Among the best sources of sales, upselling and cross-selling are definitely a must for most businesses. Both cross-selling and upselling are easy to set up, although you have to critically think about the best products you will use for your strategy. The reason for this necessity of planning is simply because some people might not like the approach of someone trying to sell them even more stuff when they possibly had in their minds only the product they're looking for. But the good news is that you don't have to worry too much about not irritating your customer, if you make sure to offer a product that will add up to the client's life.

But what is it that will add up to the client's life? Well, then it depends on whether you're upselling or cross-selling. But before we go through these strategies, it is important to explain the differences between these two dear buddies. The distinction of these two concepts has been quite cloudy in the minds of many entrepreneurs and if you are hosting your website on Shopify and are not so sure about the main differences between “cross-selling” and “upselling,” this is probably because of one of two reasons; either because you have not researched enough, or because you have bumped into misleading “cross-selling and upselling” apps. Fact is that there are lot of apps out there promising you both things, when in reality they're offering you only one, and for that they don't worry about explaining the main differences between these two, as if it was something irrelevant, but… it is not! Being able to differentiate one from another is key to boosting your sales and, trust me on this, both of them have just so much to add to your business.

Since both terms, “upselling” and “cross-selling”, have become synonyms of each other, cross-selling has retained all the popularity for itself - let's guess this is due to the fact that a product is much more likely to be “cross-selled” than “upselled.” Cross-selling, basically, is when you convince someone to buy something aside from what they came into your store looking for. It's just like when you go into a shop looking into buying a hamburger and you end up with a portion of fries and a huge cup of soft drink. You're probably thinking of how many times staff from McDonald's or Burger King asked you that famous question, “Would you like chips and a drink with this?” Well, they were surely oriented to ask you that question, no wonder these two fast-food chains are so global - they do cross-selling at its finest.

So you can have an idea of how great cross-selling can be, according to the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, 35% of its company's revenue came from what… Cross-selling! And you can easily see where he comes from, if you can't, make a visit to amazon.com and add anything to your cart… straight away you will be tempted by a variety of complementary products that will be suggested to buy as well - and it works!

Of course some people don't like being approached by the seller with additional products - because they may see it as an additional cost, rather than something that they need, and this is when you have to make sure you offer something relevant. You can't just offer anything, it has to be a related product - something that will add to your customer's life. If you do offer a nice product which is related to the original one that person is acquiring, then you surely won't have to deal with any customer's negative idea about your store, on the contrary - they could interpret your offer as a favour and feel tempted, in a way that even if they don't buy it straight away they will be likely to come back eventually and buy it.

Therefore, when you start thinking on the products you will relate to another product, think about the thing(s) that will complement your customer's purchase. So if your customer is buying a pair of trousers, why not offer him a belt, or a shirt, or that black jacket that so matches those blue jeans, or, even better, all of these products in a row. Visualise someone in that outfit, reflect whether they look match and if your guts say yes, go for it.

Now what about “upselling,” the nearly - unfairly - forgotten term? Well, you might not think so, but understanding about upselling is as simple as it could be. To explain this ally of your business, I'm going to go ahead and make you dream of those days when upselling had brought you so much money that you walked into a shop interested in buying a simple standard car and you ended up buying a 1million-dollar Ferrari. As you had a sweet dream you have just learned how upselling works. Yes, it's that simple; “upselling” is simply when you go buy a specific product or service and you happen to buy something even better (and more profitable to the seller). Have you ever been to a computer shop and there you found a staff trying to convince you to buy a much better computer? In physical shops, upselling might require a bit of power of speech from the seller, but it is hassle free for you to upsell from your store - if you're with Shopify, you can always count on apps to do so.

Luckily, you now know the difference between “upselling” and “crosseling,” so you won't buy fake advertisement when trying to apply these tools to your business. Remember that both selling practices are very important and if used properly, they will bring you that dollar.