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General Information About Pre-Purchase Offers [OCU]

Learn all the basics for pre-purchase offers, offer types, and more!

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Written by Ash
Updated today

Overview

What is a Pre-Purchase Offer?

Pre-purchase offers are a great way to get more products in front of your customers before they reach the checkout. A pre-purchase upsell can show on the Shopify Product page when a customer adds a product to the cart or on the cart page when the customer clicks to proceed to checkout.

Offer Types

Single Pre-Purchase Offer

The Single Pre-Purchase offer allows for one product to be offered and added to the cart.

Click here to learn more about Single Pre-Purchase offers and working with the offer editor.

Pre-Purchase Upgrade Offer

The Pre-Purchase Upgrade offer is similar to the Single Pre-Purchase offer, but rather than adding the offer product to the cart, the offer product replaces the trigger product instead. This offer is a great choice for merchants who want to offer different sizes, premium versions, or pre-packaged bundles of your products!

Click here to learn more about Pre-Purchase Upgrade offers.

Multi-Product Pre-Purchase Offer

The Multi-Product Pre-Purchase offer allows merchants to offer up to five different products at the same time! Customers can add any of the five offered products to their cart if desired. Unique to the Multi-Product Pre-Purchase offer are incentives, which include a Free Shipping Bar and a Discount Bar.

The free shipping bar offers free shipping to customers who exceed a total price threshold for the items in their cart.

Likewise for the Discount Bar, if customers have exceeded a total cost threshold set by the merchant, they will receive a discount on their order that is set by the merchant.

Click here to learn more about Multi-Product Pre-Purchase offers.

"Same product as bought" Offer

The Same product as bought offer is a dynamic offer and will automatically present the customer with the same product or variant that they've already added to their cart.

Based on the trigger product(s) set for the funnel, OCU tracks what product is placed in the customer cart and offers the same product as an offer. So for every specific cart the offer product will be different.

Click here for more details about the Same product as bought offer.

Offer Locations

When you change the popup location we need to update metafields, it takes around 1-2 min for the change to be applied live on your storefront. Re-enabling the OCU app at Settings > General after changing the location will expedite the process.

Shopping Cart

The "Shopping Cart" is the default location when creating your funnels. When the funnel location is set to the Cart page, pre-purchase offers will appear after clicking the "Checkout" button on the Cart Page, on your Theme's AJAX Cart (if included in your store’s theme and selected) or on the OCU Slide Cart Drawer.

📝Notes About the "Shopping Cart" location:

  • The Cart page location is an excellent choice as a default location for your pre-purchase offers, especially if you are a store owner who utilizes the Cart page and has customers who tend to shop around more!

  • If you're building a specific funnel for a product or you skip the cart, then the Product page location would be more beneficial than using the Cart page.

  • The Cart location is not compatible with "accelerated checkout buttons" (PayPal / ShopPay / Amazon Payments, etc.) included on the Cart page or AJAX carts.

Page with Product Buy Box

The Page with Product Buy Box location will show pre-purchase offers immediately after a customer clicks the "Add to Cart" button while on the corresponding page type:

  • Product Page (/products)

  • Collection Page (/collections)

  • Home Page

  • Landing Page (/pages)

You can choose to show the popup on any/all of the page types by checking the corresponding option boxes. For Home Page and Landing Page location options, "Product" or "Product variant" trigger conditions are required to be used for the funnel. The pages must also include a product buy box with an "Add to Cart" button:

To show the Pre-Purchase offer on a Collection page on a free Shopify Theme for example, enable the "Quick add" > Standard option within the published theme by navigating to the Themes > Customize > Collections > Default collection > Product grid > Product card:

📝Notes about the "Page with Product Buy Box" location:

  • On the "Draft Order" discount method, Fixed Amounts and Percentage discounts won’t be displayed on the Cart page without taking extra steps. Click here for instructions on how to have these discounts reflected on the Cart page.

  • 3rd-party Product page builders will not show Pre-Purchase offers, with the exception of Zipify Pages.

  • The Product page location is not compatible with "accelerated checkout buttons" (PayPal / ShopPay / Amazon Payments, etc.) included on Product pages.

  • After clicking the “Add to Cart“ button on the Product page, customers will be either redirected to the Cart Page, or show your AJAX cart after interacting with the pre-purchase pop-up. You also have the option of skipping the cart page and directing from the pop-up to the checkout by using our Skip Cart feature detailed in this article here.

Offer Frequency

🔘 Show Popup Every Time

The pre-purchase offer will be shown every time the customer clicks on the Checkout button on the Cart page, regardless of whether the offer was already accepted or declined.

🔘 Show Popup Until Accepted or Declined

The pre-purchase offer will be shown with each click on the Checkout button on the Cart page until the offer is either accepted or declined. After that, the customer won’t see the pre-purchase popup again until the checkout is finished.

🔘 Show Popup Once Per Session

The customer will see the pre-purchase popup only once until the checkout is finished or until they start a new browsing session or use a different browser.

FAQs

What kind of products should I use for pre-purchase offers?

For Single Product Pre-Purchase offers we recommend making sure the products go together. For example, a trigger product of coffee beans pairs well with a pre-purchase upsells of Coffee Filters.

For Pre-Purchase Upgrade Offers it is recommended that you use a similar product with more advanced features than the offer product. For example, if your trigger product was a Standard Edition version, you would want to use a Premium version as the upgrade offer. This offer type is also great if you are offering pre-packaged bundle products!

For Multi-Product Pre-Purchase offers we suggest picking the top 5 sellers for your store and setting the funnel trigger for all products. Our findings suggest that you don't even need to offer a discount– we're having great success with full-priced items being used for pre-purchase offers!

I added the trigger product to my cart, but I’m not seeing an offer, what gives?

There are a few explanations for this:

  • The product added to the cart was not a trigger product

  • If the funnel uses the Cart page location and the Skip Cart feature is enabled, the offer will not be shown.

  • The trigger product is the same as the offer product, and the Hide Offer setting is enabled for the pre-purchase offer.

  • The checkout button on your Cart page or sliding/Ajax cart lacks the proper attributes

If for any reason you find that your pre-purchase offers aren’t working, please contact our Support team, who will be happy to assist you!

  • ⚠️ If the customer adds a pre-purchase offer to their order that is a trigger for a different funnel with a higher priority, then the funnel with the higher priority will be used for the order instead of the original funnel.

  • Similarly, if the "Upgrade Order" pre-purchase offer is accepted which replaces the original trigger product, and that new product isn't a trigger for a funnel that has post-purchase offers, no post-purchase offers will be shown for the order.

Is it possible to show a pre-purchase offer from one funnel and use that offer product as a trigger for another funnel?

This can be done! In order for the pre-purchase offer product to initiate a new post-purchase funnel, you'll want to be sure that the funnel is set as a higher priority.

My pre-purchase offers are showing, but my views aren’t increasing– why?


Views for pre-purchase offers will be counted for completed checkouts regardless of how the customer interacts with the offer (accept, decline, or exit). Abandoned checkouts are not included in views. Click here to learn more about OCU statistics.

Can I use a Shopify "Bundle" product as a pre-purchase offer?


Yes, you can use a Shopify "Bundle" product as a pre-purchase offer.

📝 Revenue and Conversion Rate statistics will not be tracked in OCU for pre-purchase bundle products due to technical limitations.

How can I use a non-Product trigger to show the Pre-Purchase offer on Home or Landing pages?

"Product" and/or "Product variant" triggers are required to setup Pre-purchase for Home and/or Landing pages. However, if a product being added to the cart serves as a trigger in any funnel, an offer can still be displayed even when using non-product triggers.

  • Funnel #1 uses the trigger "Total value over $100."

  • Funnel #33 uses the trigger "Product = Orange."

If a customer adds the product Orange to their cart from the Home page, and their total cart value exceeds $100, the offer from Funnel #1 will be shown even though it doesn't use a "Product" trigger. This behavior occurs because the product (Orange) is linked as a trigger in another funnel.

It's recommended to configure specific conditions within funnels to handle such cases effectively. For example, if you have three products on the Home page (Apple, Orange, and Pear) and want a Pre-purchase offer triggered when the total cart value exceeds $30, you can use the following trigger setup:

  1. Condition 1: Total value > $30

  2. Condition 2: Product = Apple, Orange, Pear

  3. Operator: Use AND between these conditions (this ensures both criteria must be met).

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