posted on April 18, 2009 05:44:16 AM new
I have never believed that cross-selling and upselling works all that well on eBay anyway.
For upselling to be highly effective you must make a compelling proposition to the buyer and it must be immediate.
Let's say you want a Ronco Showtime rotisserie. (I love mine, BTW, but I bought it at a garage sale.) You call and talk to an operator who takes your order but also suggests add-ons like a spice rub set. So far, so good; you can do this through a 3PXO. Then the close: "The spice rub set sells for $29.95 on our website but today we have a phone special, just $9.95. May I add that to your order?"
Once you've bought the spices, the operator has another shot at you. She has a whole list of accessories and a script to sell each one.
You as an eBay merchant can't come anywhere close to matching the interpersonal experience of phone upselling. Scoff if you want, but there are people who just want to talk to someone and don't mind spending money in the process.
A PHONE checkout could actually be very effective if you had decent margins, a ready supply of accessories or add-ons to your main product line and operators working on a commission basis. Use eBay to generate leads.
posted on April 18, 2009 06:14:49 AM new
I'd be happy if eBay could come up with a way to effectively upsell our other items at checkout. I offer a 10% discount when 5 or more items are purchased, but it isn't easy for customers to take advantage of this because I can't discount on the invoice and have to later refund through PayPal. This new WBN thing that eBay has recently started causes people to pay individually for items rather than waiting until they are finished shopping to pay. Now I have to refund all payments to combine shipping (if I catch it) or take hits on shipping cost in my DSRs.
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