Has this ever happened to you? You visited an online store planning to buy one single, very specific product. But while looking at that product, you saw other interesting products. Before you knew it, your shopping cart was either filled with several products, or you’d chosen a more expensive item than the one you planned to purchase.
All those other cool products you saw weren’t there by random chance – they were part of an intentional upselling and cross-selling strategy designed to grab your attention and nudge you towards adding them to your cart.
And guess what:
If you learn about WooCommerce related products, upsells, and cross-sells, you can start applying those same strategies to your own online store to boost your store’s revenue and average order value.
In this post, you’re going to learn everything you need to know about setting up WooCommerce related products, upsells, and cross-sells.
We’ll start by explaining how related products, upsells, and cross-sells work on WooCommerce. Then, we’ll share some of the best plugins that you can use to more effectively implement related products, upsells, and cross-sells on your store.
WooCommerce Related Products vs Upsells vs Cross-Sells
Before we go any deeper, let’s start by quickly running over the difference between related products, upsells, and cross-sells.
Related Products – Showcase Similar Types of Products
With WooCommerce related products, your goal is just to display other products that a shopper might be interested in. Typically, these are other products in the same product category or with the same tags.
The idea is that if a shopper is interested in one item in a category, they’ll probably be interested in other items, too.
Upsells – Sell Higher Value Items
With WooCommerce upsells, your goal is to encourage shoppers to purchase a higher-value item than they might’ve otherwise. There are two popular strategies for upselling:
- You get shoppers to purchase a separate, more expensive version of the product.
- You convince shoppers to purchase an add-on for the product. For example, purchasing a premium finish, adding gift wrapping, buying in bulk to get a discount, etc.
Amazon uses this strategy a lot. For example, if you look at the base-level Fire 7 tablet, Amazon will show you a comparison table to upsell you on the higher-priced versions:
Cross-Sells – Sell Complementary Items
With WooCommerce cross-sells, your goal is to showcase products that complement the product that a shopper is looking at. The idea is that the shopper will purchase both the item that they’re originally looking at and the item(s) that you promote as cross-sells.
Here are some examples:
- If the shopper is purchasing a camera, a cross-sell product might be a camera bag.
- If the shopper is purchasing a TV, cross-sell products might be a TV stand/mount, cables, etc.
Let’s look at a real-world example – buying a Macbook Pro through Apple’s official store. After adding the Macbook Pro to your shopping cart, you’ll be presented with a list of “essential” products, including:
- AppleCare+
- USB-C to Lightning cable
- USB-C to USB adapter
- Laptop sleeve
- Magic Mouse
- etc.
All of these products are cross-sells because they complement the original Macbook Pro that you’re purchasing:
Here’s How It All Works on WooCommerce by Default
Now that you know how related products, upsells, and cross-sells function, let’s talk about how all of these product types work on WooCommerce by default. Then, in the next section, you’ll learn how you can use plugins to improve how your store handles these different strategies.
By itself, WooCommerce already includes built-in features to handle related products, upsells, and cross-sells.
For related products, WooCommerce will automatically generate them based on each item’s category and tags.
For upsells and cross-sells, you can manually set them up from the Linked Products tab of the Product data box when you’re editing each product:
Where these different related products display depends on your theme, but here’s how it works with most themes (including the Storefront theme):
- Related products and upsells go on the single product page.
- Cross-sells go on the shopping cart page.
For example, here’s where Storefront will display related products and upsells:
And here’s where Storefront adds cross-sells on the shopping cart page:
If you want to adjust this behavior, your theme might give you some built-in options in the customizer (Appearance → Customize). Or, you can install plugins for more flexibility, which is the next section of our post.
Ten Useful Plugins to Improve WooCommerce Upsells, Cross-Sells, and Related Products
While WooCommerce does include built-in support for related products, upsells, and cross-sells, installing some dedicated plugins can give you more flexibility and help you implement these strategies more effectively.
Below, we’ll discuss some of the best plugins for implementing related products, upsells, and cross-sells on WooCommerce.
If you’re not sure how to install a plugin on your store, you can check out our guide on installing WordPress plugins.
1. Product Recommendations
Product Recommendations is a premium plugin that helps you offer more intelligent upsells and cross-sells.
One of its standout features is that it can generate product connections automatically, instead of requiring you to manually set them up.
For example, let’s say you want to use the plugin’s “Frequently Bought Together” box, a common strategy for cross-selling that many shops use (including Amazon).
Instead of manually linking the products together, Product Recommendations can analyze your store’s purchase history to generate accurate recommendations by itself.
It can also help you create upsells and cross-sells in bulk, including an option to use “amplifiers” to boost certain products based on their popularity, rating, conversion rate, and other data.
Beyond that, it also gives you more flexibility for displaying related products anywhere in your store.
Overall, it’s a very versatile plugin that helps you use your store’s data to benefit from upselling and cross-selling on autopilot.
Product Recommendations is a premium plugin that costs $79.
2. WPC Frequently Bought Together for WooCommerce
WPC Frequently Bought Together for WooCommerce is a free plugin that helps you display cross-sells in a “Frequently Bought Together” box.
Instead of going to the cross-sell products’ pages, shoppers can just check a box to add the other products to their cart along with the original item.
Here’s an example:
To choose which products to display, you’ll get a new Bought Together area in the product data box.
WPC Frequently Bought Together for WooCommerce is available for free, but a $29 premium version also adds more features.
3. Added to Cart Popup
Added to Cart Popup does what the name suggests – it opens a popup that displays after a user adds an item to their cart. In this popup, you have the option to include related products, upsells, or cross-sells.
This can be an especially good option for cross-sells as you already know that the shopper is interested in the main item. Users can add a new item to their carts with the click of a button and proceed directly to checkout.
Added to Cart Popup is a premium plugin that costs $29.
4. Upsell Order Bump Offer for WooCommerce
Upsell Order Bump Offer for WooCommerce lets you add “order bumps” to the checkout page.
If you’re not familiar with the term “order bump,” it’s a type of upsell or cross-sell offer that gives shoppers the option to upgrade or add a new product right at checkout. The idea is that shoppers can just check a box to add the new item to their orders.
Here’s an example – if a shopper is checking out to purchase an iPhone, an order bump cross-sell might be to add a screen protector to the order:
Because the shopping experience is so frictionless, order bumps are a great way to boost your revenue.
The core Upsell Order Bump Offer for WooCommerce plugin is available for free. If you want more features, there’s also a premium version that costs $69.
5. Cart Add-ons
Cart Add-ons helps you work with cross-sells on your store by:
- Letting you display product recommendations/cross-sells on the shopping cart page.
- Giving you more control over which products to display, especially in situations where a shopper has added multiple items to their cart.
It’s a premium plugin that costs $29.
6. WooCommerce Checkout Add-Ons
As the name suggests, WooCommerce Checkout Add-Ons helps you display upsells on the checkout page.
For example, you could offer a paid gift wrapping service that users can select at checkout. Or, you could offer an add-on product, such as a cable or case for the product that a shopper is purchasing.
WooCommerce Checkout Add-Ons is a premium plugin that costs $79.
If you want to include upsell add-ons as an option on the single product page (instead of at checkout), you might also prefer the official Product Add-Ons plugin.
7. Related Products for WooCommerce
Related Products for WooCommerce is a free plugin that gives you more flexibility for controlling and displaying related products in your store.
First off, you’ll get new shortcodes that you can use to display related products anywhere on your site. You can use the shortcode to get more control over where you display related products on the single product page. Or, you can also use it to display related products in other spots, such as your sidebar or in a blog post.
Second, it also gives you new ways to display related products, such as a slider view.
8. CartFlows and WooFunnels
CartFlows and WooFunnels are two separate plugins from different developers, but we’re grouping them together because they serve the same basic function – helping you create WooCommerce sales funnels.
Essentially, these plugins let you modify the WooCommerce checkout process to create checkout “flows” or “funnels”. As part of these funnels, you can include upsells and cross-sells.
For example, after a shopper checks out, you could display a special upsell offer that shoppers can add to their orders with a single click:
This approach can be a great option if your store only sells a few products and you want to create an optimized checkout experience for each individual product.
Both plugins have free versions that might work for simple checkout flows. However, you’ll need to purchase the premium version of each to unlock all of the features – CartFlows costs $239, and WooFunnels costs $179.
9. Iconic Sales Booster
Iconic Sales Booster is a premium plugin that adds several new features to help you implement cross-sells on your store. It gives you access to a lot of the features that these other plugins offer, but in one single package.
Here are the different tools that you get for setting up cross-sells:
- Frequently Bought Together – list other products below the add to cart button and let shoppers easily add them just by checking a box.
- After add to cart popup – show a popup that displays cross-sell items after a shopper adds an item to their cart.
- Checkout order bumps – display cross-sell products on the checkout page. Shoppers can add the product(s) to their orders just by checking a box.
- After checkout cross-sell – display a special cross-sell offer after the shopper completes the checkout process. Shoppers can click a single button to add the extra product to their existing order (they don’t need to repeat the checkout process).
You can mix-and-match the different strategies, and you’ll get built-in analytics so that you can track the conversion rates of your various cross-sell offers.
Iconic Sales Booster is a premium plugin that costs $129. You can test it out with a 14-day free trial.
10. Up-Sells and Cross-Sells For Variations
Up-Sells and Cross-Sells For Variations is a more niche plugin, but one that can be useful if you have a lot of variable products.
As the name suggests, this plugin lets you set up unique upsell and cross-sell products at the individual product variant level.
Basically, instead of using the regular Linked Products tab to set up upsells and cross-sells for the main product, you’ll get new boxes to set them up for each variant.
The idea here is that you can offer more targeted upsells and cross-sells based on the actual variant that a shopper selects, which will make it more likely that shoppers purchase one of those products.
Up-Sells and Cross-Sells For Variations is a premium plugin that costs $49.
Start Using WooCommerce Upsells, Cross-Sells, and Related Products Today
WooCommerce related products, upsells, and cross-sells are a great way to help your store’s customers discover new products that they’re interested in.
More importantly, they can also help you boost your store’s average order value, either by convincing shoppers to purchase more items or higher-value items (or, ideally, both).
WooCommerce includes built-in features to display related products, upsells, and cross-sells. However, to get more from these tactics, you might want to install one or more of the plugins that we detailed above.
Implement these strategies today and you should start seeing improvements in no time.
And if you’re still in the planning stages of your shop, the WordPress.com plugin-enabled plan offers an easy way to launch your WooCommerce store. Not only will WordPress.com handle securing and maintaining your store for you, but you’ll also get free access to plugins like Product Add-Ons, which you can use to create upsell add-ons for your products.
To get started, sign up for the WordPress.com plugin-enabled plan today.
You might also like: How to Build a Shop Page with WooCommerce + Gutenberg
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