How to Cross-Sell, Up-Sell, and Sell Backend Products IV

Advertising a product on the internet and selling it is all very well, but the way to improve your profits is to cross-sell, up-sell and sell backend products. Of course, you won't achieve this unless you have suitable products to offer, and frequently what is apparently the main product is simply the carrot; the item that gets the customer to the sales point.

First, a brief explanation for those of you who are unfamiliar with these terms. Let's say you walk into a supermarket looking for some blackberries. You get to the fruit stall and find the blackberries sitting right at the end of the display. You pick them up but sitting right beside them is a gorgeous basket of blackberries, raspberries and some blackcurrants and redcurrants. It has a ticket saying 10% off, but still costs quite a bit more than the blackberries.

However, just to the right you notice a fridge, with a photograph on top displaying the contents of this basket served with cream and ice cream, and a note stating that the cream and ice cream are in the fridge at a special price if purchased with the basket of fruit. They look absolutely irresistible, with the cream poured over them and the dollop of ice cream at the side.

So you decide to buy the basket and the cream and ice cream. When you check out the ice cream you notice a coupon on the carton offering you $400 off a trip to Alaska if you collect ten coupons. The trip to Alaska costs $2000 and you think it a great bargain so get the ten coupons at once. So, going in for just a carton of blackberries you come out with a basket of mixed berries, a tub of cream and ten cartons of ice cream, plus coupons for a trip to Alaska that you book when you get home. Hopefully your wife didn't ask you to get anything else or you would need a truck to get back home!

The up-sell was the fruit basket: you wanted only a small tub of blackberries but was up-sold to a basket of mixed berries, you were cross-sold the cream and ten cartons of ice cream, that complemented your initial purchase then back-sold the Alaska trip by the money off coupons.