Marketing · Updated June 2026
An upsell offers a customer a better or bigger version of what they’re buying; a cross-sell offers complementary items. Done at the right moment — product page, cart, or post-purchase — upsells raise AOV without hurting conversion.
Average order value (AOV) is total revenue divided by number of orders — the average amount a customer spends per checkout. Raising AOV through bundles, upsells, and free-shipping thresholds grows revenue without acquiring new traffic.
A cross-sell recommends complementary products to what the customer is buying — a camera bag with a camera. Cross-sells work best when genuinely useful pairings are shown in cart or post-purchase, raising AOV with minimal friction.