On my way home the other day, I had to stop off at the local grocer to pick up a case of water.
As I made my way through the store, I passed the deli where a charming young lady smiled and offered me a sample of bracciole.
Anyone who knows me, knows that bracciole is my weakness. Roll some tender steak around a Parmesan filling with some salty cured meat thrown in for good measure and top it off with a little red sauce and you’ve got me.
As I bit into it, she told me in broken English that it’s on special today for “just” $8.99 a pound.
I was already planning on going out for dinner, but I was drawn to the bracciole like Boxcar Willie to a mouth organ.
Since I was only planning on getting a case of water, I didn’t bother to get a basket or a trolley, but I carried on. I went to the butcher counter, got some bracciole, grabbed ingredients to make sauce, picked up a bag of lettuce, some dressing and of course pasta. Thinking that some Italian bread may be a good accompaniment, I made my way over to the bakery and finally to the checkout.
My arms were filled with everything I needed until I noticed the person in front of me had a pint of Ben & Jerry’s on the belt. I quickly ran over to the freezer and grabbed one of those as well.
I loaded everything into the car and drove home realizing that the one item I went in for, I never bought – the water.
What happened to me was exactly what the grocer wanted to happen. They turned someone who was planning on spending $3.99 into someone who spent $31.57.
eCommerce store owners should always be dangling a piece of bracciole into a shopper’s face. If you’re not using cross sell and up sell techniques in your store, you’re missing a lot of opportunities to increase your average order value.
Almost all eCommerce platforms allow you to setup cross sell and up sell items based on what people are viewing or what they have added to their shopping cart. If you’re selling a battery operated mouse trap, you should be selling the customer a pack of Duracell’s at the same time.
No industry does the up sell and cross sell better than grocery. Next time you’re in the store take a good look around and see how complimentary items are placed next to staple products. Normally these are items you would never consider buying, but since they’re right there and in your face, you toss them in your basket.
These same principles of merchandising should be used in your eCommerce store to do what? Make you more money!
And more money is good!
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Onto the mail bag:
From email: I was recently approached by a someone offering to trade links. His site has a page rank of 1 and mine is a 2. I told him I would do it, but after the fact noticed he added “no follow” to the link to my site. What does that mean?
It means you were hoodwinked. A “no follow” on a link is there to tell search engines to back off. You are getting absolutely no link juice from that type of link on his site. I’d write him back, tell him you’ve changed your mind and ask for the link to be removed and remove his link from your site as well.
From Facebook: Do you know the way to San Jose?
Well, I’ve got lots of friends in San Jose. I can’t wait to get back to San Jose. I’ve been away so long, I may go wrong and lose my way. But I’m going back to find some piece of mind in San Jose.
From email: You mentioned the other day your dog is 16? Really?
Yep! Small dogs tend to live longer lives than big ones, and Baby is doing just fine for an old lady. Some Chihuahua’s have been known to live up to 20 years and we’ll just have to see if Baby can reach that mark or not.
From email: Do you still own Solid Cactus?
No. My partner Joe Palko and I sold the company in 2009 to the Web.com Group (NASDAQ: WWWW) based in Jacksonville, FL. Joe remained with the company until last year. I’m still gainfully employed and work with a select group of high volume eCommerce customers.