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In today’s competitive ecommerce world, retailers are hard pressed to handle ever increasing margin pressure. However, retailers can grow revenue with strategic cross-selling. An effective strategy that seamlessly integrates into the shopper’s journey without adding friction or decreasing conversion rates can boost average order value and total revenue. The offers must always be relevant and personalized when possible – the shopper should be thinking “oh, yeah, that’s a good idea” and not “why is the site showing me this garbage?” This requires a combination of human insight to deeply understand product relationships and AI to help scale.
One of the best moments for cross-selling is when customers add items to their carts. This stage is critical: it’s where knowledge of product relationships can significantly enhance the shopping experience. Your experienced merchandising team knows these relationships, and this is where static or rule-based recommendations work. AI based personalized recommendations based on recent activity could backfire here, providing unrelated products. Use tools like Salesforce Einstein Recommenders and configure them with category filters and product attributes to avoid showing terrible suggestions that will make this interstitial jarring.
Depending on your vertical, these combinations could be obvious. For example, in cosmetics, when adding eyeshadow to cart, valid recommendations could be another eyeshadow in a complementary color, a complementary colored lipstick, or even a foundation that has similar ingredients for sensitive skin. In Apparel, the obvious things are “complete the set,” for example matching pants or an accessory with a top. Complete the Set is native functionality in Salesforce’s Einstein recommendation engine. In both industries, the merchandiser is the expert, and should be defining these relationships, whether static or dynamic.
Other parts of the journey are less impactful, so do not have to be managed as closely. The home page, product details page and category landing page are great places for personalized cross-selling. Using something like Salesforce’s Einstein Recommenders here are perfect because it reduces operational costs. Your merchandising team can set these up very quickly, they don’t require complicated rules, and need only occasional review. And the #1 place that retailers forget? The no search results page! Your customer has just looked for something and you don’t have it. But now you have a bunch of empty screen space to use – make sure you do, and leverage your AI based personalization engine here for sure!
However, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of modern tracking technologies which can hinder AI behavioral-based personalization. Your shopper is probably not logged in, probably has switched devices or cleared their cookies recently, and third-party cookie restrictions make many site visitors truly strangers. This is why it is key to include human insight in your product recommendations. Static recommendations are operationally expensive, but in the right place, are worth the time it takes to create and manage. The most cost-effective strategy relies on finding the balance between human insight and AI. Combine meaningful rules and good data for the correctly placed recommendation leveraging AI rules, and then rely purely on AI for those unknown visitors.
By implementing these strategies, site operators can drive significant growth in revenue, even from low-margin products. The goal is to make every interaction count, utilizing every tool at your disposal. Use both AI and the invaluable human insight into our product catalogues—to not just meet, but exceed shopper expectations without overwhelming them.
RSM can help you grow revenue with strategic cross-selling. We have experience with setting up the optimal Einstein Recommenders on Salesforce Commerce Cloud. We can also evaluate your shopper journey to define and implement a great cross-selling strategy. Reach out to RSM today, we would be happy to help. Learn more about our deep E-Commerce expertise and our Salesforce Commerce Cloud services
Lawrence Walters
Lawrence Walters leads the Salesforce Commerce Cloud practice helping retailers achieve digital commerce success through faster growth, improved omnichannel experiences, international expansion and streamlined digital marketing operations on the leading cloud based ecommerce platform for medium to large retailers. RSM’s practice provides both implementations for clients new to the platform as well as consulting and managed services for those already on Salesforce Commerce Cloud.