Upselling is a sales technique that aims to increase the average order value by recommending upgrades, more expensive products or premium ones, compared to what the customer was intending to originally purchase. Well-suited upselling strategies would ultimately increase the amount of revenue that a seller or store would receive from the customer, exposing them to more strategic products to the business.

The main objective of upselling techniques is to increase the revenue that customers will generate to the store or seller. Ultimately, increasing revenue with a single more expensive product, usually of a premium quality will likely increase profit margins to the business and generate a better experience to the end user, due to higher quality products or services.

Find below a few examples and techniques of upselling for both physical stores and ecommerce:

• An example of an upselling strategy is when a customer intends to buy a mobile phone in a store and the salesman, by evaluating the customer's technological needs, offers the benefits of the product with a higher memory.
• Another example is when an ecommerce store recommends more expensive products in the cart or checkout, indicating the key benefits that the customer will have with the exchange.
• Techniques involve thoroughly understanding the business customer. Shoppers tend to accept more expensive products when they find those that better suit their needs.
• Offering comparisons between products is a technique that shows to customers what is the added value that they will get from the extra money they will pay, often supporting the conversion.
• Remember to focus on displaying the premium products of your portfolio, making sure that the customer is positively impacted by the assets.

Whilst upselling and cross-selling essentially intend to increase the average order value, they are different by design. Upselling is all about recommending more expensive products, but always in the same category and same intent. Cross-selling, however, recommends complementary portfolios, increasing the basket size of the customer.

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EICOM Institute also recommends that you take a look at this article from Salesforce and this other one from Shopify to learn more.