10 Most Common Upselling Mistakes In The eCommerce Industry

In the ecommerce business, we always try to maximize our revenue as much as possible and leave no stone unturned. Upselling is one of the most popular methods for increasing sales. It ostensibly seems very easy to offer the customers more goods and add-ons with buying products. However, upselling requires proper strategy, and there are many faults that ecommerce retailers make for selling more goods. This article will go through all such mistakes that ecommerce retailers make during upselling. But first, let’s know what is upselling:

What Is Upselling?

Upselling products on ecommerce simply means persuading the customer to spend more money on your site than they initially planned while making a purchase. Sounds difficult? Let’s make it easy to understand…

For example, you are buying a bean bag online for $100, however, without beans. Then on the checkout page or at the cart page, you would see an option of purchasing beans at $10 if you are buying them along with the bean bag; else, they can even cost you $15 if purchased alone. This is a perfect example of upselling in which you are attracting the customer to buy more on your site.

In upselling, you mainly offer a better version of the product to purchase to make a more significant sale. You provide your customer the chance to buy an upgraded product with better features, better specifications, more volume, or simply an expensive version to maximize the purchase value.

10 Mistakes To Avoid During Upselling

1. Irrelevant items

This is a widespread mistake that ecommerce retailers make. They recommend those products to the customers in which they are not interested, and it makes them think that you don’t care about their needs, and thus they will not trust your brand. If someone is buying a laptop, there is no need to recommend a charger as it will already be available in the package, instead of offering which buyers can use to maintain or improve laptops such as protection skin, laptop bags, insurance plan, warranty extension, etc.

According to Accenture, 91% of the buyers are more likely to purchase from online stores that provide relevant upselling recommendations. Thus, relevance is crucial when upselling if you don’t want to make your buyers feel that such offers are just about the money.

2. Wrong Timing Of Upselling

There is proper timing of even upselling else, the customers will be annoyed if you suggest their products at every instant. Too early or too later, upselling can make your offerings annoying as well as pushy. The worst scenario will occur when the buyers leave your store without buying the product they suppose.

If you want to improve the customer’s experience through upselling, it is essential to find the right timing for upselling. The best time for upselling is when the buyers have decided to buy before the final checkout. Else, upsell recommendations can be displayed below the product information, so only interested buyers can see them.

3. Lacking Personalization

More than 80% of online customers prefer to buy from a brand that gives personalized suggestions for products or services. Personalization is not limited to usual products but also upsell products. Thus, if you don’t want to lose such a huge chunk of customers, we suggest you use tools for delivering personalized suggestions. For this, you can ask your customers base about their preferences, needs, use analytic tools to understand their user history, search history, purchase history, etc.

4. Never Pressure To Purchase

Upselling will not succeed if any of the participants (either buyer or seller) isn’t satisfied. Suppose you are forcing your customers to buy an item. In that case, especially if it is expensive than the product they initially intend to buy or annoying them with constant product recommendations through e-mails, notifications, etc., they will feel the pressure. Thus, they will abandon your store and never make any purchase again.

Establishing positive relationships with your customers gives attention to their requirements and goals without pressuring them.

5. High-Priced Upsell

Another vital fault in upselling is making buyers feel that they are making another massive purchase through upselling. It ca, and it creates resentment and is also counterproductive. The suggested value shouldn’t be more than 25% of the intended order of buyers. Someone looking for a Dell laptop of nearly $600-$700 will not be ready to buy an Apple Macbook costing $1500 but may be prepared to accept an HP laptop costing about 900.

Follow this rule in the upsell of your ecommerce store, and you will avoid high-priced upsells. It will automatically improve customer experience with relevant and rational suggestions.

6. No Extra Value For Buyers

No customer will be ready to spend 25% if you do not educate them what extra or better they will get through an upsell. You have to inform shoppers about their options and why the price of an item is extra. Without educating them, you may damage the relationship with your customers by suggesting extra costs without extra value.

For success, make sure to provide customers with a win-win upsell. The motive of a successful upsell is to offer more value to the customers first, and then you get more money. You need to clarify what they “win” and recommend valuable goods. For instance, while buying a smartphone for $300, you can suggest another smartphone with more extensive storage, a better camera, or a better battery to improve smartphone usage. By clearly explaining what extra the customers are getting by paying extra, you make customers’ lives better and more comfortable. It will also increase the conversion rate.

7. Wrong Audience

Suggesting the wrong product to the wrong audience will result in a fail. Upselling expensive smartphones for young children or maternity books for older women doesn’t make sense. Thus, if you don’t have proper knowledge of the preferences of your target audience, your upselling strategy is unlikely to succeed.

You have to find out who sees your suggestions and when. You just have to select which upsells should be available to which type of your customers.

8. Too Many Suggestions

If you are giving too many choices or recommendations to your customers, you will get overwhelmed and confused, which will also lead them away from the conversion. While upselling, more suggestions only decrease the chances of conversion. Instead, give them only relevant and limited suggestions.

During suggestions, you should give customers those products which can meet their problems and needs and don’t generate any sort of confusion or questions. Thus, it is enough to give 2-3 well-targeted upselling recommendations to maximize your successful sales.

The best example of this strategy is Dell. It doesn’t only provide customers with limited offerings but also them to make the best decision. There is a “Help Me Choose” feature by Dell through which the buyers can see all the recommendations from the manufacturer, and one of them is marked “Dell-recommended.” Thus, you must give your customers advice and solution, and of course, upsells more effectively.

9. Weak Imagery

More than two-thirds of the buyers agree that images play a massive role in buying decisions. Make sure that the customers can easily see the benefits they will get from the recommended products compared to the products they intend to buy. Else, they will hardly pay attention to these items. The pictures must be high quality, realistic, and not overwhelmed with useless elements. The images must be product-focused and unique. Using appealing images can increase customers’ interest in the product you are trying to upsell.

10. Wrong Upselling Phrases

You can’t just limit yourself to images to influence customers’ decision-making process. Just like the pictures, upselling phrases also play an essential role. If you select the wrong words, it can spoil buyers’ impressions of your offerings and not make purchases.

Customers don’t like to feel tricked, and what’s more, they don’t want anyone to make their purchasing decision. This is the reason phrases such as “We’ve Chosen for You” or “You’d Better Choose” don’t appeal to customers and can even lead to cart abandonment. That’s why using proper upselling phrases and tags is crucial for successful upsell conversions.

A better phrase would be, “You May Like” or “Recommendations for You”. These phrases will make the buyers feel that they are the ones who are making the buying decisions.

Wrapping Up

This article has gone through the 10 Most Common Upselling Mistakes that eCommerce retailers make. Upselling is a great strategy to sell more and satisfy the customers. In a successful upselling strategy, both the buyers and sellers should get extra during upsell. Hire the best ecommerce development company with expertise in developing ecommerce stores from scratch with all such advanced functionalities.