How to test and publish a bundle

Publishing a bundle ensures that customers can purchase the bundled product and receive all of its assigned contents.

How it works

When you publish a bundle in your merchant portal, Recharge also sets the bundle product as active on the Online Store sales channel in Shopify. You can unpublish a bundle directly in Recharge to mark the product as unavailable in Shopify, preventing customers from checking out with the bundle until you're ready.

You can also set a bundle to Test Mode, which sets the product to Unlisted in Shopify. Test Mode hides the bundle from your storefront while keeping it fully functional, so you can test the purchase experience before going live. Bundle statuses stay synchronized between Recharge and Shopify, and you can change the status from either platform.

Bundle statuses

There are four separate statuses a bundle can stay in:

• Draft: The bundle is inactive on Recharge and has never been published. The product is also not available on the Shopify Online Store. If you activate the product in Shopify, and leave it in draft mode in Recharge, Recharge does not add the bundle contents to the customer's Shopify order.
• Test Mode: The bundle product is Unlisted in Shopify. The bundle is hidden from your storefront, so customers can't discover or purchase it through your Online Store, collections, or search results. You can still open the bundle product page directly using its URL, and Recharge adds the bundle contents to any orders placed. From Test Mode, you can activate or deactivate the bundle.
• Published: The bundle is active in Recharge and is available on the Online Stores channel in Shopify. If a customer purchases the bundle, Recharge adds the bundle contents to the customer's order.
• Unpublished: You had previously published the bundle in Recharge, but it is not available through the Online Store sales channel in Shopify. The bundle status changes to published when you make the product available in the Shopify Online Store. 

Publishing a bundle

You can create a bundle and leave it in draft status until you want to go live with the product or test the bundle. Publish the bundle in your Recharge merchant portal to allow customers to purchase the bundle:

1. Click Products in the merchant portal and select Bundles from the dropdown.
2. Click the bundle you wish to publish.
3. Click Activate bundle.

Unpublishing a bundle

You can unpublish your bundle at any time to remove it from your Shopify storefront:

1. Click Products in the merchant portal and select Bundles from the dropdown.
2. Click the bundle you wish to publish.
3. Click Deactivate.

Testing a bundle

Test your bundle before going live to ensure it performs as expected.

Option 1 - Test the full purchase experience with Test Mode (recommended)

Test Mode lets you place a test order without making the bundle visible to customers, so you don't need to publish the bundle or remove it from collections before testing. Your bundle must be in draft status to access test mode.

1. Click Products in the merchant portal and select Bundles from the dropdown.
2. Click the bundle you wish to test.
3. Click Test bundle.
4. Select Continue: Test bundle.
5. Open the bundle product page directly using its URL and place a test order to confirm the bundle functions as expected.

Because the product is unlisted in Shopify, the bundle doesn't appear on your storefront, in collections, or in search results while you test. Recharge adds the bundle contents to the test order as it would for a live purchase.

When you're ready to go live, set the bundle to Active to make it available on your Online Store sales channel.

Option 2 - Preview the bundle without publishing

Preview the bundle widget on your storefront before making the bundle available to customers.

1. Ensure the parent bundle product is Active in Shopify.
2. Install the Bundles template on your live theme. In the merchant portal, click Products and select Bundles, then click Storefront settings and select Install theme files.
3. Open the bundle product page on your storefront and append ?view=recharge-bundle to the end of the URL.

Previewing the bundle displays only the bundle widget. Recharge does not add bundle contents to Shopify orders until the bundle is published or in Test Mode.

Publishing different bundle types

What happens when a bundle is published depends on whether you publish a preset or a customizable bundle.

Customizable bundles

When a customizable bundle is published, Recharge:

• Applies the recharge-bundle product template to the bundle product in Shopify, which displays the bundle widget on the product page, allowing customers to purchase the bundled product
• Lists the contents of the bundle as separate line items on the processed Shopify order
• Includes the Bundle tag on processed orders in Shopify to make it easy to identify orders that contain a bundled product
• Makes sure that you can preview the bundles widget on the storefront product page

See Publishing a fixed-price customizable bundle or Publishing a dynamically-priced customizable bundle for more information. 

Preset bundles

When a preset bundle is published, Recharge:

• Lists the contents of the bundle as separate line items on the processed Shopify order
• Includes the Preset Bundle tag on processed orders in Shopify to make it easy to identify orders that contain a bundled product

See Publishing a preset bundle for more information.