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Up-selling vs. cross-selling

Liz Roche EXPERT RESPONSE FROM: Liz Roche

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QUESTION POSED ON: 03 January 2007
Can you explain the difference between up-selling and cross-selling? Can you provide some scenarios where cross-selling is ideal and some scenarios where up-selling is more suitable?

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EXPERT RESPONSE
Philosophically, when sales reps up-sell, they convince your customers to increase the value of their orders (both to you and to them) by:

  • Moving "up" to a more expensive version of what they're already considering purchasing (e.g., the eight cylinder vehicle instead of the six cylinder)
  • Adding to their orders with additional vertically related products or services (e.g., The classic, "Would you like fries with that?"; or the extended warranty)
  • By "vertically related" I mean products or services that enhance or are related to the core or base product. Whereas a cross-sell refers to sales of another product/service type horizontally related (i.e., another type of product/service usually orthogonally related if at all) to what you're already considering. For instance, if you purchase a new vehicle and the dealer encourages you to use the manufacturer's auto financing capabilities, that's a cross-sell. Another example of cross-selling is when you call the reservation center of an airline and at the end of your call the agent asks if you'll need a rental car in your destination city; and if so, she'd be delighted to connect you to one of their car rental partners.

    The differences between cross-selling and up-selling are fairly nuanced, which is why many sales reps and marketers talk about "cross-sell/up-sell" as a single discipline.


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