Cluttered Cross-selling and Cross-buying: A Systematic Literature Review and Call to Action
Type
working paper
Date Issued
2025-03-26
Author(s)
Abstract
The concepts of cross-selling and cross-buying attract significant service research attention, due to their crucial effects on business revenue and customer lifetime value. The literature streams dedicated to these two concepts also exhibit considerable ambiguity and conceptual overlap, hindering theoretical development and practical applications. With an integrative, systematic review, the current research aims to address the related challenges by undertaking probabilistic topic modeling, bibliometric analyses, logical partitioning, and jangle and jingle fallacies analyses. These multiple methodologies shed light on distinctions and commonalities between cross-selling and cross-buying research, which in turn informs a typology of definitions, as validated by interviews with service industry practitioners. By consolidating extant knowledge about cross-selling and cross-buying, this review also delivers actionable insights for service research, along with suggestions for how service companies can best profit from their existing customer relationships.
Funding(s)
Schweizer National Fonds (SNF): "When and How Cross-Selling Boosts Sales: The Role of Customer Inspiration"; Projektnummer 10003458
Language
English (United States)
Keywords
cross-selling
cross-buying
literature review
topic modeling
bibliometric analyses
logical partitioning
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Subject(s)
Division(s)