How to make use of Cross Selling in Online Business

Cross-selling refers to the practice of promoting complimentary items interrelated to the item being sold. 

Many product types and Websites lend themselves perfectly to cross-selling online. 

In case of a product detail page, it should present products that will increase share of purchase if the user purchases the current product: products that are in the same family, are accessories to the product, and are complementary. A good product page clearly organizes these different types of related products and helps the user make clear choices.

Let’s see cross-sells on the shopping cart page. Do not use the same method in shopping cart page that is used for product page. The reason behind the shopping cart page is to get the user to check out and to try to increase contribution to purchase by showing complementary products, family products, and accessories. Don’t ever show competing products in that page. Coz by showing the competing product of the product that is considered for purchase, you are making your buyer think again or create confusion about a purchase he already decided on. 

Besides, this page should include items that can be easily added to the cart, as they're more or less impulse items that are more supportive to the product that is already purchased by the buyer. This involves accessories are more important than complementary items because accessories are part of the same purchase decision. They are associated to the product the user is previously buying. Complementary products, in contrast, call for an entirely new purchase decision process. 

Don’t redirect the buyer anywhere in the website from the checkout path unless he finished all the desired interlinking purchases that are relevant to purchased product. It will make the purchase decision more complicated. For any product listed on this page, the ideal behavior is the user will click "add to cart" and remain on the cart page. 

The most ultimate solution is to provide suggestions or recommendations for related products dynamically operating a shopping cart platform, if at all feasible.  Using a shopping cart is, hands down, the easiest way to effectively automate the cross-selling process.  For those site owners who don’t have sufficient products to rationalize a shopping cart solution or who simply can’t meet the expense of one, cross-selling can be as simple as having links to similar products on your products pages with some copy such as “Customers who bought product A also purchased Product B.”  Though this alternative option might sound absolutely low-tech, it’s healthier than not cross-selling at all.