Look, I’m going to be blunt. Most of you running online shops are working way too hard for every single dollar.
You’re out there grinding, spending a fortune on ads to get someone—anyone—to click through to your site. Then, if you’re lucky, they buy one thing and disappear.
That’s a tough way to run a business. It’s like owning a cafe where every customer only ever orders a small black coffee and never touches the muffins, the smashed avo, or even a second cup. You’d go broke.
If you want to actually make a decent profit, you need to stop obsessing over getting new people through the door and start looking at how much the people already there are spending. In the industry, they call this upselling and cross-selling. I just call it not being shy about offering people what they actually need.
The Mistake That’s Costing You Your Margin
I see this constantly. A business owner shows me their site, and it’s basically just a digital vending machine. You click a product, you buy it, you leave.
There’s no suggestion of "Hey, if you’re buying this leather boots, you probably need the waterproof spray so they don't get ruined in the first Brisbane storm."
When you don't offer those extras, you aren't being "polite." You’re being unhelpful. And worse, you’re leaving your biggest profit margins on the table. The cost to acquire that customer was already paid when they clicked your ad. Every extra dollar they spend now is where the real money is made.
We’ve found that it’s much cheaper to start making more from old ones than it is to go out and find a brand-new stranger to buy from you.
A Real-World Lesson: The BBQ Bloke
Let me tell you about a client we worked with a while back. He sells high-end smokers and BBQ gear.
When we first looked at his site, he was selling plenty of smokers. Great, right? Except his shipping costs were eating him alive, and his profit per order was razor-thin because he was only selling the big, heavy unit.
We made one simple change. On the product page for the smoker, we added a "Frequently Bought Together" section. We included a bag of premium wood chunks, a high-quality meat thermometer, and a custom weather cover.
None of these items required extra shipping because they fit right inside the box with the smoker.
Within a month, his average order value jumped by $85. He didn't need more traffic. He didn't need more Facebook ads. He just needed to turn more website visitors into bigger spenders by offering them the stuff they were going to have to go buy somewhere else anyway.
How to Upsell Without Being a Pest
People hate being sold to, but they love being helped. That’s the golden rule.
An upsell is when you encourage someone to buy a better, more expensive version of what they’re looking at. Think of it like going from a 128GB phone to a 256GB one.
A cross-sell is offering something that complements the main purchase. Like the phone case or the charger.
Here is how you do it properly without looking like a dodgy car salesman:
1. The "Upgrade" (Upsell)
If someone is looking at a basic lawnmower, show them the model with the better battery and the longer warranty. Don't just hide it on another page. Show them the comparison. Tell them why the extra $100 now saves them $300 in repairs later.2. The "Bundle" (Cross-sell)
This is the easiest win in ecommerce. If you sell a skincare kit, don't just sell the cleanser. Sell the "Morning Glow Bundle" that includes the moisturiser and the sunblock for a slightly lower price than buying them separately."If you aren't offering a bundle on your checkout page, you're basically handing your competitors the keys to your customers' wallets for the accessories they'll inevitably need later."
— Sarah Chen, SEO Specialist
3. The "Post-Purchase" Push
This is my favourite because it has a 0% chance of ruining the initial sale. Once they’ve hit 'buy' and the transaction is done, show them a 'Thank You' page with a one-time offer. "Thanks for your order! Want to add this extra pack of socks for 50% off? We’ll toss it in the same box."It works because the hard part—getting them to pull out their credit card—is already over.
Does your website actually work on phones?
Before you go crazy adding all these features, you have to make sure your site actually works. If your "suggested products" pop-up covers the entire screen on an iPhone and the customer can't find the 'X' to close it, they’re just going to leave.
Nothing kills a sale faster than a clunky mobile experience. You need to make sure fixing your product pages is your first priority. If the site is slow or the buttons are too small for a tradie's thumb, all the upselling in the world won't save you.
The Cost of Doing This
You’re probably wondering what this costs to set up.
If you’re on Shopify or WooCommerce, you don't need a developer to spend 40 hours coding this from scratch. There are apps and plugins that do 90% of the work for about $30 to $100 a month.
If that sounds expensive, do the maths. If you sell 100 items a month and this stuff adds just $10 to every order, you’ve made an extra $1,000. That $50 app just paid for itself twenty times over.
It’s a no-brainer.
Stop Overthinking It
You don't need a complex "algorithm" to tell you what to suggest. You know your business better than any computer.
Ask yourself: "What is the one thing every person who buys Product A eventually complains about not having?"
Is it batteries? Is it a carry case? Is it the 'pro' version of the software?
Whatever that thing is, put it in front of them before they hit the checkout.
What You Should Do First
Don't try to overhaul your whole site tonight. It’s too much.
1. Look at your top three best-selling products. 2. Find one accessory or one "better" version for each. 3. Add a "You might also like" or "Frequently bought together" section to those three pages. 4. Watch your average order value for two weeks.
If the numbers go up (and they will), roll it out to the rest of the shop.
Marketing isn't always about finding new people. Sometimes, it’s just about being better at serving the ones who are already standing in front of you with their wallets open.
If you want a hand figuring out which tech to use or how to layout your pages so people actually click those extras, give us a shout at Local Marketing Group. We do this stuff every day for businesses right here in Brisbane.
Ready to stop wasting your traffic? Let’s chat.