Optimize the overall sale price each customer spends so that you can maximize profits. You must balance this to ensure you provide value to the customer while maximizing the sale. Techniques to achieve this are:

  • Up-Selling
  • Cross-Selling
  • Free or low-priced shipping

Up-selling will ask the shopper during the checkout process if they want a better or larger version of the same product. This allows the user to get more value for their money while bringing a higher overall sale price to your business. Examples of up-sells include:

  • Get a second quantity for ½ price
  • Get the larger size for 10% off

Cross-selling will ask the shopper during the checkout process if they want to purchase a complementary product. This allows the user to select items that they might not realize that they needed to go along with the product that they did select while bringing a higher overall sale price to your business. Examples of cross-sells include:

  • Get a curtain rod for 50% off when you purchase two drapery panels
  • Customers who bought the book you are purchasing also bought this other book

Offering free shipping to users when they spend over a certain amount on your site has proven to be a very effective way to drive users to select an up-sell or a cross-sell. While you do have to absorb the cost of the shipping, it is likely that the user selected more product which had a price that far outweighs the cost of shipping.

While these techniques are very effective, many e-commerce websites have gone to the extreme in over-utilizing them and thus driven away potential buyers due to annoyance.