How to Add WooCommerce Upsells on Cart Pages and Side Carts?

WooCommerce cart upsells are a smart way to boost your average order value and should be part of your core sales strategy.

Studies by Forrester and Gartner show that personalized upselling can increase revenue by up to 300%.

By showing relevant product suggestions based on what’s in the cart, you can encourage customers to add more items, leading to a higher order value and extra sales.

While WooCommerce includes basic upsell and cross-sell features, it only supports cross-sells on the cart page and doesn’t allow true upsells.

That’s where a plugin like UpsellWP comes in. It lets you add and manage upsell offers on both cart pages and side carts, giving you more flexibility to engage shoppers before checkout.

You can also control where, when, and to whom the cart upsell offers appear, making your strategy more targeted and effective.

In this blog, I’ll show you how to create WooCommerce cart upsells and display product suggestions in the side cart, an advanced feature that makes checkout smoother and more engaging.

What is a WooCommerce Cart Upsell?

WooCommerce cart upsell is an upselling strategy where you can show related upsell and cross-sell items on cart pages to help customers find more products, encourage them to purchase more, and increase the average order value.

For example, if a customer adds a t-shirt to their cart, you can show related items, such as a cap, belt, or other accessories that complement their main product.

What Are Cart Pages and Side Carts in WooCommerce?

WooCommerce Cart Pages are the main pages where customers review their selected products before checkout. It shows the full list of items, quantities, prices, and lets customers update or remove products.

Side Carts in WooCommerce are smaller, slide-out panels or pop-ups that appear alongside the shopping experience. They give a quick view of the cart without leaving the current page, making it easier for customers to review and add upsells without interrupting their shopping flow.

Why Show WooCommerce Upsell in Carts?

Here are a few benefits of showing WooCommerce upsell in carts:

1. Gain Product Visibility

Imagine a customer browsing your store and adding the item they need to their cart. After checkout, they will leave your store.

If you show WooCommerce upsells on cart pages or side carts, customers can explore other products in your store and may add them to their cart if the suggestions are relevant and complement their previously added items.

It will increase product visibility and additional sales.

2. Increase Average Order Value

Increasing the average order value (AOV) is the benefitted goal behind the cart upselling strategy.

You can personalize WooCommerce cart upsells and cross-sell recommendations, urge customers to add these extra products, and increase the cart value. This will automatically result in higher revenue.

3. Clears Out Inventory

You may have products that aren’t selling well or are left over from seasonal campaigns. Keeping them in stock for too long can take up space and tie up cash flow.

Using cart upsells for WooCommerce helps in promoting these slow-moving or seasonal items; you give them more visibility right when customers are ready to buy. It clears out excess inventory, increases overall sales, and keeps your product catalog fresh.

4. Enhance Customer Experience

Sometimes, customers can leave their cart after adding products to their cart. And non-relevant products can be one of the reasons behind this abandoned cart.

When you use this opportunity to show the most suitable upsells with more product ideas, customers are more likely to check out and buy those products. This not only increases sales but also enhances their shopping experience, which leads to increased customer loyalty.

In short, your store needs a strategic upsell offer on cart pages. Let’s discuss the steps to do it.

How to Add a WooCommerce Cart Upsell?

Adding WooCommerce upsells on cart pages and side carts requires a plugin. For this guide, you can learn the steps using the UpsellWP plugin.

With plenty of plugins available online, this plugin can be the best all-rounder. It has ten pre-built upsell campaigns that help you create an upsell sales funnel from product to checkout pages and the after-purchase process.

Install the UpsellWP Plugin

To install the plugin:

• Open your WordPress dashboard.
• Go to “Plugin” -> “Add New Plugin.”
• Search for “UpsellWP.”
• Click the “Install” button to install and activate the plugin.

Add Cart Upsell Offer

To add WooCommerce cart upsells using UpsellWP:

• Go to “WordPress” -> “UpsellWP.”
• Navigate to “Campaigns” and create a new campaign, “Cart Upsells.”
• Enter the campaign name.
• In the “Offers” section:
  • Select the display location for the upsell products.
  • If you create two or more upsell products, you can decide the display method of the offer: whether to display all offers, random offers based on customer behavior, or A/B testing offers.
  • You can also show these upsells on the side cart by enabling it on the “display location on mini-cart” option.
  • You can now click “Add Offer” to add upsell products to the cart.
• In the “Conditions” section, you can add purchase conditions, such as specific user roles, first-order, and cart total, to enable the upsell offer.
• You can set “Priority” on the right side if you create multiple cart upsell campaigns and schedule them in advance.
• Save and activate the campaign.

Now, the upsell offer will appear on cart pages, and customers can easily add it to their cart by clicking the “Add to cart” button.

Customizing Upsell Offer

While adding an upsell offer in the “Offer” section, you noticed three sections where you can easily customize upsells based on your brand styles and sales goals.

A) Offer Info

• Choose the offer products and set quantities.
• Apply discount type and value to upsell products.
• You can also set the overall usage limit and the usage limit per customer for the upsells.

B) Content

• In the “Content” section, you can edit the title and CTA text for the upsell offer.
• You can also choose a customized image for the product.

C) Design

• You can change the template for the upsell offer.
• With the “Styles” option, you can customize text color, background color, border styles and colors, and font styles for both offer text and CTA buttons.

Cart Upsell Settings

You can also go to the “Settings” page of the UpsellWP plugin. In the “Campaigns” section, scroll down to “Cart & Checkout Upsells.”

Here, you can enable “dynamic offer display” and display mode. You can also edit the offer message that appears when customers add the upsells to their cart.

In the “Maximum number of offers a customer can pick at a time” option, set the maximum number of upsell offers a customer can add to their cart.

Imagine you are showing two upsell offers on the cart pages, and a customer adds one upsell to their cart.

Now, if you select the above “maximum number of offers” as “one,” the other upsell offer will be automatically hidden, and customers can’t add the second offer to their cart.

If you set the number as “two or unlimited,” the other upsell offer will show on cart pages that customers can add to the cart or ignore.

Conclusion

WooCommerce cart upsells should be a great strategy to increase the order value by up to 31%.

With a versatile plugin like UpsellWP, you can create unique and irresistible upsell offers that motivate customers to spend more in your store.

Plan your upselling offers based on customer needs and interests. Personalize it to grab their attention and get additional sales with every order.

If you have any questions about using UpsellWP, you can also contact our support team. We are always ready to help you manage your store and increase sales.

Also Read

1. How to show upsells on WooCommerce checkout pages with order bumps?
2. How to show one-click upsells to increase post-purchase sales?
3. How to show product add-ons to increase customer engagement?

Frequently Asked Questions