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In-cart cross-sells & upgrades

ℹ️ Note, the features in this help doc are currently being rolled out so may not be enabled for your venue yet

Increase average guest spend with AI-powered, personalised in-cart cross-sells and upgrades.

Cross-sells suggest items that go well with what's already in your guest's cart, and upgrades offer a one tap size-up on eligible drinks. This article explains what each one is, how they work, what happens automatically, and reporting.

 

 

Before you start

  • Cart cross-sells and cart upgrades are rolling out to all venues in July.
  • Cart cross-sells work automatically, there's nothing to set up
  • Cart upgrades only appear for drinks that have an upgrade group set up in Manage
  • Both features work with all POS integrations, and at both standard and multi-vendor venues

Topics

Cart cross-sells

What are cart cross-sells?

Cart cross-sells are personalised product recommendations shown in your guest’s cart before checkout. Rather than displaying the same suggestions to everyone, they use AI and your venue’s ordering patterns to recommend items that naturally complement what’s already in the cart, helping increase average spend while keeping suggestions relevant.

How cart cross-sells work

Cart cross-sells appear as a small carousel on the cart screen, suggesting up to three food or drink items based on what's already in your guest's cart.

 

Here's what to expect:

  • Suggestions are chosen dynamically to complement the cart, using your venue's order data to identify the items most likely to convert. A cart of drinks might see suggestions for chips or other snacks, for example.
  • Suggestions can be food, drinks, or a mix of both.
  • Sensible guardrails are in place to avoid odd suggestions, like recommending another main to a cart full of mains, or suggesting alcoholic drinks alongside kids' items.
  • Suggestions refresh as your guest adds or removes items from their cart.
  • The carousel shows up to three items. If there aren't enough strong matches, it will show fewer, and it won't appear at all if there's nothing appropriate to suggest.
  • Tapping a suggestion adds it straight to the cart. If the item has required options or modifiers, a mini item drawer opens so your guest can make their choices first.

Cross-sells at multi-vendor venues

Multi-vendor venues have a couple of extra rules to keep the guest experience smooth:

  • Food suggestions only come from vendors already in your guest's cart. This means guests won't add an item expecting one pick-up point, only to find part of their order is collected somewhere else.
  • Drink suggestions follow the Recommendations Tuning set at the parent site, so you can control which vendors' drinks appear, for example, the main bar only.

Cart upgrades

What are cart upgrades?

Cart cross-sells are quick prompts shown in your guest’s cart before checkout. Based on drink items already in the cart we recommend suitable upgrade size options, helping increase average spend.

How cart upgrades work

Cart upgrades appear as a one tap upgrade button on eligible drinks in the cart. If your guest has a schooner in their cart, for example, they might see an offer to make it a pint.

Upgrades use the upgrade groups set up in Manage to decide when to show an offer, and which one:

  • Upgrades are only offered on drinks, and only where an upgrade group exists.
  • Only genuine size upgrades are suggested. If your upgrade groups include variants (like turning a lager into a shandy), those are ignored.
  • The logic picks the most sensible size up. A small takeaway coffee will be offered the next takeaway size, not a mug.
  • An upgrade is only suggested when it costs between 5% and 100% more than the original item. That way guests aren't prompted over a few cents, and a single glass of wine is never upgraded to a bottle.
  • The prompt is designed to be one tap. If a larger size comes with required options or modifiers, it won't be suggested.

ℹ️ Note, upgrades are suggested automatically. On rare occasions a suggestion might not be a perfect fit, but it will only ever be for a configured upgrade option on a drink already in the cart.

 

Reporting

Reporting for both features is available directly in Manage and is currently available at an individual venue level only.

To access the reporting login to Manage. Then go to Insights -> Product usage -> Cart Cross Sells or Cart Upgrades.

For cart cross-sells the reporting shows the total revenue generated by the feature as well as the percentage of orders that completed with at least one cart cross-sell present.

 

For cart upgrades, the reporting shows the total revenue generated by the feature.

 

FAQ

Do I need to set anything up? Cart cross-sells work automatically using your venue's order data. Cart upgrades appear automatically for any drinks that have an upgrade group set up in Manage.

Can I control which items are suggested? Upgrades are dynamically chosen from the item upgrade options you set up and control. For now, cross-sells are selected based only on each guest's cart and our AI recommendations engine. We're exploring ways to enable you to influence these in the future.

How can I see how cross-sells and upgrades are performing? Sales reporting for cart cross-sells and upgrades is available in new tabs under Insights > Product Usage in Manage.

Why is the cross-sells carousel showing fewer than three items, or not at all? Suggestions only appear when there's a strong match with your guest's cart. For smaller menus or unusual carts, the carousel may show fewer items or not appear at all.

Is this the same as the Upsells feature in Manage? No. The existing Upsells feature lets you manually set fixed recommendations of other items to suggest when viewing menu items, and it's unchanged. Cart cross-sells are generated automatically based on each guest's cart and presented just before they submit their order.

Why isn't an upgrade showing on one of my drinks? An upgrade only appears when the drink has an upgrade group, the next step up is a genuine size increase, the price difference is between 5% and 100%, and the larger size has no required options or modifiers.

Your guests will now see smart suggestions and one tap upgrades in their cart, with no setup needed to get started.

Any questions? Reach out to us via email at support@meandu.com