"Would you like fries with that?"
You've undoubtedly heard the phrase while ordering at McDonald's or (insert your favorite fast food restaurant).
This is called the "cross-sell" – essentially, it means selling another item along with the purchase the consumer is already committing to.
In the case of fast food restaurants, the customer comes in for a burger, the cashier asks if they want fries and drink with that – it's easy to say "yes."
But the magic is that the fries and drink (the items being cross-sold), are high margin items. Fries are potatoes and the drink is syrup + carbonated water, hardly any prep or cooking to be done on these items.
The cost of a quarter-pounder with cheese is $3.23, the price is $6.39.
That's ~50% margin for the primary item the customer order.
If they take the cashier up on the fries and drink though?
The price of a soda at Mickey D's is $2.39, the cost of goods sold (COGS), is ~$0.20 (including syrup, cup, lid, and straw)
I'll let you figure it out for the french fries, but WOW – a 90% profit margin on the cross-sell.
And that's why they do it every time. Remember when the golden arches ran a campaign for a FREE super-sized upgrade if the cashier forgot to ask if you want your meal super-sized?
Yes, super-sizing is technically an upsell, but the point is that the campaign was so that cashiers would get into the habit of asking every customer to increase their order value.
Sure, many say "no," but some will go for it and if it wasn't asked, well, that's just money left on the table.
Brilliant Cross-Selling
One of my favorite examples of cross-selling is on the product pages of Amazon.com.
You see that section labelled "Frequently bought together"?It's not just a helpful suggestion, it's a powerful cross-sell + social proof.
Amazon.com (well-known for A/B testing everything), has their product pages dialed in.
They know that showing additional items is cool, but adding the suggestion that this is what other people are doing uses consumer psychology to get the customer to add those items to their cart. The question becomes: how can you add cross-sells to your checkout flow?
"Would you like a muffin with that?"
"Most people get two tacos, do you want to add another?"
You get the point.
Think about not only what "most people" do, but remember to focus on your high-margin cross-sells and upsells.
Come up with some "back pocket" phrases, train your staff on them, reward them when they make a successful cross-sell, and get to it!
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