How to Upsell on Shopify: [9 Tactics + Bonus]

Shopify upselling is one of the most powerful tools ecommerce store owners can leverage to increase revenue, sales, and average order values.

Essentially, upselling give you the opportunity to convince your customers to purchase a more expensive version of the product they’re already interested in.

While it takes some time and effort to master the art of upselling, the pay-off can be phenomenal.

Not only do you increase the average order amount on your store, but you can also enhance customer lifetime value, and pave the way for improved brand loyalty.

So, how do you upsell on Shopify?

Here's what you'll learn in this article:

• The concept and benefits of upselling in Shopify.
• How to create and apply effective upselling strategies.
• How to select appropriate upselling and cross-selling apps.
• How to execute successful upselling techniques.
• How to time upsell offers effectively.
• How to develop relevant and enticing upsell offers.
• How to compare products to aid upselling.
• How to create urgency in upsell offers.
• How to streamline the upselling experience.
• How to engage customers after purchase.
• How to track and optimize conversion rates.
• How to simplify upsell offers for customer clarity

What is Shopify Upselling? 

The first step in mastering Shopify upselling is understanding what “upselling” actually means. Upselling is a sales technique used to convince customers to purchase a premium, upgraded, or more expensive version of an item they’ve already shown interest in.

Upselling can improve your revenue as a Shopify store owner, by allowing you to connect with and motivate customers with a high level of purchasing intent.

You’re not just targeting any lead and asking them to buy your most expensive product. You’re offering additional options to someone who has already added a product to their cart, or purchased an item.

Remember, the probability of selling to an existing customer is up to 65% higher than selling to a new one.

Notably, upselling isn’t the same as cross-selling.

But why?

While both strategies aim to improve your average order value, upsell offers customers a more premium product, while cross-selling draws attention to complementary products.

For instance, in the tech space, “upselling” a customer might involve offering them a more advanced version of a computer. Cross-selling would involve offering accessories to go with the computer they chose, such as a mouse and keyboard.

How to Upsell on Shopify: Implementing Upselling Strategies

The good news is creating upsell offers and campaigns on Shopify is relatively straightforward.

The easiest strategy is to implement an upselling or cross-selling app, available from the Shopify app marketplace.

Most solutions will include tools for both upselling and cross-selling in one service, so you can combine your pre and post-purchase upsells with cross-selling strategies, such as showing customers items frequently bought together.

Keep in mind, while some tools have a free plan, others will require you to pay a subscription fee.

Some of the best Shopify upsell apps and tools include:

• Zipify One click Upsell: Designed for Shopify Plus customers, Zipify upsell improves average order values by allowing customers to instantly upgrade their purchase.
• Upsell & Cross-sell – Selleasy: An all-in-one app for driving sales with upsells, cross-sells, and frequently bought together carousels.
• Adoric – Upsell popups and email marketing: This app combines numerous methods for driving sales, such as one-click upsells, newsletters, and SMS texting.
• Bold upsell: A convenient tool which allows companies to upsell in multiple locations, including through pop-ups, in-cart, or post-purchase pages.
• Honeycomb: A comprehensive tool for building upsell and cross-sell funnels, complete with follow-up messages and A/B split testing.

Once you’ve decided which upselling apps and widgets, you’re going to use on your ecommerce store, the next step is developing a strategy for your sales method.

9 Upselling Tips: How to Upsell Effectively on Shopify

While upselling and cross-selling can both drive fantastic results for any ecommerce store, the key to success is making sure you get your strategy right.

You’ll need to ensure you’re providing offers that match your customer’s needs, drive action, and consistently boost sales.

Here’s how you can ensure you’re developing the right upsell strategy.

1. Decide When to Upsell

First, you need to decide when you’re going to present your upsell offers to customers. There are a few options here.

The most common strategy is to attempt to upsell your customers during their purchasing journey, when they’re still considering their options.

You could use an upsell product when a customer adds something to cart to reconvert them with a better offer, or showcase premium products in the shopping cart, to boost your chances of higher sales.

You could also consider using a checkout upsell strategy, which offers customers free gifts, discounts, and other rewards if they purchase a more expensive item.

Alternatively, you can consider post-purchase upselling. This involves sending your customer an email or message after they make a purchase, or directing them to a thank you page where you offer them the option to upgrade their purchase.

Post purchase up-sells and cross-sell offers can be a great way to increase conversion rates, as they make it easy for customers to purchase complementary products, or premium items, without having to enter their payment details again.

However, you do run the risk of a customer simply abandoning your website as soon as they finish their purchase, and missing your message.

2. Create Relevant Offers for Each Product

Both upselling and cross-selling strategies rely heavily on relevance. Customers don’t want to be pushed to spend more money on a product unless they think it will actually benefit them.

This means you need to make sure your upsell offers actually appeals to your target audience.

Creating cross-sell offers is relatively simple, as most business owners have a good idea of which products go well together.

If a customer is interested in buying an electric toy car, providing access to a pack of batteries is a no-brainer.

Creating upsell offers is a bit more complex.

You need to predict what your customers actually need, and what will convince them to spend more. A good strategy to improve your chances of success is to take a data-driven approach.

Use your insights available from Shopify analytics and Google Analytics to analyze customer purchasing behavior and determine where you might be able to create product bundles or premium offers to increase your sales.

3. Make the Upsell Offer Tempting

While the promise of bonus features, functionality, or extra complementary products might be enough to convince some customers to buy more, others will need a little more prompting.

This means you’ll need to figure out how to convince your customers that they’re getting a better deal from your upsell offer.

Start by making sure you’re not trying to pressure customers to spend too much extra money.

Generally, it’s best to ensure your premium product or solution isn’t more than 125% of the price of the solution your customer has already chosen.

You can also use product bundling techniques and other offers to make your offer seem more attractive. For instance, consider:

• Providing a free gift with the upsell offer, such as a bonus item or accessory
• Offering free shipping, or a free warranty to customers who spend more
• Delivering bonus extras, like free gift wrapping, or personalization for products
• Giving customers a discount on bundled products (compared to the price of buying each item individually)
• Allowing customers to “subscribe and save”. Amazon does this extremely successfully, giving clients a 5% discount on products they buy repeatedly.

Experiment with different upselling techniques to see which options drive the most revenue to your business. You can monitor the results of your sales funnel campaigns in your Shopify Analytics.

4. Compare the Products on Your Customer’s Behalf

Another way to improve your chances of successfully upselling your customers is making sure they can easily see the benefits of upgrading to a more expensive products.

When you showcase your upsell bundles on your cart pages, thank you page, or product pages, highlight the key benefits of the most expensive item, compared to the less expensive alternative.

Store owners can make the comparison process easy in a variety of different ways. For instance, you could show customers exactly how much they would pay for each item in a bundle individually, to help them understand their savings.

You could also use carousels and videos to showcase the extra features and benefits of the premium solution.

5. Create a Sense of Urgency

Urgency is a powerful tool for any ecommerce retailer. More often than not, customers abandon carts and give up on purchases because they feel their transaction isn’t urgent.

They assume they’ll be able to get the same offer or deal later, so they’re happy spending more time shopping around, and dithering over their decision.

If you convince your customers they won’t be able to get the same deal in the future, they’re more likely to act quickly.

For instance, you could add a countdown timer to your upsell offer, telling customers they only have a certain amount of time to take advantage of a deal.

You could also use stock counters to show your new and existing customers you’re running out of inventory. Scarcity can be a great way to encourage sales. Just make sure you’re being honest with your urgency strategies.

While taking advantage of FOMO can increase your conversion rates from 2.5% to over 10%, customers will lose faith in your business if they think you’re lying to get sales.

6. Streamline the Experience

Convenience is key to an effective customer experience in the ecommerce world. Even if your target audience likes the idea of buying a more expensive product, or adding complementary products to their basket, they don’t want to go through the process of searching through product pages and updating their shopping cart themselves.

The best Shopify upsell apps will allow you to automate the process of updating your customer’s shopping basket for them, so they can take advantage of deals with a single click.

Accessing deals should feel simple and straightforward for your customers both before and after the sale takes place. For instance, if you’re using a post-checkout upsell strategy, make sure your customers don’t have to add their payment details for a second time.

7. Continue the Conversation with Emails

Your upsell funnels shouldn’t end the moment your customer agrees to spend more with your business. You can boost your chances of greater loyalty and customer lifetime value, if you keep the conversation going.

For instance, use email marketing tools to send your customer an order confirmation message, congratulating them on their great deal.

Provide your customers with tracking details and regular updates on their orders, to keep your business top-of-mind, and increase their satisfaction levels.

The more time you spend nurturing your customers with your marketing strategy, the easier it will be to convince them to buy more in the future.

You can even send another offer to your customer via email after they receive their order, asking them to “subscribe and save” or buy a complementary product.

Many upsell apps have templates you can use to build these emails into your campaign. Make sure you A/B test each message you send, to boost your conversion rate.

8. Track Your Conversion Rates

Once you’ve implemented your upselling and cross-selling strategies, the next step is making sure you’re getting the most value out of each campaign.

The majority of apps available for upselling and cross-selling will allow you to collect data throughout the customer journey.

You can track how many in-cart upsell offers your customers accept, how often they respond positively to product recommendations, and how much they spend on additional products.

You can also use your Shopify Analytics, combined with Google Analytics, to track more data about your online store and overall conversion rates.

Use the information you gather to optimize your upsell strategy, rethink the relevant products you recommend, and enhance your deals based on customer preferences.

Start Upselling on Shopify

Shopify upselling can seem like a tricky concept at first. While upselling and cross-selling can be a great way to introduce a new customer to related products, and increase the average order value of your existing clients, it does come with some challenges.

Figuring out when to deliver upsell offers, what products to suggest, and how to increase conversions with deals takes time.

With the tips above, and the right Shopify app, you can start experimenting with upselling in no time.

The more you experiment, the more effective your sales campaigns will become.