5 Insider Tips on Upselling for Small Business Owners

From the very beginning, owning a business is like working in a circus. You have to juggle different tasks, wear many hats, and put on an excellent performance. You start with a business plan and then you switch to execution while trying to maintain a balance between preparation and action. Sometimes, important aspects of the sales process get lost along the way. Check out these five insider tips on upselling that can help boost your profits and grow your business.

What Is Upselling? 

If you don’t have much experience in sales, you may not be familiar with the term upselling, which simply means getting a customer to buy more products or spend more on what they want to buy. While this term comes with some negative connotations, it’s a key strategy you’ll need to put in place to maximize the amount of each sale. By improving the average size of each sale you close, you can make a positive impact in this area of your business metrics.

If you’re used to seeing upselling on a physical sales floor, it might surprise you to find out that upselling is a crucial part of online shopping as well. Whether you have a little experience with this technique or none at all, these five tips can help you streamline your upselling strategy.

1. Follow a Process

To ensure consistent results, make sure to follow a process when it comes to upselling. Come up with a specific set of steps that you and your employees can follow with every customer. Upselling, down-selling, and cross-selling all involve similar processes, and you can play around with different variations until you find what works for your business.

Take the following four steps as a guideline to develop your process. The steps are:

• Finish the original sale
• Point out your add-ons
• Discuss the advantages
• Close the upsell

2. Add to Checkout 

If you run an online business, you’re going to want to feature specific products, bundles, and special deals in the checkout section of your website. When your customers are ready to finalize their orders, it means they’ve already decided to spend money. It presents the perfect opportunity to show them other products, services, or subscriptions that they can add to their order. Upselling in this way may help you see a significant bump in sales.

3. Keep It Relevant 

The idea of upselling might leave a bad taste in your mouth, but if you keep your add-ons relevant to your customers, you won’t feel like you’re manipulating anyone. The fact is if your customers don’t know the extent of your product catalog, then they can’t find everything they need.

For example, if your customers know you for the candles you sell but don’t know about your line of home decor items that follow the same aesthetic, it’s time to introduce them to products they may fall in love with in no time. If you believe in your products and services, then you can offer add-ons to your customers in good faith, knowing that when they decide to buy more, they’re getting high-quality goods.

4. Create Bundles

When you’re running an online retail business, bundling products together is a great way to upsell and increase the dollar amount of each sale. People often shop in a hurry, and your customers will appreciate that you took the time to curate items that go well together.

5. Introduce Deals

Attracting a new customer and closing a sale is hard work, which is why it makes sense to introduce a deal as a way of upselling. For example, offering a discount on bundled products or a special deal on a recurring subscription is a great way to show customers that you appreciate them. As a bonus, you end up with a bigger sale.

Upselling is deeply embedded into the shopping experience, so you might not even realize you’re doing it. Use these tips to streamline your process and increase your sales so that you can achieve sustainability as a small business owner.