Are you wondering how to cross-sell products in WooCommerce? If yes, you're not alone. Many shops owners don't know how to cross-sell in WooCommerce and end up not implementing this highly effective method to boost sales.

If implemented well, cross-selling can be one of the best ways to boost your eCommerce revenue.

Almost every type of eCommerce business can benefit from cross-selling. Yet, few actually use it to increase their sales and boost their company's revenue.

So if you are using WooCommerce and trying to figure out cross-sells, we got your back. This blog contains a complete breakdown of the concept of cross-selling and why you should use this sales technique on your website. On top of that, we will show you how to implement some of the most popular ways of WooCommerce Cross Selling. Let's get started!

What Does Cross Sell Actually Mean in ECommerce?

Cross-selling refers to the process of a retailer offering what they believe to be complementary or supplementary items to a customer in addition to their primary item selection.

In simpler words, cross-selling is a marketing tactic that involves selling additional products to your target market. When executed successfully, cross-selling can significantly increase the sales and revenue of an eCommerce shop.

If you're not clear about how cross-selling works, here's an example for you. When you add a product to your cart on top multivendor marketplace Amazon, you often see something like the following image. This is actually a cross-selling method where Amazon is pushing additional relevant products when you're already buying one product.

What Is the Difference Between Upselling and Cross-Selling?

One of the most common confusion that we hear from new e-commerce businesses is “What's the difference between cross-selling and upselling?” In this section, we'll go over the meaning of each term, and explain when and how you should use them to sell more online.

Cross-selling and upselling are two very similar concepts. The main difference between cross-selling and upselling is that cross-selling occurs when you offer a customer a product or service in addition to the one they're buying, while upselling occurs when you offer a better version of the same product or service.

At first glance, the difference between cross-selling and upselling may seem subtle, but it can make a big difference in WooCommerce sales strategies. Upselling requires you to convince people to buy more expensive products; on the other hand, cross-selling can be done with items of any price point.

Let's give you an example.

Suppose, you sell phones on your eCommerce. You could offer your customers an upgrade from feature phones to smartphones for a higher price. This is upselling.

On the other hand, if you sell a smartphone, you can subtly push the visitor to sell a headphone along with that for a better music experience with the phone.

Benefits of Cross Sell in WooCommerce

Cross-selling, the practice of promoting complementary products alongside your main product, is a common tool for increasing average order value. It works because it enables you to serve other products that your customers might want in addition to their main purchase, at a time when they are already thinking about buying and have an open wallet.

In 2006, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed that 35% of all the sales of Amazon were a direct result of cross-sells.

For WooCommerce powered eCommerce shops, it is very easy to implement cross sell as well. So there's no reason to not make use of it.

Benefits of Cross Selling — Image Source: Shiprocket

Here are the main benefits of WooCommerce Cross Sell –

It helps in increasing the average order value. According to McKinsey, cross-selling can increase sales by 20% and profits by 30%.
It increases your customers’ engagement with your brand and increases their lifetime value.
Provides an opportunity to upsell more expensive models and offer upgrades to a product that a customer is likely to buy anyway.
It allows you to showcase products related to what customers are currently viewing or buying from you (and this will be much easier for them than searching for it themselves). According to Forrester’s Sucharita Kodali, product recommendations account for an average of 10-30% of eCommerce businesses’ revenues.
You can drive sales by offering complementary accessories which may be needed alongside the main item purchased.

Overall, there's no reason you should not make use of cross-selling in your WooCommerce shop.

How to Cross Sell Products in WooCommerce Shop

Now you know the benefits of cross-selling. It's time to show you some effective methods of WooCommerce cross-sell. Some cross-selling methods can also be done using the standard WooCommerce feature. For other advanced methods, we will use a plugin called IconicWP Sales Booster. You can also try other similar plugins.

1. Cross-Sell Related Products in WooCommerce

Showing related products is a great way of cross-selling products on WooCommerce. Also, it can be done just using the WooCommerce plugin itself.

To do this, first, navigate to Products > All Products.

Click Edit the product you want to add cross-sell products to.

Now scroll down to the Product Data section and click on Linked Products. Here you will be able to add your related products on the Cross-sells option as seen in the below image.

Once you add the related products, you will have to update the product.

Now the related products should be displayed when you add the product to the cart and access the cart page.

2. Set Up WooCommerce Related Products Using Tags and Categories

WooCommerce also enables cross-selling based on product categories and tags. For that, you'll have to access the product edit page again.

After that, from the sidebar, you can update the categories and tags.

Now you should see the related products on the product page that you have updated. However, there's no way to show specific related products in this way, as WooCommerce shows the product randomly, based on your category and tag.

3. Enable “Customers also bought…” Feature to Your Store

For this method and the rest of the methods, we will use a third-party plugin.

As a cross-sell method, “customers also bought” is a very effective one, since it also works as sales proof and builds the trust of customers. It is very effective to use this cross-sell method on the cart page, where you have the chance to push some extra products to a customer who is already purchasing one.

To add this feature, first, install the IconicWP Sales Booster. After installing and activating the plugin –

Navigate to Products.

Now edit the product you want to add the option to.

After that, scroll down to the Product Data option and click on Sales Booster.

You can now add products on the After Add to Cart Popup to show on the “customers also bought” option.

Now when the product is added to the cart, the customer will see the following option on the cart page.

4. Include “Frequently Bought Together…” in Your Woocommerce Store

“Frequently bought together” is one of the most popular cross-sell method. It is used on all the popular eCommerce platforms. You can add this feature with IconicWP Sales Booster as well.

To do that, first access the edit page of the product where you want to add the option, in the same way, we did it in the above method.

After that, again, scroll to the Product Data section and click on the Sales Booster option.

Here you will find the “Frequently Bought Together” option. You can customize the text, description, and choose your product.

After adding the products, save the changes by clicking on Update. Now the cross-sell products will be displayed on the product page.

5. Add a Cross Sell Product on Woocommerce Checkout Page

When your user is already committed to buying a product, it is the best time to push a relevant complementary product.

To add this feature, to your admin dashboard, click on Sales Booster > After Checkout.

Click on Add New.

Now you will see three different tabs with options called Product(s), Offer and Customize respectively.

The Product(s) tab will let you choose the specific product to add cross-sell on the checkout page. You can either show the cross-sell offering on all products or specific ones.

In the Offer tab, you can add the cross-sell products. You can also define the offer percentage or amount.

In the next tab, you can customize the design and text of the offer.

Finally, publish the offer. And it will look something like this.

FAQs on WooCommerce Cross Sell and Upsell

Now we want to clear some of your common questions regarding WooCommerce cross sell that we usually find our audience asking.

What is cross-sell in WooCommerce?

Cross-selling in WooCommerce is the practice of promoting related products to a customer at the point of purchase. For example, if you are buying a laptop on Amazon, you might see a recommendation for a laptop case. This is cross-selling.

Does cross-selling work in multivendor marketplaces?

According to Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, as much as 35% of sales of Amazon are direct results of cross-sells! This just goes to show that cross-selling really works.

Is there any difference between cross-selling and upselling in WooCommerce?

Yes. While cross-selling and upselling are quite similar in objective, they are different in application.

Cross-selling is when you recommend products that complement the initial product a customer has shown an interest in. On the other hand, upselling involves persuading customers to buy higher-priced versions of what they were already interested in purchasing.

What is an example of cross-selling?

A simple example of cross-selling is when you purchase a hamburger at McDonald’s and the cashier asks you would you also like to buy French fries or a drink? Once a customer has made a purchase, they are more inclined to make another one.

Cross-selling is only successful if the seller can convince their customer that they need the product or service being offered.

Why Should You Opt for Cross Sell in Your Woocommerce-Powered Marketplace

WooCommerce is the best eCommerce platform for WordPress. The great advantage of WooCommerce is the freedom and flexibility it gives business owners to build their own eCommerce shop from the ground up. You can even create a multivendor marketplace like Amazon, eBay, AliExpress or Etsy using WooCommerce, which can be even more profitable than a regular eCommerce. You should definitely give a thought to starting a multivendor marketplace if you have not already. It is very easy to create a marketplace using WooCommerce, you will also need Dokan multivendor plugin.

Win a free license of Dokan multi-vendor plugin

Multivendor marketplaces have unique characteristics and requirements that are not always similar to regular eCommerce. They have multiple sellers to sell their products on a single website. They also need multiple sources for increasing sales within the shop for the same reason. Thus, it is ever more important for multivendor marketplace owners to introduce more smart ways to promote and sell products, which can be done with cross-selling.

Even if you look at the popular eCommerce marketplace like Amazon, you will see many efforts of cross-selling.

With the giants of eCommerce businesses using this to boost sales, now you must have understood how important it is to implement cross-selling, especially for multi-seller eCommerce websites.

Make the Best Use of Cross Sell to Boost Your E-Commerce Sales

The benefits of cross-selling are clear, it gets your customers to buy more products from you and helps you make more revenue. If you're currently cross-selling in specific ways, but only achieving average results, it's time to follow the cross-selling methods we showed in this tutorial.

By incorporating a comprehensive effort, you can create a seamless cross-selling experience that will keep your customers coming back for more.

We hope you have enjoyed this post on how to apply WooCommerce cross sell marketing strategies to your eCommerce store. We're sure that you can use these strategies to increase sales quickly and smoothly. More importantly, with a little creativity, you should be able to put together a cross-selling strategy that fits into your overall online business plan.

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Unleash The Power of WooCommerce Cross Sell to Boost Sales