An outdoor equipment shop could highlight helmets, gloves, or other accessories which customers often buy at the same time as a bike.
Basic Cross-sell
Provide data-driven recommendations customers might like based on browsing and purchasing behavior.
How it works
LimeSpot uses billions of data points across our entire network – not just your store! - to quickly and efficiently understand who a customer is the moment they land on your site. This allows us to serve up the best cross-sell recommendations at the right time, including real-time recommendations based on a customer's live session. Cross-sell recommendations can be used on all pages of your online store.
How to do it
Add cross-sell recommendation boxes anywhere on your site using LimeSpot's designer. When setting up your cross-sell, you'll need to choose a reference product to generate those cross-sell ideas. Reference points can include the current product a customer is looking at, or products 'currently in cart', 'previously purchased' and 'previously visited'.
Best practices
Check out this handy guide of where we recommend placing different recommendation boxes on various pages of your site – don't forget about things like 404 pages or your blog.
Ideas in action
Cross-sell in multiple spots
We walk through a simple example of adding multiple cross-sells across a single user journey with Mr. Poolman in this short video.
A water filtration brand could promote their premium water filters when customers are looking at their regular economy model, touting the additional benefits of their advanced, and likely newer, product.
Basic Upsell
Get customers to purchase a more premium version of a product they're interested in by upselling them on a better option.
How it works
There are two ways upsells typically work. The first is to offer customers a more premium product. If they're looking at the economy option, let them know when you've got an upgrade and why they should buy it instead. This lets you provide a cheaper option for cost-conscious customers while also planting seeds of doubt for those who wouldn't mind more features. The alternative is to sell a customer on the same product, but at a greater volume, often with volume pricing as the incentive to upgrade.
How to do it
You can present upsells on any page of your website, referenced to the current product a customer is viewing, or products 'currently in cart', 'previously purchased', or 'previously visited' on other pages. With an upsell, you'll want to manually set what products appear in the recommendation boxes, as opposed to letting them be dynamically selected. You can also present an upsell in a pop-up when a customer adds something to their cart or goes to checkout, by inserting LimeSpot recommendation boxes into the pop-up app of your choice using JavaScript.
Best practices
Upselling your customers without agitating their confidence in their purchase is a fine balance. Be conscious of what copy you provide to support your upsell; or positioning your other products as a great alternative in terms of value, or as something they simply may have missed in their browsing.
Ideas in action
Easy Cart Upsells
Boost AOV by adding upsells and cross-sells to the cart. Watch how Beekman 1802 is driving higher cart values by serving up a special offer in their AJAX cart and on the cart page.
A home décor store could highlight a bundle featuring the accessories that match with a couch a customer is looking at.
Dynamic Bundles
Provide dynamic bundled recommendations of items that go well together on a specific product page.
How it works
Bundles work particularly well for clothing brands, or businesses that sell 'kits' of products that are also available a la carte. With LimeSpot you can create dynamic data-driven bundles, or you can manually create your own bundles of specific products you know work well together, inviting customers to 'Complete the look' or 'Works best with'.
How to do it
Create an upsell, cross-sell, frequently bought together, or related items recommendation box, place it on the product page, and change the style to 'bundle'. Let LimeSpot suggest what goes in the box, or manually select the specific products you want to be featured.
Best practices
Shorten your customers' browsing behavior and speed up their time to purchase by highlighting exactly what they need to enjoy your products to their fullest. Think about your featured images on a product page and ensure a customer has easy access to every item in the image (or like items).
A skincare store could sell an entire skincare routine in a one-click bundle, tailored to the skincare concern of the specific product they're looking at. For example, viewing an anti-wrinkle cream would surface an 'anti-aging skincare routine' bundle.
One-click Bundles
Let customers add a bundle of products to their cart with a single click to instantly boost AOV.
How it works
Many stores tend to think of recommendations as a suggestion, but by positioning your cross-sells as a bundle that's truly meant to be purchased together, you can help smooth the buyer journey to purchase. A single click bundle makes it easy for customers to buy more without overthinking it. You can also offer a discount on the bundle to further entice customers to convert.
How to do it
Create an upsell, cross-sell, frequently bought together, or related items recommendation box and set the style as 'bundle'. Let customers pick and choose the items they want in their bundle from the selections shown and add everything to their cart with a single click.
Best practices
With one-click bundles, we recommend a more manual curated approach to building your bundles as opposed to data-driven recommendations. Your bundle needs to hit a sweet spot in terms of affordability and specificity to really work as a one-click option. Think of things that clearly go together – like refills for a kit, or a matching set.
Ideas in action
One-click Bundles
Bundles are an amazing way to boost average order value (AOV) by presenting items that work best when purchased together. In this short video we show you an example of LimeSpot bundles in action on Bicycle Warehouse's site, including the ability to change options in your bundle and remove items.
A golf store could manually cross-sell drivers and wedges, or even bags and accessories, from the same brand.
Collections Cross-sell
Cross-sell specific collections on a manual basis to complement other collections.
How it works
LimeSpot's default setting is to cross-sell products across a merchant's entire catalog. However, in some cases it may make sense to cross-sell specific collections with each other, based on brand, price point, color, or some other consideration. This strategy keeps customers from having to click around to find products from the specific collection of interest, maximizing relevance.
How to do it
Visit the LimeSpot administration panel and selection Conversion > Upsell & Cross-Sell > Collection. Click on the collection of your choice and select the Upsell & Cross-Sell tab. From there, choose which collection you'd like to manually override for cross-selling. Use this help article for detailed instructions on how to manually select specific Upsell/Cross-sell items for one or multiple collections.
Best practices
While we focused on cross-selling in this example, it can also work for upsells too. A brand could have collections based on price point and always upsell customers on products from a premium line while browsing entry level or economy-priced items.
A jewelry store could use a pop-up when a customer adds an item to their cart to encourage customers to buy a matching piece from the same collection. Alternatively, they could promote jewelry cleaning wipes or an insurance policy to round out their customer's order and boost AOV.
Cross-sell pop-ups
Add a cross-sell pop-up when someone adds something to their cart to add a bit of manual curation flavor and remind customers to 'Complete the Look' or 'Don't forget'.
How it works
LimeSpot's recommendation boxes can be placed into any pop-up app using JavaScript. Let the recommendations provide specifically curated bundles or product suggestions.
How to do it
LimeSpot's recommendation boxes can be placed into any pop-up app using JavaScript. Let the recommendations provide specifically curated bundles or product suggestions.
Best practices
Pop-ups are particularly effective when they tie back to the exact thing a customer was just browsing. If they added a shirt to their cart, promote what else the model is wearing in the photo, like pants or a jacket, as opposed to suggesting more shirts.
A housewares shop could highlight matching plates and serveware that coordinate in the same color or pattern a customer is looking at.
Variant-based cross-sell
Let your customers know what other products are available in their desired color or pattern by highlighting other items to build out a complete collection, based on their browsing behavior.
How it works
There are many products where it makes perfect sense to buy a matching set – for example, sheets, kitchenware, or tableware. To make this type of cross-sell work, you need to ensure your products have variants set up for each color or pattern.
How to do it
There are two ways to create variant-based cross-sells. The first is to create a cross-sell recommendation box and manually select the items you want to show up based on variants. A manual approach works great if you have a more evergreen product lineup. The second option is to actually adjust LimeSpot's recommendations algorithm to prioritize a specific variant quality, like color. Additional JavaScript may be required to show only a specific color or pattern; contact LimeSpot for details on how to achieve this.
Best practices
While this approach is often considered for companies selling matching sets, fashion brands can also use it to show customers that may be attracted to a particular print, but aren't interested in that exact cut. Highlighting all the garments that use the same fabric, color, or print is a great way to help people find the perfect marriage of look and cut.
A sports equipment store could highlight other items from a particular brand when a shopper is looking at a snowboard from that brand.
Brand-focused cross-sell
Recommend other products from the same brand when a customer is browsing a particular product.
How it works
If you operate a multi-brand store, you might find your customers will gravitate toward one brand over the other. Help speed up discovery time for everything you have from a particular brand by using cross-sells. There are two ways you can create brand-focused recommendations. The first is through manual curation, but this can be challenging if you have high stock turnover. The alternative is to use the 'brand' attribute of your products as a major factor in how recommendations show up.
How to do it
Add a recommendations box to your product page. Then adjust the weight of our system's attributes to prioritize brand; LimeSpot will focus on items from the same brand when serving up recommendations. Contact LimeSpot on how to adjust our system's attributes.
Best practices
This approach is recommended when it makes sense for customers to have strong brand affinity – for example, a multi-brand activewear or sneaker store is likely to have devoted fans to the Nikes and adidas of the world. If you sell multiple brands but customers aren't likely to have a preference between them, this method is less effective, for example, like with a pool equipment supply store.
If a customer is buying an eye shadow palette, a beauty store could offer complementary add-ons and tools such as a makeup brush or coordinating lip gloss in the slide out AJAX cart to help the customer build an entire look.
AJAX sliding cart upsell, cross-sell
Increase AOV by showing customers items they might like to add to their order right when they're reviewing their cart.
How it works
Many popular Shopify themes have what's known as an AJAX side cart, which may also be referred to as a 'slide out', 'flyout', or 'pop out' cart. When a customer adds a product to their cart, instead of it going to a separate page the customer has to navigate to, the cart slides open on the page, prompting the customer to either keep browsing by closing the cart, or to check out right then and there. You can offer up additional products (upsells or cross-sells) to the customer in their slide out cart, shortening browse time while still potentially boosting AOV.
How to do it
LimeSpot's upsell boxes are automatically added to the main Shopify themes that support AJAX carts, such as Brooklyn, Boundless, Debut, Express, Minimal, Narrative, Simple, Supply, and Venture. For themes that don't automatically support the AJAX integration, it may be possible to still integrate LimeSpot through JavaScript. Follow our step-by-step guide on how to do this.
Best practices
Try not to overwhelm customers by stuffing too much in the AJAX cart. Your best bets are to highlight bestsellers, trending products, or products at a lower price point that won't bump the cart total up to a level that makes shoppers anxious or willing to toss items out of their cart. We recommend a manual, curated approach to selecting upsell items for your AJAX cart. With select LimeSpot plans you can also A/B/n test products to see what converts best.
A jewelry store could highlight freshly dropped styles that are similar to whatever items are in the customer's cart as an ICYMI ('In case you missed it') bulletin. Or they could promote their top add-ons to keep their jewelry in tip top shape, like a cleaning kit or travel jewelry case.
Checkout upsell and cross-sell
Recommend products at checkout to give your customers one last opportunity to add to their basket and boost average order value (AOV).
How it works
LimeSpot's recommendation boxes can be placed on virtually every page of your site, including at checkout. If a customer overlooked your recommendations on the product pages or in a pop up, this is another place to encourage them to top up their order.
How to do it
Add LimeSpot's recommendation boxes to the checkout page and have it show below the total price or below the shipping address. Contact us at [email protected] if you need help in placing our boxes on a specific location on the Checkout page or use this knowledge-base article to do it yourself.
Best practices
Don't try to cross-sell your customers with super high-priced items at this final stage in their buying journey. Think of your checkout cross-sells as a great time for impulse buys, like coordinating items, refills, or your bestsellers. You can also use your checkout cross-sell as a way to promote things like a warranty, protection plan, or subscription. Check out this guide here on how to do it.
Ideas in action
Upsell at Checkout
Discover how Wine Chateau offers upsells in the cart and at checkout to drive more dollars through every transaction.
A jewelry store could highlight freshly dropped styles that are similar to whatever items are in the customer's cart as an ICYMI ('In case you missed it') bulletin. Or they could promote their top add-ons to keep their jewelry in tip top shape, like a cleaning kit or travel jewelry case.
Upsell a subscription
Encourage customers to make their one-off purchase into a subscription by promoting your subscription products.
How it works
If you offer products on a subscription, chances are you promote that subscription heavily on your product page. But you can also promote your subscription on the cart or checkout pages (Shopify+ and BigCommerce only) by specifically highlighting your subscription product variant and encouraging customers to save more by purchasing an item on a recurring basis.
How to do it
Add an upsell recommendation box to your cart and checkout pages that promotes your invisible recurring product variant (i.e. for platforms like ReCharge) or a visible subscription product variant. Contact us to learn about how to promote subscription products from other subscription apps.
Best practices
If someone is going to subscribe, they should be treated like an A-list customer. This generally means extending price savings or other subscriber perks like gifts with purchase or exclusive access to products or sales. Make sure you highlight these benefits when upselling to a subscription to maximize your conversion potential.
A sports store could highlight additional accessories for a specific type of sport based on what a customer has just checked out with
Post-purchase upsell & cross-sell
Give your customers one last look at what they may have missed by highlighting items on the thank you page.
How it works
Use LimeSpot step-by-steps guides to add recommendation boxes and app blocks to your Checkout, Post-purchase, Thank you and Order status pages and have them show below the total price or below the shipping address. Contact us at [email protected] if you need help in placing our boxes on a specific location on Post-purchase or
Best practices
To really make this recommendation work for you, be sure to weight the personalized recommendations based on the specific purchase that was just made, and not your general bestsellers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Explore more of the guide
With so many possibilities, we get it can be hard to figure out where to start. That's why we've created this handy idea guide, to give you plenty of inspiration for all the ways you can use LimeSpot and level up your personalized shopping experience.
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