What motivates customers to shop small?
While a wide selection of the best quality products certainly has something to do with it, the other big reason is that small business owners craft a curated experience for their customers, share their product expertise, and offer top-notch customer service with a smile.
Using the right cross-selling strategies is a key step in creating this memorable shopping experience, giving them a reason to trust you and choose your store time and time again.
In this blog, we’ll explain exactly what cross-selling is — and four cross-selling strategies you can use to make more sales and increase your customer satisfaction.
What Is Cross-Selling?
Cross-selling is a technique retailers use to encourage customers to purchase additional, related items.
Cross-selling increases your average sale value and enhances the customer experience by providing them with more value and recommending items that complement what they were already planning to buy.
An effective cross-selling strategy depends on understanding your customers’ wants, anticipating their needs, and guiding them to products that they may not have initially considered.
Let’s look at a few specific cross-selling strategies and examples.
1. Cross-Sell by Making Personalized Recommendations
The most effective cross-selling strategy is to learn about your shoppers and make tailored recommendations for products that match their wants and needs.
For example, if you own a boutique and notice that a customer frequently buys garments with a floral print, you might guide them to another area of your store and ask if they’ve seen your new floral arrivals. You might even suggest a few botanical-inspired accessories to go with the pieces in their closet.
This technique gives you a chance to sell additional items — and it also shows your customers that you care, giving them a more curated, memorable shopping experience.
For this cross-selling strategy, you’ll need a point of sale (POS) solution with customer relationship management (CRM) software. CRM software keeps meticulous records of your customers and their purchase history, giving you helpful insights into their habits and preferences.
Your CRM software should give you all the information you need to be able to make personalized recommendations to your most valuable customers.
2. Cross-Sell by Educating Your Customers
Another unique way to cross-sell in your store is to share your expertise with your shoppers and make recommendations that they can trust.
This strategy is an excellent way to add value to the customer experience. They’ll leave your store not only with the right products, but with more information.
When cross-selling with an educational perspective, you’ll want to tell your shoppers how additional products can enhance the value of their originally intended purchase.
Let’s imagine that you own a hardware store. If a customer comes in looking for paint, you might ask them if they have all the tools they need for the job. If they don’t, you can lead them over to your brushes and preparation supplies, walking them through how each item will ensure the cleanest paint job.
Cross-selling through education builds trust between you and your shoppers — and increases the likelihood that they’ll visit your shop for their next DIY project.
3. Cross-Sell With the Seasons
Your customers’ needs will change with the seasons, so your cross-selling strategy should adapt to these shifts.
With this seasonally-inspired cross-selling technique, you’ll want to recommend products that will help customers make the most of the weather — whether it’s 90 degrees outside or 19.
For instance, if you own a sporting goods store, you might see an influx of shoppers interested in camping and outdoor gear as the temperature rises. If a customer stops by looking for a tent, make sure that all of your related camping supplies are displayed nearby, including lanterns, lightweight sleeping bags, and fire starters.
Changing your cross-selling strategy with the seasons and anticipating which products your customers will want is a great way to establish your store as the one-stop shop for all things outdoors.
Make sure to review your POS system’s sales records to identify which products seem to have increased demand during seasonal changes, and structure your cross-selling strategy around these key categories.
4. Cross-Sell Effortlessly by Creating Bundles
Bundling is an easy and effective strategy for cross-selling and marketing specific items. To create a bundle, you should identify products that are commonly bought together, and offer customers a special, discounted price when they purchase both.
Your customers will enjoy the recommendation and the chance to save, and you’ll be able to make higher-value sales and turn over your inventory more quickly.
Let’s use a garden center as an example. To increase your sales of gardening tools, you might offer a special bundle price when customers purchase a bag of potting soil and a small shovel.
This bundle deal will increase your sales of both of these items, and create a convenient shopping experience for shoppers looking to repot their houseplants.
To leverage this cross-selling strategy, make sure to use a POS system that lets you create bundles, so that the discount is automatically applied at checkout.
Start Cross-Selling in Your Store With Comcash
Before you can implement a successful cross-selling strategy in your store, you first need to understand who your customers are and what they want.
That’s where Comcash comes in.
With robust CRM software, insightful sales reports, and convenient bundling capabilities, Comcash has everything you need to create a top-notch customer experience and boost your bottom line.
See Comcash’s cross-selling features for yourself by scheduling a personalized demo with one of our retail industry experts today.