How We Added 15% In Revenue:
3 Lessons from $1,000,000 in Upsells
My ecommerce brand just hit a major milestone: $1,000,000 in upsell revenue!
And we did it using a post-purchase upsell tool we developed called OneClickUpsell.
Now I want to give you the surprising lessons we learned that made it all possible, including:
- The top-selling upsell for every store (yes, even yours)
- Why you should always “upsell an upsell”
- The winning-est upsell funnel for over 5,000 Shopify sites
- And how to add this upsell strategy to your store
Lessons from Selling over $1,000,000 in Upsells
New Term Alert: A “post-purchase upsell” is any offer you make after a person makes a purchase.
For example, 26.5 million people bought something from Amazon today, and they all received a post-purchase upsell on their Thank You Page.
See that “Get Yourself a Little Something” section right there? Yep, those are upsells.
But our upsells are a little different than Amazon’s because ours are “one click” upsells: Other upsell tools make the customer re-enter information or confirm their updated order on a second charge...
But we knew that would hurt conversions, so that’s why we created OneClickUpsell (or OCU).
Instead of directing them to a Thank You Page after they purchase, we direct them to a custom upsell page where they can add a second product without re-entering their payment info.
Okay, now that we agree on that...
What’s the first lesson we learned from selling $1,000,000 in upsells?
LESSON #1
#1. “Doubling Down” is Your Most Profitable Upsell
We tested a ton of upsell combinations on our store — and we looked at the 5,000 other stores that use OCU — in order to find the highest-converting upsell of ‘em all.
And here’s the winner:
The top-selling, most-requested upsell was always one more of what they just bought.
And that’s good news for you, because that’s one product you know you already have.
Here’s an example from my latest product launch:
During a new product launch for my cosmetics brand, BOOM! by Cindy Joseph, I sold 3,000 units of a $35 facial cleanser.
Roughly 800 of those were sold as upsells at a 15% discount.
So 28% of everyone who bought a bottle at full price wanted to buy a second bottle if it was on sale.
That made me an extra $20,825 on this launch alone just by offering upsells (which are 100% automated, by the way).
LESSON #2
#2. Quitters Never Win: Why You Should Always “Upsell an Upsell”
Here’s something I didn’t know: 10% of people who buy your first upsell will also buy a second upsell.
It’s true. I’ve seen it again and again in my 8-figure Shopify store.
Rewind back to that last product launch: 800 people bought my first upsell of another $35 cleanser, right?
So I offered those 800 people a second upsell: a $39 moisturizer.
And 25% of those folks took it. That’s an extra $6,000 in “upsell upsells” — on top of the extra $20,000 we made on the first upsell.
Bananas, right?!
So the lesson here is if you’re going offer an upsell, definitely offer a second upsell to everyone who says yes.
LESSON #3
#3 There’s a Downside to Upsells…
It’s just not the downside you might think:
We ran the numbers on over $220,000,000 in transactions processed on stores that are using OCU, and we found that the highest-converting stores all use the same exact upsell funnel:
Two upsell offers and one downsell offer for every product.
New Term Alert: A “downsell” is the offer you make next after a customer declines an upsell.
Of the $1,000,000 in upsell revenue that our Shopify store has made with this app, $110,000 (or roughly 10%) of it has been from downsells.
That means 10% of all customers who decline an upsell are still interested in adding more products to their order — and spending more money — before leaving.
All of it creates extra revenue for your business just by installing an upsell tool.
So the moral of this post, and of the $1,000,000 worth of extra products I’ve sold so far with OneClickUpsell, is this:
People want to be offered extra products with their purchase, so don’t be rude and not do it!
With OneClickUpsell, it’s easy to implement this same upsell strategy to your store. Here’s how:
ADD 10-15% TO YOUR REVENUE ON DAY 1
5,000 Shopify store owners and counting have installed the OneClickUpsell app to automate these same post-purchase upsells for their store.
And on average, each store experiences a 10-15% increase in total revenue beginning the very first day.
That’s an extra 10-15% in revenue that you can use to:
- Increase your advertising
- Acquire more customers
- And grow your store
It’s easy to create custom upsell funnels for every product in your store, and in-app analytics help you optimize these flows for even more sales.