We have seen cross-sells and upsells on all the pages throughout a site. Before you do this on your site, it is important that you understand the objective you are trying to achieve without overshadowing other, more important objectives on the site.
Figure 8-10 shows how Newport-News.com displays a cross-sell on the righthand panel of a product page. Although this tactic shows users some items that complement the main item on the page, it may also impact their decision to buy because it interferes with the main objective of the product page: adding an item to the cart. This point came up recently with a client of ours. We were discussing rearranging elements on a page, which ultimately would push the cross-sell section on the page below the fold. Our main objective was to get users to “add to cart,” not to highlight the cross-sells. Remember, although cross-sells are a wonderful tool, they should never supersede the goal of the page.
Another important aspect of using cross-sells and upsells on a product page is whether users can add the cross-sell or upsell item immediately to their cart. With upsells, users have the option to upgrade directly from the page they are currently on, but with cross-sells, users must navigate from the product page they’re on to a new product page. This may result in greater site abandonment. Some sites have mitigated this limitation by offering users the option to add the cross-sell without having to navigate away from the main product page. Figure 8-11 shows how visitors to Gymboree.com can “Complete the Look!” and add cross-sells immediately to their cart.
The process of selling online, much like that of selling offline, must be restrained. So, an online store that employs annoying pop ups that continually try to sell items to site visitors can have a negative impact on those visitors. The same is true of shopping cart cross-sells. Many sites find the shopping cart to be an opportune place to promote their products further, and therefore sell more. Figure 8-12 shows how Newport-News.com uses cross-sells on its cart page. However, we feel this use of cross-sells goes too far. We discourage the use of shopping cart cross-sells for the following reasons:
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Once the user is on the shopping cart page, she is pretty much ready to buy. As we often encourage customers to remove distracting elements such as the lefthand navigation panel from the cart, we also encourage them to remove cross-sells, which compete directly with the user’s decision to proceed to checkout.
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Cross-sells on the cart page are not as relevant to cross-sells on a product page. Cross-sells work on a product page because they relate directly to the product in question. Upsells have been successful on the cart page for upgrading purposes.
