Cross to Cross-Selling with Collecting Urges

We’ve an urge to complete the whole set. Researchers at Simon-Kucher & Partners, Seattle University, University of California Irvine, and University of St. Gallen see a potential for increasing cross-selling by using incompleteness cues to active the urge. When items are presented as interrelated components rather than individual alternatives, shoppers become more likely to purchase a greater number, or even all the items.
     This incompleteness effect is at its best when the set is presented visually, not just in text descriptions. In one of their studies, banking services were depicted as pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
     The drive for completion is related to the Zeigarnik Effect. More than ninety years ago, a Russian psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik explored the reasons that waiters had a better memory for orders placed which had not been served or had not been paid for than for those for which all the steps had been completed. Psychologists since then have used the term Zeigarnik Effect to refer to the mental itch we feel when a task is in limbo.
     This recall for unfinished tasks is substantially greater when the person has goals requiring the various components. The incompleteness effect comes from the shopper feeling a need for the chosen items beyond simply wanting them all. This doesn’t mean that the urge to collect operates only with absolute necessities. In my email exchange about the study with Prof. Eric Spangenberg, one of the researchers, he wrote, “I see presentation of items as a set as establishing an intrinsic goal.”
     Other research and retail anecdotal evidence indicate shoppers are attracted to items presented as a set because it stimulates imagining about how the items can be used and it eases selection of a group of items which will fit together well.
     The researchers caution that the incompleteness effect depends on the shopper believing it is feasible for them to acquire the additional items. That could mean encouraging the consumer to spread purchases over time. This is, in fact, a cardinal characteristic of the collector.
     For merchandise and service offerings beyond those consumers consider to be sets, think about giving the items the appeal of collectibles. Take special orders and publicize alternative markets. When your customers are having trouble getting that special item to fill in the missing spot in the collection, help them get it from you or from a collectors' group. Keep the collectors involved.

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Give Customers a Clear Sense of Progress 

Sell Exclusive Offerings by Combining 

Partition Premium Pricing for Busy Shoppers 

Set Customers to Collect Items 

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