One of the best ways to get customers to spend more and keep coming back to your store is to offer them exciting upsells. Even more effective is when a customer sees relevant upsells right after placing an order. They’re still excited about their purchase and are open to product suggestions. If this sounds like something you’d like to implement on your own Shopify store, you’re at the right place. In this article, you will learn how to add a post-purchase upsell on Shopify with Cross Sell, the upsell and cross-sell Shopify app that helps you boost your average order value, revenue, and profits.

Table of Contents

• What is a Post-Purchase Upsell?
• Why You Should Implement Post-Purchase Upsells
• How to Add a Post-Purchase Upsell on Shopify with Cross Sell
• Post-Purchase Upsells – Frequently Asked Questions
• Take Advantage of Post-Purchase Upsells to Grow Your Store

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What is a Post-Purchase Upsell?

Quick reminder: an upsell is when you suggest either 1) a higher-priced version of a product your customer has already purchased or 2) an entirely unrelated product.

Upsells cater to the needs of shoppers while being optional. In a physical store, upselling takes place when a sales rep incentivizes a customer and at a POS (point-of-sale). And in an online store, there are several places where you can display an upsell, like product pages and the checkout page. Upselling is a tried-and-true tactic that countless Shopify stores rely on to make more sales.

Examples of upsells include:

• Buying a pair of sneakers made of premium materials
• Adding a bigger bag of coffee at a discounted price
• Buying a limited-edition dress
• Choosing a smartphone with higher storage capacity

In addition to extra items, you can also upsell services like gift wrapping, extended warranty, first-in-line shipping, or premium customer support.

Cross-sells, on the other hand, are suggestions for additional items that complement those bought by a customer.

So a post-purchase upsell is, as the name suggests, an upsell that you display after a customer completes an order. Post-Purchase upsells capitalize on that moment where the buying intent is still at its highest, as the customer is feeling excited about their purchase.

When implemented properly, post-purchase upsells will benefit your store in many ways.

Why You Should Implement Post-Purchase Upsells

As you can imagine, post-purchase upsells can have a big impact on your Shopify store. For starters, it’s easier to get customers to buy more products at the post-purchase stage of their buying journey. They have already dismissed other brands and have placed their trust in yours. So you should capitalize on that moment to encourage an additional sale.

When done right, upsell will help you:

Increase your AOV, revenue, and profits

Post-purchase upsells will increase your Average Order Value (AOV). This, in turn, boosts your revenue and profits, as you get more orders with the same marketing budget. According to Sumo, upselling in general increases revenue by 10-30% on average.

You might have already implemented other forms of upselling on your store, like displaying upsells on a product page or sending an email with an upsell offer. Combining these upselling tactics with post-purchase upselling will ensure that shoppers are aware of your offerings at every step of their shopping experience, thus increasing your bottom line steadily.

Turn one-off customers into repeat customers

Some customers buy only once and are hard to bring back to your store. One way to have them buy more is through post-purchase upsells. Recommending a relevant upsell can help them understand how much value they can get from your store. And doing this while they are still in the buying mood can compel them to go beyond the initial purchase and buy a second item. This is great for you because it’s much easier and more cost-effective to keep selling to existing customers rather than having to acquire new ones.

So converting one-off customers into repeat customers through post-purchase upsells will help you keep them engaged and receptive to your future promotions. And as they return to place new orders, their Customer Lifetime value increases, which brings us to the next benefit.

Increase your Customer Lifetime Value

The Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV for short, is the total amount of money that you make from one customer in their lifetime. So as customers buy upsells and come back later to buy more products, your CLV increases.

This is an important metric to keep track of because it indicates your brand loyalty and long-term profitability. Furthermore, your CLV helps you plan for the cost of acquiring customers. When you know how much you will make from one customer over the entire length of your relationship with them, it’s easier to decide how much you spend to acquire them.

According to Shopify, upsells help grow the CLV through increased customer retention and AOV.

“Upsells work to increase CLV for two reasons:

1. The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60% to 70%, compared to a 5% to 20% chance of selling to a new one.
2. It increases average order value, which contributes to higher customer lifetime value.”
   Shopify Blog

Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty

If placed at the right time and place, upsells don’t feel pushy because they address what customers want. Showing your store visitors different options (without overwhelming them) makes it easier for them to make their choice. Customers will also feel thankful when you show them options that they may have missed otherwise.

With upsell, you help each shopper make the best choice for their needs and budget. As a result, they attach more value to your brand and become loyal customers who are always eager for new offerings and sales.

Scale your Shopify store

Encouraging customers to spend more will have a massive impact on your bottom line and long-term growth. As you generate more revenue and profits from upsells, you will find it easier to expand your offerings, hire more staff to serve customers, and even open a brick-and-mortar location if you want.

Upselling will also reduce the cost of acquiring customers since you will generate higher revenue with the same ad budget. In fact, in the same study, Sumo reported that upsells are 68% more affordable than the cost of acquiring new customers.

For all these reasons, your Shopify business will greatly benefit from implementing post-purchase upsells. So how do you go about incorporating them into your Shopify store? Well, Cross Sell has a new feature precisely for that.

How to Add a Post-Purchase Upsell on Shopify with Cross Sell

Cross Sell is a top-rated Shopify app that store owners use to easily add upsells and cross-sells on their stores. Our newest feature allows you to easily add a post-purchase upsell on Shopify.

So without further ado, here is how you can add post-purchase upsells on Shopify using Cross Sell.

Step 1: Install Cross Sell

You can either sign up for a free account or a 14-day free trial of one of our three paid plans..

Go to our homepage, paste the URL link of your Shopify store, and click on the button ‘Install’. Alternatively, you can install Cross Sell from the Shopify app store.

After that, you need to copy and paste our snippet (a short line of code) to your product and cart pages. Watch this video to learn how to do this:

Once installed, you will be able to access Cross Sell both from our website and your Shopify dashboard.

Step 2: Configure your post-purchase upsell settings

First, make sure to enable the post-purchase functionality in the Cross Sell app. To do this, go to  the Settings menu and scroll down to the post-purchase setting. Check the box next to “Show Cross Sell on Post Purchase Checkout page”.

Next, log in to your Shopify admin. In the Setting menu, go to “Checkout and accounts”, scroll down to “Post-purchase page”, and select the Cross Sell app.

Now you can add post-purchase upsells! For more details, read this article.

What makes Cross Sell unique is that you can freely hand-pick which upsell to show for which initial purchase. You can show one or several post-purchase upsells that will show up right after the customer finishes placing an order. Once you’re done selecting upsells, click on the button ‘Save’.

Don’t forget to type the phrase that appears above the upsell. For example, this could be “Before we finish, you might be interested in this” or “Wait! Would you like to add this?”.

Once you have created your upsells, you can customize their color to match your theme. If you need help with this, just let us know at support@csell.co and we will assist you with aesthetic changes.

All that is left to do is save your upsells and they will show up in your store. Success!

Now, when a customer completes an order, they will see your post-purchase upsell before the thank you page. If they choose to buy the additional item, they won’t have to enter their payment information again and the item will be automatically added to their invoice. Convenient, right?

Step 3: Track clicks and conversions

From your Cross Sell dashboard, you can track all the clicks, conversions, and revenue related to your upsells and cross-sells.

Based on this data, you can see how customers respond to your upsells and which ones sell more. This way, you can optimize your upselling efforts to capitalize on the more profitable items.

And that’s how you add a post-purchase upsell on Shopify using Cross Sell. It’s a simple process that doesn’t take much time to complete, and you’ll start seeing an increase in order value and revenue soon afterwards.

Post-Purchase Upsells – Frequently Asked Questions

Let’s go over a few questions you might have about adding a post-purchase upsell on Shopify with Cross Sell.

Do customers have to enter payment information again?

No. When customers buy an item suggested as a post-purchase upsell, they don’t need to enter their payment information again.

Cross Sell adds the extra purchase to their previous invoice, making the whole upselling process quick and effortless.

What other upsells or cross-sells can I display with Cross Sell?

You can use Cross Sell to show your customers a variety of upsells and cross-sells across your Shopify store, namely:

• Best sellers
• “Also bought” items
• “Complete the look” items
• Post-purchase cross-sells
• Product bundles
• Discounted products
• And more

Using a combination of these cross-sells and upsells (without overwhelming store visitors with them) will maximize the amount of additional revenue you can make from your website traffic.

What if an upsell is out of stock?

You can activate a setting in your Cross Sell dashboard that hides items when they are out of stock. This way, customers won’t see upsells that happen to be out of stock.

Note that you can also hide items that are already in the customer’s cart, so they won’t see the same item a second time as an upsell.

Take Advantage of Post-Purchase Upsells to Grow Your Store

To grow your Shopify store, you need to increase your website traffic, average order value, and order frequency. But between advertising and influencer partnership, driving website traffic is often costly, so you need to maximize the amount of sales you get from your current  traffic.

To achieve this, strategically placed upsells and cross-sells are incredibly effective. Done right, they result in a consistent increase in AOV, revenue, and profits. One-off customers turn into repeat customers, thus increasing your CLV and allowing your store to grow even further.

So if you want to get started today with post-purchase cross-sells, give Cross Sell a try. As you have seen in this post, our app is simple to install and set up. It’s also free to try out so you can test its effectiveness without committing to a paid plan.

So sign up for your free trial account and start placing post-purchase upsells on your Shopify store!

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