Cross-selling involves asking a customer to purchase a related or complementary item with an item they have just ordered.  The following examples should help.

• Would you like French fries with your burger?
• Do you need a warranty?
• Do you need a printer along with your new PC?
• This belt or these shoes would look great with those slacks!

Up-selling occurs when one suggests a better or more expensive product.  Examples include offering

• a larger size of French fries or shake
• a faster computer
• a golf membership with greater privileges.

These two sales terms are often interchanged with one another, and many on-line articles seem to suggest these strategies are exclusive to Internet sales.  But they’re not as they’ve been around for quite some time!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Customers, Strategy, Terminology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.