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The Art of The Upsell: Increasing Your Small Business Sales

The Art of The Upsell: Increasing Your Small Business Sales

Whether customers shop in your brick-and-mortar store or your online store, you want to hold their attention to create extended and pleasant shopping experiences resulting in increased revenue.

Selling More in the Store

It takes time for the customer journey to result in sales. Follow these tips to ensure your customers stick around:

  1. Set the tone. Walk inside your store to notice first impressions.
  2. Create intervention zones. Inside your store, strategically place small displays that attract customer attention. Customers are more likely to buy if they pick up and handle a product. You’ll also slow down otherwise busy shoppers with a more browser-friendly environment.
  3. Make sure end caps feature key items. Aisle ends should contain promotional items or special items. End caps get lots of attention. Place high-demand items on display and make sure those items set the tone for the store.
  4. Provide carts or baskets. Numerous studies indicate customers will spend 10 to 15 minutes longer in a store and up to 25% more in total purchases when they have a cart or basket. Place some of your carts at the entrance to the store and create other cart storage areas so customers can grab a cart as they shop.
  5. Be available. Store hours should be convenient for customers. Most retail customers want to shop in the evening or on weekends; match the hours your customers need.
  6. Create complementary displays. Don’t make it hard for customers to find the items they need. Don’t think "departments"; think "customer needs." Place scarves and hats near coats. Place hammers and screwdrivers near nails and screws. Consider other items a customer might need and make them easy to find.
  7. Intervene at critical points. Some items can be sold without assistance; others benefit from salesperson intervention. For example, if you run a shoe store, customers will not require help choosing shoe strings but will need your help trying on shoes. Consider where your customers need help and where you are most likely to create additional sales possibilities with intervention.
  8. Develop incremental pricing schemes. Once a customer is in the store, the cost of acquiring that customer decreases. You may maintain healthy profit margins if you can sell additional items or products to that customer, even at a reduced price. Don’t always look at add-on sales as opportunities to charge premium prices; selling add-on items for lower margins can increase overall revenue while building additional customer loyalty.
  9. Make it easy. Consumers are accustomed to having information at their fingertips. Make sure product information is easy to access. Don’t assume a customer has done all their research ahead of time.
  10. Use the checkout to increase total purchases. Impulse items and items customers frequently forget should be stocked at the checkout area (batteries, for example). Your checkout area is a customer’s final impression of the store. Make sure it’s a good impression so they will return.

Selling More on your Online Store

With the continued rise of online shopping, the general principles of selling in a store still apply. However, these strategies must be refined for the digital shopper. Consider these tactics:

  1. Easy to navigate site. Make it easy for prospects to find the goods and services they want.
  2. Write engaging product and service descriptions. Engage prospects with lively and descriptive profiles of each product and service.
  3. Use email campaigns. Online shoppers are prolific email users and click-through to their favorite e-retailers in response to email campaigns. Approximately 70% of email users use coupons and follow promotions that they hear about via email.
  4. Create a persistent cart. Don’t automatically remove items from a shopper’s cart just because they sign off your site. Statistics show that 35% of online shoppers take over 12 hours to complete a sale, and 21% take more than three days. Removing the shopping cart items may dissuade shoppers from doing business with you.
  5. Use live chat. A pop-up chat window that enables immediate answers to shopping questions keeps prospects engaged and saves the shopper time. You will most likely lose a prospect who must pick up the phone to get an answer to a question.
  6. Incorporate buyer reviews. Allow buyers to post reviews about products or rate the products and make that information visible with the product description.
  7. Cross-promote products. As a product is placed in the shopping cart, show the customer a pop-up window displaying other products frequently purchased with this item. This may increase your total sales.
  8. Make it easy to receive “out of stock” items. For any item not available at the time of purchase, capture information to follow up for another prospective sale.

Many strategies to engage customers for further sales can also create customer loyalty. Being interested and helpful in a customer’s journey allows them to stay engaged. Using upselling strategies in physical and online stores can increase your small business’ revenue.

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