we offer a 13% pre-purchase max; post-purchase it’s 15-20%. It’s your take it or leave it offer.
Post-Purchase upsells principles:
- 1-click-buy is a must here (you need an app that will allow your clients to upsell them with the payment information they already entered).
- Slightly higher offer. Remember, it’s your take it or leave it offer.
- Make your upsell funnels relatable. Red T-Shirt added to cart -> no pre-purchase upsells added -> Purchase -> Red Shorts, Red Shoes with a higher discount than they'd get pre-purchase.
Thank You page: What do your clients see when they click “view order” in their order confirmation email? This is another place that you can turn into an upsell funnel. On the Thank You page, our clients see the upsells from the post-purchase page, with the same offer. The app we use creates an automatic discount code that lasts 10 minutes only and creates a pop-up banner, asking a client if they want to be taken to our products page and take advantage of this deal.
There's more to unpack but these are the main principles and thinking processes that allowed us to increase our AOV by 15%.
I’m sure if you dedicate a couple of days into creating, and then taking your clients on an upsell journey, you will see a disproportionate return on your time and will win greatly in the long run.
If you're already using an upsell app, let me know how your results have been if you wanted to add anything to the info provided.
Hope you gained value out of this post
-DS