Of course it does! You already know that it works in person. Say you’re out trying to grab a quick bite to eat for lunch and you’re buying a sandwich. The cashier asks you if you want a drink or chips. You say yes, even though you weren’t planning to, and then you’re getting a large drink instead of a medium. Or you’re at a nice restaurant and hadn’t planned on getting desert, but when the waitress bring ’round the dessert tray, you can’t resist the death-by-chocolate triple layer cake.
First of all, what is cross-selling and up-selling? Cross-selling is suggesting a product that is similar to what a shopper is currently looking at. It could be either a different, newer, or improved model or accessories for the product. Up-selling is offering shoppers another product that is usually more expensive. For instance, a shopper might place the ‘good’ model in their shopping cart. Up-sell suggests the ‘better’ and ‘best’ models as well.
Amazon.com is the king of up-selling. If you’re shopping for CDs (which I hardly ever do-ahem.), they “bundle” other CDs together and tell me that if I buy all of them I’ll get a discount. This is a technique that has been shown to greatly increase sales, especially with me, because if the order total is $24.95 and they tell me I qualify for free shipping if I spend $25, well, I’m on that ‘continue shopping’ button like a hobo on a ham sandwich.
A website doesn’t have a friendly salesperson to suggest that your customers buy the extra fancy lead crystal dog water bowl to go along with their rhinestone studded gold plated collar and tag, so your cross-sell and up-sell strategy steps in. The additional benefits lie in the fact that a cross-selling feature allows you to display other popular items or high ticket merchandise as the customer browses, with the hope that the customers will buy it on impulse along with his original selection. It works! Put this feature to work for your site and say hello to more sales in 2008. And yes, MightyMerchant has a cross-selling and up-selling feature 
. Just ask us about it, or go here for more information.
