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Types of Product Offers
According to JupiterResearch1, although 76 percent of online retailers use some form of cross selling, only nine percent of buyers find product offers helpful. To improve the effectiveness of your product offers, try developing different types of offers based on user context:
- Same product, with promotion. This offer type works best when used in re-marketing to individuals who abandoned your web site. Try using it in emails you send to product abandoners.
- Similar product. This offer type works best in email re-marketing efforts, and on product detail pages. For example, if someone views a v-neck red wool sweater, try offering them a turtleneck red wool sweater.
- Competing product. This offer type works best on product detail pages. For example, if someone views a brand name product, try offering them the same product in a different brand.
- Complementary item. This offer type works best in the shopping cart and order status pages, and in the call center. For example, if someone views a High Definition TV, try offering them a DVD player with 1080 up-conversion.
- Accessory item. Like complementary items, accessories work best in the shopping cart and order status pages, and in the call center. For example, if someone views an inflatable raft, try offering them an air pump.
- Discovery product. Discovery products work best on product detail pages. Discovery items are non-intuitive, data-driven offers. For example, visitors viewing the latest, trendiest items might also purchase other trendy products, even if they are unrelated to the other trendy item.
One last point about offer types: from a profitability standpoint, it may not make sense to offer items priced lower than the one the customer is currently viewing. Thus when presenting “similar product” offers for, for example, electronic products, you should recommend higher priced models instead of more basic models.
Want to Learn More?
For more details about how to optimize your product offers, download the white paper “Contextual Cross Selling.”
1 Jupiter Research Ipsos/Insight Consumer Survey, March 2006, JupiterResearch
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