This is a guest post from Krista Walsh, a copywriter and content creator at CartHook—an Attentive Technology Partner that allows top Shopify brands to add post-purchase offers to their native Shopify checkout.

With COVID-19 transforming how people shop—and accelerating the growth trajectory of e-commerce ahead by five years—it’s time for brands to consider how they can adapt to shifting consumer behaviors. Post-purchase upselling is one strategy that should be top of mind.

Implementing post-purchase upsells increases key metrics, such as average order value (AOV) and revenue. In fact, research indicates that product recommendations such as upsells account for between 10%-30% of e-commerce revenue.

With e-commerce expected to grow by approximately 20% in 2020, brands should explore how they can make the most of post-purchase offers that drive revenue growth while delivering customer-focused experiences.

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Understanding the value of post-purchase upsells

A post-purchase upsell is a type of offer brands send to customers to encourage additional purchases after they’ve completed a transaction. While the concept is simple enough, it’s important to understand why these offers are so valuable for brands.

1. Increase revenue while reducing costs

When a customer adds more products to their online shopping cart, the average revenue per customer increases. The more revenue you earn from each customer, the fewer customers you need to turn a profit. This means you’ll hit revenue goals faster and may be able to spend less on customer acquisition.

For example, when golf club retailer BombTech Golf implemented post-purchase upsells, it saw significant revenue growth—including sales of more than $100,000 in a single day and $600,000 over the course of one month.

“With the post-purchase upsell, I can bring different products into the mix,” said Tyler Sullivan, CEO of BombTech Golf. “So when someone buys a driver that’s $300, we can add on a product offer that’s a perfect complement. That’s helped us sell different types of products, which is really exciting.”

This is especially beneficial for companies that may struggle to offset the costs of customer acquisition. Not only is it 5-25x more expensive to acquire new customers than it is to retain current ones, but you’re up to 50% more likely to sell to an existing customer than a new one.

2. Demonstrate customer focus

When done right, post-purchase upsells should feel helpful—not pushy. To ensure an enjoyable experience, e-commerce data can be used to provide relevant offers based on customer behaviors and purchase histories. Additionally, upsells can be used to inform customers about products and services they may not have been aware of.

Bone broth brand Kettle & Fire discovered that the more flavors customers ordered, the likelier they were to remain loyal for the long term. Using post-purchase upsells, the brand was able to increase awareness of its product line while improving overall brand satisfaction—all while driving over 41% higher average revenue per visitor.

“A lot of the time, customers don’t even know we have specific flavors,” said Wilson Hung, Director of Growth at Kettle & Fire. “So, this provides us a good opportunity to upsell in a way that’s not annoying, because these are flavors that they might enjoy as well.”

The goal should always be to create value for customers—not to pressure them to buy items they don’t want or need.

3. Build on existing connections

After making a purchase, customers may feel emotionally connected to your brand—and that bond can boost sales.

Studies indicate that for some people, making a purchase impacts feelings of well-being—especially if what they’re buying aligns with their personalities. In this way, a purchase can create an emotional connection between brands and their customers.

Research shows that consumers who feel emotionally connected to a brand may spend twice as much as customers who are simply satisfied with it. Emotional connection is also shown to result in a 306% higher lifetime value and increased rates of brand advocacy.

Purchases demonstrate trust in your products and services. This provides an opportunity to gently nudge a customer to explore offers for other items they may be interested in and potentially deepen their emotional investment in your brand.

Solutions such as CartHook enable brands to create and implement customized offers immediately after shoppers complete their purchase—between the checkout and thank you pages. Post-purchase offers such as these eliminate the need for customers to re-enter their payment details to accept the offer, creating a more seamless and uninterrupted shopping experience for customers to accept with just one click.

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Combining upsells & SMS

By highlighting the limited-time nature of different offers to help drive conversions, upsells often create a sense of urgency among buyers—making them a natural fit for text message marketing.

Considering that 90% of text messages are opened within just three minutes, the instantaneous nature of SMS encourages customers to take action quickly. Additionally, since text messaging feels more personal than other marketing channels, it aligns with the focus on expanding consumers’ emotional connection to a brand.

More than 79% of consumers say they want to hear from brands via text messaging. If a customer navigates away from your website before taking advantage of a post-purchase upsell, personalized text messaging is an effective way to follow up with them on their preferred communication channel.

And by integrating your personalized text message marketing solution with an upsell platform such as CartHook, you can easily leverage purchase history data to create customer segments and automatically trigger post-purchase text messages. However, it’s important to keep in mind the personal nature of SMS—upsell text messages should be customized and relevant in order to build brand loyalty and provide an enjoyable customer experience.

Alerting customers of post-purchase offers is an effective way to drive even more revenue because it allows brands to send relevant content to high-intent customers. And whether these customers accept upsell offers before they leave your website, or after they add products to their cart following a text message reminder, you’re better positioned to boost AOV and incremental revenue.

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With CartHook, you can create post-purchase offers for your native Shopify checkout. Designed to boost your AOV and create even more customer love for your brand, CartHook’s post-purchase offers let customers accept with just one click right after a purchase. On average, Shopify brands create 7-16% new revenue with CartHook. Learn more about making post-purchase offers with CartHook at https://carthook.com/.