Let's analyze the sales method. You might not be using your shopping cart to its full potential. The online store checkout process contains a series of questions that you have to go through prior to confirming your order. This is prevalent in many of the online stores today. As a consumer, you are attempting to get to the final approval page. They'll transfer you through a bunch of pre-purchasing questions where you answer "no" to the merchandise they are attempting to push to you. Ultimately, you get to confirm your order.

These questions aren't placed there to annoy you; they are placed there because businesses have spent countless hours trying these strategies to make more money. As a vendor, you should be trying this as well. You can definitely learn from these reputable businesses and apply it to your business as well. One way to upsell is to make a digital version of your product and then upsell your customers a hard copy of the same product. I have found that the majority of people like hard copy merchandise as opposed to digital versions.

Once the order is complete and your customers come to your "Thank You" page, take the liberty to advertise to them as well. Do not create a simple "Thank You" page as most beginning online businesses do. You want to get the most out of your shopping cart so sprinkle some advertisements in there as it is another great chance for you to upsell to your customers. For an effective upsell, I recommend that you advertise an affiliate product; a product that is complimentary to them. Why is this important? The chances of achieving an upsell sale are greatly increased at this point because you already have your customer's credit card information. And, if you can program your shopping cart so that if they decide to buy that product, they don't have to fill out their information again; you are making it easier for them to buy. That is the basic profile of this tactic.

A Joint Venture Partnership is also a lucrative way to make money as an upsell as well. Some of these partnerships offer a pay-per-lead; this is where they pay you for each lead you supply them. On the "Thank You" page, you can make the offer even more tempting by saying something like, "we've negotiated a special rate for you to get a subscription for the next 6 weeks with Company XYZ." It doesn't matter whether or not it's an online eZine or a printed magazine. There are joint venture partnerships out there that will pay you a decent sum because half the work is already done for them. They are looking for people that are already in their specific market. Do not throw this suggestion out the window. This idea is definitely something that should not be glanced at. It would be unwise not to take advantage of this idea. Don't let this one go down the drain.