In-cart Upsell On Shopify: A Detailed Guide to Generata More Sales

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In-cart upsell on Shopify is a powerful strategy used by many Shopify merchants. It can significantly boost your store’s revenue by incentivizing customers to add more products to their cart before checkout. By offering complementary items or upgraded options right in the shopping cart, you can enhance the customer experience while increasing the average order value.

Cart upselling on Shopify often involves cart drawer upselling and cart page upselling. This article will help you explore effective in-cart upsell techniques to drive more sales. Discover with us to maximize your profits!

1. What is in-cart upsell on Shopify?

Cart upselling on Shopify is a pre-purchase upselling strategy that suggests additional products to customers while they are completing their purchases. This technique encourages customers to add more products or higher-value items to their cart, which increases their spending. It usually involves recommending upgraded options that are more expensive than the items already in the customer’s cart or complementary products related to these items.

You can implement this strategy via the cart drawer or cart page. Utilizing a cart drawer means you can display upsell offers when customers add an item to their cart.

Meanwhile, the cart page allows you to show recommendations when customers are checking their chosen items. Both these ways are strategic options to upsell and increase the average order value.

Read more: Shopify Post-Purchase Upsell: A Comprehensive Guide For More Sales (2024)

2. What are the advantages of cart upselling on Shopify?

In-cart upsell offers several advantages that can significantly impact the profitability of your Shopify store. By strategically utilizing it, you can enjoy the following benefits:

Increase the average order value

The main advantage of cart upselling is increasing the average order value. When you present customers with relevant product recommendations or upgrades, you are encouraging them to spend more before completing their purchase. This leads to a substantial boost in the order size, raising your revenue without the need for additional marketing efforts.

Enhance customer experience

In-cart upselling can help you enhance the shopping experience by providing customers with useful suggestions. For example, offering a protective case when a customer adds a smartphone to their cart or suggesting matching accessories for a clothing item can add value to their purchase. This personalized touch demonstrates that you understand their preferences, bringing higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Improve profit margins

By upselling products or bundles, you can improve your profit margins without increasing the cost of customer acquisition. Selling more to existing customers is often more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, making cart upselling a smart strategy for sustainable growth.

3. Two Different methods to implement in-cart upsell on Shopify

Cart drawer upsell on shopify

The cart drawer, also known as a mini cart or slide-out cart, is a convenient feature that enables customers to view their cart contents without leaving the product page. Cart drawer upsell on Shopify involves displaying product recommendations, special offers, or upgrades directly within this space. This can be triggered when customers add a specific products to their cart or meet a certain condition like total cart value, total cart quantity. Add to cart upsell offers are often displayed as an upselling pop-up or add-on sections displayed in the cart drawer.

For instance, when you shop at Vacation’s store and add a face mist item to your cart, the cart drawer appears and upsells complementary products such as an air freshener or corduroy hat. You can easily choose and buy these products without leaving the current page.

This method keeps the customer engaged with the shopping experience while gently encouraging them to add more to their cart. It works well for stores that want to maintain a seamless browsing experience while still driving higher-order values.

Read more: Best ways to upsell product add-ons on Shopify in 2024

Upsell in cart page 

The cart page is where customers re-check their selected items before proceeding to checkout. Upselling on the cart page involves placing product recommendations, bundle offers, or discounts to add more items right alongside the customer’s chosen products. Such offers will appear as small add-on sections on the cart page, in addition to the basic information of the chosen product. This method allows for more detailed and targeted upsell offers, as the customer is already in a purchasing mindset and is more likely to consider additional items.

For example, when you buy the Mayo with Avocado Oil product at iHerb, they will suggest similar items like Ketchup or Mayonnaise.

On the cart page, you might offer a discount for purchasing a bundle of related products or suggest an upgrade to a higher-quality version of an item already in the cart. The cart page provides more space to highlight the benefits of these offers, making it an ideal location for more substantial upsell opportunities. In addition, upselling on the cart page can help reduce cart abandonment by offering incentives. It also allows you to incentivize customers to buy more by providing free shipping or discounts when their cart reaches a certain value.

4. Best apps to upsell in cart on Shopify

BOGOS – Add to cart upsell

Overview of the app

BOGOS is an exceptional solution when considering an app for creating in-cart upselling offers. It allows you to create many powerful products upselling offers based on the action of adding to carts by customers or their cart value or cart quantity. When customers match the pre-set condition, the app will showcase a popup offering products. It also provides different options to notify customers of your offers via features like Today’s offer or Gift icon.

BOGOS allows you to set up many cart upselling offers with its advanced rules. You can customize your upselling popups with specific rules such as location, order history, customer tags, or specific URLs. The app also offers detailed reports so you can track the impact of your offers.

BOGOS is easy to use, so you can navigate without focusing on a learning curve. You will benefit from responsive customer service, which will provide responses only within 2 minutes on average.

A step-by-step guide to upsell with BOGOS

Step 1: Click Create offer -> click Create custom

Step 2: Fill in the Offer title, start time, and end time

Step 3: Click Add main condition -> choose the suitable condition

Step 4: Choose relevant products to upsell

In this section, you can select a percentage discount or an amount-off discount. This discount will only apply to the upselling products, not the total order. You can also limit the number of discounted products customers receive to control your profit.

Step 5: Publish your offer.

Selleasy – Upsell with add-ons section

Overview of the app

You can also consider the app Selleasy for implementing in-cart upsell on Shopify. It’s built for helping Shopify merchants increase sales via upselling and cross-selling. The app has many features, including pre-purchase and post-purchase upsell offers, frequently bought together bundles, and product add-ons or recommendations. When using it, you can create offers manually or utilize automatic product recommendations. 

Selleasy supports many languages and currencies, so you can use it to serve a global audience. It is highly appreciated for its ease of use, customization options, and good integration with Shopify stores. Selleasy’s customer service team also provides great customer support, including free setup assistance via Zoom, chat, or email. You can utilize the app’s free plan; otherwise, its pricing tiers are very affordable.

A step-by-step guide to upsell with Selleasy

Step 1: Click Add offer > Choose the type of upsell offers you want to implement and click Create, e.g., Product add-ons

Step 2: Fill in the Offer name -> For the triggered products, choose Specific products, Tags, or All products -> Select trigger products

Step 3: For the offered products, choose by Products or by Variants and select products.

Step 4: Choose Enable discount and fill in discount value if you apply discounts > Fill in other details (if any)

Step 5: Click Save Offer

5. Best tips to follow when upselling in the cart on Shopify

You will need to approach cart upselling strategically to maximize its benefits. Consider the following tips for your most effective upselling techniques!

Don’t continuously display the pop-up

Pop-ups are great tools for in-cart upselling; however, overusing them can result in a negative customer experience. If you continuously display pop-ups, you may frustrate shoppers, resulting in higher bounce rates and cart abandonment. It’s important to use pop-ups thoughtfully, ensuring they are seen as helpful.

A well-timed pop-up can grab a shopper’s attention and present a relevant upsell offer, but make sure it doesn’t appear too frequently or in a disruptive manner. You should limit the number of pop-ups per session and set them to appear only under certain conditions, such as when a customer adds an item to their cart or reaches a particular cart value. This keeps the shopping experience smooth while still effectively promoting upsell opportunities.

Present upsells at the right time and in the right place

In upselling campaigns, timing and placement are important. Presenting in-cart upsell offers at the right moment and in the right location can significantly increase the likelihood of conversion.

When upselling with a cart drawer on Shopify, the upselling product should be subtle and immediately relevant to the items the customer has added. This is the perfect place to suggest complementary products or small add-ons that don’t require much consideration. On the cart page, where the customer is more committed to their purchase, you can present more substantial upsell offers, such as bundles or upgrades, that require a bit more thought.

Remember, the key is to enhance the shopping experience by making the in-cart upsell feel like a natural extension of the customer’s purchase journey rather than an interruption.

Narrow choices for better conversion

Offering too many choices when upselling can overwhelm customers and lead to the result that they choose not to add anything extra to their cart. To avoid this, narrow down the upsell options to one or two highly relevant products or upgrades.

For instance, if a customer is purchasing a smartphone, suggesting a matching case and screen protector as an upsell is more effective than presenting a long list of unrelated accessories. The more aligned the upsell offer is with the customer’s original purchase, the higher the chance of conversion. By keeping the choices limited and relevant, you make it easier for your customers to make quick decisions, leading to better conversion rates.

Combine free shipping

Free shipping is one of the most compelling incentives for online shoppers. It can be a strong and effective tool when combined with in-cart upselling strategies. You can incentivize customers to add more products to their cart by offering free shipping if they reach a certain cart value. This raises the average order value and provides customers with a tangible benefit for spending more.

Create a sense of urgency

This is a proven technique to drive conversions, and it works well with cart upselling on Shopify. By adding time-sensitive elements to your upsell offers, you can incentivize customers to take immediate action. You could include a countdown timer on the cart page or in the cart drawer that shows how much time is left to take advantage of a special offer, such as a discount on an additional product or a limited-time bundle deal. Another approach is to highlight that stock is running low.

Urgency encourages customers to make a quicker decision, reducing the likelihood of cart abandonment. This increases the chances that they’ll take advantage of the upsell offer. However, it’s important to use urgency techniques genuinely, as overusing them can lead to customer distrust.

6. Conclusion

To conclude, in cart upsell on Shopify is an effective strategy that can significantly enhance your store’s revenue by incentivizing customers to add more items or upgrade their purchases during checkout. Implementing upsell techniques in the cart drawer and on the cart page helps you boost average order value, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce cart abandonment. Start utilizing these strategies to drive greater profitability for your Shopify store!

7. FAQs