Some of the biggest retailers of all time owe much of their growth to cross-selling. Cross-selling can help companies nurture and maximize relationships with current customers, increasing profits and efficiency. From the sweeties at the supermarket checkout, to the plant pots in Ikea displayed with a plant sold separately ready placed inside, cross-selling is every retailer’s favorite profit-boosting trick.

McDonald’s have built an empire from cross-selling. They never fail to ask if you would like fries or a drink with your burger. Online, Amazon has leveraged the power of cross-selling to help them become one of the largest retailers of all time. Both the “Frequently Bought Together” and “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” sections on Amazon product pages promote products related to the item that you are currently viewing. Amazon’s “customers who bought this also bought” is especially clever, because it combines social proof (telling you others bought it) with cross-selling related items. This technique is so effective, that Amazon has previously attributed as much as 35% of their total revenue to cross-selling.

But how can we profit from cross-selling in eBay listings?

Regardless of where it is, the best cross-selling identifies products that satisfy additional, complementary needs that are unfulfilled by the original item. For example, a case could be cross-sold to a customer purchasing a laptop. When items suggested by cross-selling are relevant, they help the customer and enhance the shopping experience.

Cross-selling often points users to products they would have purchased anyway; by showing them at the right time, a store ensures they make the sale. The best place to cross-sell is on a product page. When on the product page, the customer is already in buying mode, and it is at this point that cross-selling can offer genuine benefit to a customer, enabling them to buy all the items they need at once, from a seller they trust. This is why cross-selling in eBay listings is so effective.

To cross-sell effectively, the most important point is to think about those products that naturally pair well, like shoes and socks. You must decide, what is the sock to the “shoe” that you’re selling? Pay special attention to the price points of the items you pair, and cross-sell products are typically similar in cost. If you are selling a laptop for $1,200 a printer for $100 would be a logical cross-sell, but if you are selling the printer, the laptop would be too big a purchase for the cross-sell. Better to suggest a pack of paper, or extra ink cartridges.

Pro Tip: If you don’t offer free shipping, combined shipping on multiple items is a powerful extra incentive for customers to buy from cross-selling.

Some of the biggest sellers on eBay have grown using cross-selling in eBay listings to increase basket value. Changes to eBay policy mean that many of the coding techniques people previously used to create dynamic cross-selling galleries are no longer permitted on eBay, but it is still possible to cross-sell your own items within your own listings and stay within eBay’s policy guidelines. Frooition cross promotion is eBay certified and totally dynamic. This means that it automatically shows relevant items based on criteria you set and instantly updates itself when those items are no longer available or listings are no longer live.

GolfMad have a Frooition custom design and make excellent use of its cross-selling features. The item shown below is a golf bag, and the items cross-promoted with it are other small accessories that a golf player who has just bought a bag is likely to buy; a bag rain cover, straps, and an umbrella holder even. These are not disposable items, but their price point makes them likely to be a less considered purchase than the item they are viewing.

As GolfMad already offer free delivery to encourage sales, they use eBay’s promotion manager to offer an additional 5% off for customers who buy three or more items. Positioning this offer alongside the cross promotion makes a very strong proposition for a customer.

If you would like to learn more about leveraging the power of dynamic cross-promotion in your listings, leave an enquiry on our website and one of our eBay certified advisors will be in touch.

Find out more about Cross Selling on eBay