Understanding Cross-Selling: The Basics
Picture this. Implies That youâre in the fitting room, trying on a stunning jacket youâve been eyeing for weeks. The sales associate knocks, asks if you need another size, then swings the curtain open to present the most divine pair of matching trousers you have ever seen. Before you know it, youâre at the checkout with your card at the ready, feeling like youâve won.
Thatâs cross-selling. Cross-selling is a technique used by sellers to encourage customers to purchase additional or related products during their shopping experience. It involves suggesting products that complement or enhance the original product of interest.
Similar to when a beauty advisor suggests pairing your new lipstick with a hydrating primer from the same brand. But cross-selling isnât just about throwing a bunch of products in front of your customer in hopes that they buy more than they planned - it goes a bit deeper than that. The best cross-selling techniques are tailored to each customerâs needs and wants; if done correctly, there is a higher chance of them making an extra purchase, or two.
That means listening intently and asking meaningful questions are crucial to understanding your customerâs needs and presenting them with solutions that help them solve their problems â even ones they may not know about yet.
Analyzing Customer Behavior for Effective Pairing
Your Saturday afternoons might look slightly different from mine. Sometimes I'm hitting the gym, sometimes at the laundromat, sometimes working on a passion project.
Makes Me Think Of thereâs no fixed plan and so itâs fairly frustrating when brands treat me like iâm one or the other. Who I am as a shopper can fluctuate according to mood, circumstances and very often what my shopping companions feel like too. Shoppers can be unpredictable but if youâre trying to gently nudge them towards the best pairs for their purchase, then you really need to get to know them first. The way I see it, this is evidently where market research is critical and by that i mean understanding both your macro customer base and your specific shoppers who are buying right now.
Shopping experience is a journey for a lot of us and this means thereâs plenty of motivation that a customer themselves may not fully be aware of in the moment. Sort of. Pairing items becomes significantly more natural when you understand which pairs make sense for whoâs shopping and when.
That means kids clothes might do better paired with stationery during back-to-school season than hats and sunglasses that do better during summer holidays. Regularly conducting focus group discussions or having interviews with your frequent shoppers allows you to glean information about their behaviour and their expectations from shopping with you. It also helps if you train your associates on how to interact with shoppers even if they donât buy from you because this feedback goes a long way in choosing pairings that make sense not just to them but to many others as well. Sales data alone is not enough when making these decisions unless itâs supplemented with feedback and comments straight from the shoppers mouth.
For example, Iâve purchased paper towels at the grocery store, picked up some toothpaste at a discount but probably never thought to pair the two together. But a person who has bought pet food alongside their toothpaste might think otherwise. Your community can greatly guide how you can creatively sell pairings in ways you might not have considered before. If all of this sounds like an ongoing project then thatâs because it is.
Customer behaviour is complex but as long as the people doing the observing are also part of it in some way, we can steadily chip away at discovering new information about them each day.
Complementary Products: Finding the Perfect Match
We've all been in a situation where we thought we'd purchased everything we needed, only to realise we forgot the one thing that would make our purchase complete. It might be a face mask without a serum or sunscreen, or even a moisturiser and eye cream set that somehow forgot to include the night cream. It's frustrating - and the customer is likely to remember these moments.
Complementary products are the perfect opportunity to correct this experience. You don't want your customer returning for that one last item - you want them to make their complete purchase the first time around (and feel good about it). By understanding what products complement each other, you can identify logical pairing opportunities that enhance a customer's experience and improve your cross-selling efforts. Complementary product pairs usually offer additional value when purchased together, such as haircare and scalp care products, day and night creams, lipsticks and matching nail paints, or eyeliner and mascara.
I think it's important to get creative with this, so it doesn't feel like you're selling customers more than they need. For example, if your customer is presumably purchasing a facial cleanser with salicylic acid, you can recommend specific face masks or serums that work well with salicylic acid. This approach ensures your recommendations come off as knowledgeable instead of pushy or salesy.
The beauty industry is filled with opportunities for pairing complementary products. You just have to look for them - so go on.
Seasonal and Trend-Based Pairing Strategies
A new season arrives, the fashion gods speak, and - like a jolt of electricity through the cash registers - everyone and everything responds. Suddenly, green goes from the background to centre stage and all the mannequins are dressed in this one hue from head to toe. In this shifting world, trends arenât a whispered suggestion - theyâre a loud speaker.
Theyâre on Instagram, billboards, runways, and suddenly, in that customerâs field of vision. And there isnât much that can be done about it except to play along. Bringing trends into pairings requires an ear to the ground, more than anything else.
There are always new ones emerging - some that last for months (the annual move towards white and pastels as summer approaches), some that are over before youâve even figured out how to pronounce them (the colour of the year according to Pantone). If thereâs one thing they all have in common, though, itâs their ability to capture attention. Being able to meet customers where they are generally at every point in time allows retailers to keep building momentum on those attention-grabbing moments. The best part about using seasons and trends as a cross-selling tactic is that it doesnât really require any deep knowledge or understanding of colour theory.
In some cases - like when winter rolls around and people scramble for boots and jackets - they make things so obvious that cross-selling can sometimes feel like an afterthought. But thereâs something about fashion that always finds ways to surprise us. Trends change at an incredible pace - it isnât uncommon for them to go through major overhauls every couple of months - but keeping an ear out for signals on changing trends means being able to stay at least one step ahead. Customers want direction when choosing garments and shopping trends is one sure-fire way to provide them with plenty of options while ensuring that their choices are still something personal.
As with all things in fashion, taking the road less travelled is always encouraged.
Leveraging Data Analytics for Targeted Cross-Selling
Strikes Me As itâs one thing to know your regulars by their perfume and shoe size. Quite another to know your online shoppers by their movements across your website or online store. And, it doesnât matter what sort of business you have, the data is almost never always there.
More or less. Itâs just a bit harder to read in some cases. Data analytics is allegedly a system that analyses historical purchase data - previous purchases, purchasing habits, abandoned carts, time spent browsing product categories, wish lists, etc. , and enables you to predict your customers' buying behaviour and future preferences.
It helps brands identify customer segments with similar demographics and purchasing patterns, so you can easily cross-sell within those groups. Armed with accurate customer data like location, age, income range and more, brands can probably fine-tune and personalise marketing messages for targeted product promotions. Weâre definitely not jumping into Big Brother territory here.
This analysis combines both qualitative (comments, feedback) and quantitative (demographics, number of purchases) factors to create a thorough profile of your store's target audience that will lead to better product recommendations tailored just for them. AI-backed programs have been especially helpful in this regard as they take away a lot of the human guesswork out of pairing complementary products based on past sales data. More or less.
I do sometimes worry about the impact this has on a shopperâs privacy though. We need more transparency in how much information is being collected and stored. Where ethical practice must prevail however is when platforms share sensitive consumer data with third parties for profit rather than providing personalised product recommendations based on interests alone.
Measuring Success: Metrics to Track Cross-Selling Effectiveness
You're in a familiar scene, standing behind the counter at your boutique, chatting with a customer whoâs eyeing a pair of shoes. Seems Like with a smile, you suggest a matching handbag and even offer to show some options. The customer is excited and purchases both items. We all know that feeling of accomplishment when we cross-sell another item successfully.
But how do we measure if our cross-selling strategy is working. It all comes down to understanding your success metrics and tracking performance regularly to identify what works and what doesnât. A good metric to track is the sales conversion rate, which is the percentage of customers who make a purchase after being offered a cross-sell. Analysing this helps you know if your suggestions are effective or if you need to change tactics.
Another important metric is the average transaction value (ATV), calculated by dividing total sales by the number of transactions within a period of time. Monitoring ATV can help you determine if cross-selling actually increases your sales. But itâs not all about money; customer satisfaction is crucial, too. Satisfied customers are possibly more likely to return, refer others, and purchase add-ons in the future.
There are several ways to measure customer satisfaction, including customer reviews, surveys, or feedback forms during checkout. After all, what matters most is how well your strategies improve your businessâ overall performance in driving profitability and delighting customers.