Boosting Order Values
MKLINK Maximises Your Website Conversion Rate
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Your Turnover £ = Av.Transaction Value x No.of Transactions

Today, I'll be concentrating on increasing the Average
Transaction Value.

Of course, the quickest and easiest way to do this is to put
your prices up!

Let's say you buy a widget for £10 and sell it for £15,
then that's 50% profit.

i.e. (15 - 10) / 10 x 100% = 50%

Let's now say you put your prices up by 10%, so your new
sales price is £16.50 and your proft goes up by 10% right?

Wrong!

Your new profit is (16.5 - 10 ) x 100% = 65% Profit

So, in this example, putting your price up by 10% increases
the profit by 15%.

Of course, in the REAL world - putting prices up means less
people buy from you(assuming you're in a competitive
marketplace) so you have to balance increased profit against
less sales - taking into consideration price sensitivity etc.

So, here's ANOTHER way to increase your Order Value :
Upselling!

Actually, there's "Up-selling" and "Cross-selling"
- slightly different things so I'll explain what they are to
avoid confusion.

Upselling:
This is convincing the customer to buy something more
expensive than their original desired purchase.
An (extreme) example is going into a car showroom
to buy a Ford and then leaving with BMW
- and no doubt a loan agreement!

Cross-selling:
This encourages the customer to add auxiliary items to their
purchase. Examples would be insurance for electronics products
(Dixon's are great at this!) or offering fries with a burger.
The masters of Cross-selling online are Amazon - they've made
it into an art. Whatever book you buy - they'll find related
books that just seem to fit.

Of course when they offer free delivery if you order over £20
- then that's upselling again - rather than cross-selling...

Be aware that upselling is riskier than cross-selling. With cross
selling, you customer already wants your product or services
and so just needs to decide whether they want extra 'bits' or not.

With upselling - you run the risk of confusing the sale and having
the customer leave undecided - or worse still - feel that you've
tried the 'hard sell'. Cross selling - done correctly - adds value.

I'm not saying don't do upselling - just be a lot more careful with
it. Eitherway Test & measure.

Cross-Selling Ideas

• I suggest a maximum of three cross-sell items.
• Cross sell items must be relevant!
• Each cross-sell item should be less expensive than the main item.
  (although I heard a cool story of one that wasn't and made the
  site owner a fortune!)
• The items should be no-brainers and not require more descriptions,
  options, delivery choices etc.

Up-Selling Ideas

• Offer the alternative before the customer has decided to
  commit to a purchase.
• Bullet-point the (extra) features that the upsell item has.
• The upsell item should always be more expensive than
  the main item.
• New or Limited edition stock is a widely accepted
  way of upselling.
• So are "3 for the Price of 2" types of offer.
• Offer free shipping for threshold value orders.
  ( Amazon Excel at this!)

In general, try peppering your site with loss leaders to get visitors
- then upselling and cross-selling to get your profits back.

Avoid being PHILTHY.
You've heard of Phishing and Pharming; PHILTHY stands for
Purposely Hiding What I'm Looking For. (crap acronym eh?)
It means hiding extra changes until the very last moment
of purchase.

Examples would be 'handling charges', VAT, Services charges etc.
It stinks - so don't do it!

If you would like help on Upselling & Cross-selling,
I offer a complimentary 15 Minute Consultation...

For more details, simply
call me on 01454 852414,
or visit
http://mklink.com/contact2.php?source=newsletter

'till next time,

Mike Knight.
http://www.mklink.com
01454 852414