Let's start with a perfect example of The Bump. Next time you go to a McDonald's, order a sandwich and drink (but no fries) and see what happens. You will personally experience a simple, ridiculously easy, million-dollar bump.

If you place an order that doesn't include french fries (chips), the counter person will immediately and cheerfully suggest some hot, delicious fries. Just the mere suggestion causes a certain percentage of people to go ahead and order the fries and of course McDonalds have made the extra price quite small.

We are not talking about a few isolated cases, either think of about 1/3 of people will bump up their order. There are thousands of McDonald's all over the world so this one little bump adds up to $millions. All they do is make a simple little suggestion about something that goes naturally with their order, is appealing and costs a little extra.

Let's start thinking about how you can use this hot technique to bump up your own profits. Computers are tools of the trade now BUT they are still gadgets and big boys (and girls) like to buy gadgets. Make a list of your boring low margin items and think of a few things that you can naturally add to these items to make them more appealing.

For example if they are buying a new hard drive do they need a new graphics board to cope with all those new games (sorry hard work) they will be using the computer for? Say they want a wi-fi card then sell them a wireless connector. If they are buying a computer game then sell them a complimentary game at a discount. Well you get the point.

Think of groupings of items that fulfill the following factors:
* They naturally go together.
* They increase the desirability or wantability of the items.
* The perceived value goes up people think that they are getting a bargain as the total cost is lower than if they are purchased separately.
* At least one of the items is a high profit item.

Now you can do two things with these bumps. Either make the bumps part of your everyday sales just as McDonalds does, or make it a special offer and heavily promote it during a defined time.

Here's an important concept that you should always remember, everybody loves a special deal. Therefore, you can often use something that's only loosely related to the customer's purchase for a bump. Offer a special discount on something the customer may want in the future.