Fries with that?

[wheel]

Upselling customers is a time honored tradition in B&M, and I think it's a great idea.

But I don't see how to do this on my website. Anyone out there upselling clients? If so, how? And what if you're not an ecommerce site with a formal checkout - how can someone like that upsell?

[Habtom]

I don't mind seeing a few products that don't distract me from the main shopping process, but companies like Godadday over do it, and it gets very annoying.

But generally, yes that even goes to show you cared enough to offer them similar product/service you thought would benefit them.

[martinibuster]

I like the way some eCommerce sites show a photo of previously viewed products in the top right hand corner, as well as similar products in the lower right hand side. Amazon does something similar. It stimulates the impulse to browse and discover, replicating the experience of a shopper in a B&M. It works, on me at least.

[lucy24]

Taking your subject line at face value: If I'd wanted fries I would have asked for fries. In fact it's the textbook example of Annoying Marketing. It's different from "Oh, good idea, I wouldn't have thought of that" or "Often purchased together with..." with links.

[lexipixel]

I know the javascripts that pop-up a "Wait don't leave yet" window can be annoying -- but I used to shop on a site that used one and it offered a discount as a last ditch effort, (I would put the "thing" in the cart, then leave to get a better price -- did it several times). I guess they figured a discount sale was better than no sale at all.

You could try the same thing to upsell -- use onunload to trigger an ajax fed CSS "window", (to avoid pop-up blocker setting), and make them an offer if they haven't bought anything -- or reward them with something if they are a valued customer.

Ideas:

- if using cookies or sessions -- offer something ONLY if they have been on the site for 90 seconds or more (that will keep you from annoying people who hit the site and want to bounce quickly, e.g.- wrong site for a search result).

- if site logs in users and you want to sell something to already registered accounts, use that as a filter for the onunload trigger.

No matter what -- make sure it's easy to escape the onunload window, and that it only fires once.

Another idea: if they are a customer and you've shipped them something -- put a coupon in the order for whatever you want to "upsell" them

[lawman]

Do what the french fries sellers do now. Put together combos of related items at a lower price than the items priced individually - or something like that.

[wheel]

Taking your subject line at face value: If I'd wanted fries I would have asked for fries. In fact it's the textbook example of Annoying Marketing. It's different from "Oh, good idea, I wouldn't have thought of that" or "Often purchased together with..." with links.

Doesn't matter if you find it annoying. 80% of people find it annoying, 20% buy. That's a 20% price increase.

I refused to offer a conversion type product in a data feed I used to offer for similiar reasons. I didn't believe anyone would convert. I finally put it in based on client demands - and boy was I wrong. approx 5X the sales. Doesn't really matter if one person finds it annoying or intrusive - those are the people that aren't buying anyway, they can go visit the sites of people that ain't selling.

[lexipixel]

It's strange (sort of)... but:

You get more fries in (2) $1.00 "value menu" orders at McD than you do in a $2.50 +/- medium order of fries.

You get more meat. more bread and more cheese in (2) $1.00 "value menu" double-cheeseburgers than a single $3.00 +/- "Quarter Pounder with Chesse"

(Note: I used "+/-" as some stores charge $0.10 - $0.20 more or less than others depending on location).

I believe what they've done is establish products for two markets: the "value shopper" and the "convenience shopper", (the convenience shopper just says "Give me a #4" and overpays for the convenience of not thinking or reading -- the value shopper is satisfied knowing they got a better deal).

[incrediBILL]

Doesn't really matter if one person finds it annoying or intrusive - those are the people that aren't buying anyway, they can go visit the sites of people that ain't selling.

That's exactly why we still have spam.

Most of the planet finds it annoying yet some idiots out there still risk their idiot lives buying their purple ED pills from spammers.

Go figure.

Have you done the simple upsell like Amazon does at the bottom of the page with something like "25% that bought this also bought this ..." or do the 'package' approach with "Include this at the time of purchase and save ...."