Upsells, cross sells, bundles and checkout offers
Getting a new customer to your shop costs time and money. Getting the customer who’s already there to add one more thing costs almost nothing. Here’s how to set up upsells, cross sells, bundles and checkout offers on WooCommerce or Shopify without annoying anyone.
Henny Maltby25 years in marketing · Growth Hub Premier Partner
!The quickest win in ecommerce? Selling a bit more to the people already buying.
Most small online shops spend all their energy on getting more visitors. Far fewer look at what happens once someone is ready to buy.
I spent years supplying JD Williams, Freemans and over 100 independent shops, and the big retailers never left an order at one item. There was always a matching piece, a better version, a gift box or a “complete the look”. It wasn’t pushy. It was helpful, and it made every order worth more.
You can do exactly the same on a small WooCommerce or Shopify shop. Most of it is already built in, it just needs setting up with some thought about what your customers actually want next.
The easiest sale you’ll ever make is to someone who has already decided to buy from you.
Free AI prompt
This prompt gives you a ready made upsell and bundle plan for your own shop, worked out from what you actually sell. It means more money from every order without paying for a single extra visitor.
Pop your name and email in to get the full prompt, then copy it into ChatGPT or Claude with your products and prices. You’ll get the pairings to set up, three bundles to sell, a checkout extra, a free delivery threshold to test and the wording for each one.
I run a small online shop selling [what you sell] to [who your customers are].
Here is my product list with prices: [paste your products and prices].
The items people most often buy together are: [list any you know].
Using my product list, please:
1. Suggest an upsell for each of my ten best selling products, and explain why a customer would want the better version.
2. Suggest one or two cross sells for each of those products, things that genuinely go with them.
3. Suggest three bundles or gift sets I could sell, with a sensible saving that keeps my margin healthy.
4. Suggest one small, low cost extra I could offer at checkout.
5. Tell me what free delivery threshold to test, based on my prices.
6. Write a short, friendly line of wording for each suggestion, in plain UK English, that sounds helpful and never pushy.
Ask me any questions you need before you start.
Ways to raise your order value
You don’t need all of these. Pick the two or three that suit what you sell and do them well.
Show a bigger size, a premium version or a longer warranty on the product page. Customers often go up a level when they can see the difference side by side.
Works well for: products with a good, better, best range
Batteries with the toy, a case with the phone, a refill with the candle. Show it on the product page or in the basket so nobody gets home and finds something missing.
Works well for: accessories, refills and add ons
Group items people often buy together and give a small saving for buying the set. It feels like a deal and it moves more stock in one order. On WooCommerce, the official Product Bundles extension does this.
Works well for: starter kits, gift sets and routines
A case of six wines, a box of a dozen brownies, three pairs of socks. The customer chooses the mix and you set the box size and price. WooCommerce has an official Mix and Match Products extension for it.
Works well for: food, drink and anything sold in multiples
Use what people actually buy together to suggest the next item. It’s the same idea that makes Amazon so good at selling the extra thing.
Works well for: shops with a wide range of products
One low cost item they can tick to add at checkout, like gift wrap, a sample or a care kit. It’s the online version of the sweets by the till.
Works well for: small, low price extras
Where to show each offer
One good suggestion beats ten random ones. If everything is recommended, nothing is.
Lessons from retail
Upselling gets a bad name when it’s done badly. A pop up the second someone lands, a checkout full of extras, or suggestions that have nothing to do with what they’re buying. That’s when people leave.
The test I always use is simple. Would a good shop assistant suggest this? If someone buys a pair of walking boots, a good assistant mentions the waterproofing spray and the thicker socks. They don’t try to sell them a kettle.
So start with what your customers already buy together. Look back through your orders and you’ll see the pairs and the sets straight away. Those are your first cross sells and your first bundles.
Keep bundle savings small and clear. A modest saving on a set is usually enough to tip people over, and it keeps your margin healthy. If you want help turning what you sell into sets and offers people can’t resist, my Create an Offer Your Clients Can’t Say No To course walks you through it. Then watch your average order value, the total sales divided by the number of orders, every month. If it’s going up, it’s working.
Both WooCommerce and Shopify let you do most of this without anything extra. WooCommerce has upsells and cross sells built into every product, and there are official extensions for bundles and pick and mix boxes. Shopify has free apps of its own, like Shopify Bundles, for selling sets and for choosing which products to suggest together. If you want something more involved, like automatic recommendations based on order history, that’s where a bit of help is worth it.
Are your sets and bundles actually selling?
Learn how to put together offers people want right now, at a price you can defend, so more of your shoppers say yes and add to their basket. The AI Marketing Academy opens on 14 November.
Getting started
You can do this in an afternoon on most WooCommerce or Shopify shops. Work through it in this order.
Want a shop that does this for you? Online shops are a bespoke add on to the websites we build, set up around what you sell. Book a free website concept call.
The AI Marketing Academy
Build an AI marketing team that works for your business. You teach it, your agents do the work, and you stay in control.
Bigger baskets come from offers your customers actually want. The course that covers it is Create an Offer Your Clients Can’t Say No To.
It’s real marketing, powered by AI, and it opens on 14 November.
Your questions answered
The questions shop owners ask me most about getting a bigger basket.
Upselling is offering a better or bigger version of the thing someone is buying, like the large size instead of the small. Cross selling is suggesting something that goes with it, like a case for a phone. Both raise the value of the order, and most shops use a mix of the two.
Open a product, go to the Linked Products tab in the product data box, and add products to the Upsells and Cross sells fields. Upsells show on the product page and cross sells show in the basket. For bundles or pick and mix boxes you’ll need an extension.
Yes. Shopify has a free bundles app of its own that lets you sell fixed sets and multipacks, and its free search and discovery app lets you choose which products are suggested alongside each other.
Not if they’re relevant and kept to a few. Customers leave when they’re hit with pop ups or long lists of unrelated products. One or two genuinely useful suggestions feel like good service.
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