One of the easiest ways to drive your sales is by implementing the upsell strategy. You should be familiar with upsell since you are facing it on a daily basis! Whether you buy your lunch or you need to refuel your car. Upsell is part of the daily sales tactics which will increase the average transaction value and therefore must be part of your retail strategy. If you never heard of upsell than you can start to improve your business from today.
Enter McDonalds and purchase a Big Mac first thing the staff member asks is: what do you want to drink with it? Medium or Large? With fries and mayonnaise? Easy example of upselling without noticing you are not offered a small menu. If you were asking for a BigMac menu directly you were being asked to supersize it.
If I purchased a souvenir from your shop what do you have on offer? Is your team trained to upsell each time, every transaction?
Why should we upsell?
- Increase your average transaction value!
- Guest interaction and service: you offer a great deal!
- To clear your dead stock!
What should I know about upsell?
- Upsell can be an impulse product at the till, a related product with purchase or a promotional offer.
- Upsell should be a habit: each time, every transaction.
- Repeat… repeat… repeat… to make sure upsell becomes a habit for your team.
- It is not about what you say but how you say it.
- A script for upsell is a risk and disables the natural way of selling
- Upsell is about confidence: on the job coaching is key.
- There will be more NO than YES so prepare your team to take the NO and show them how to handle a NO.
Just some tips to help you with your upsell strategy:
- Point out an Upsell Champion whom acts as the ambassador.
- List the USP’s of the identified upsell products.
- Track the outcome of upsell (this only works when you focus on a certain product in a period).
- Initiate an Upsell Competition and acknowledge the effort of your team.
- An upsell training should be part of the induction period.
