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Getting started with Post-Purchase Cross-Sell

Relevant to: Shopify Checkout Integration Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration

Encourage customers to add a product to their order after checkout as a one-time or recurring purchase. Use Recharge’s flow structure to create personalized, time-sensitive offers that align with your brand.

This guide explains how the Post-Purchase Cross-Sell flow works and outlines key considerations.

Platform:

  • Shopify Checkout Integration
  • Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration

How it works

When a customer accepts a post-purchase cross-sell after the initial checkout, Shopify adds the product to the same order instead of creating a new one. The customer is charged separately for each item, once for the initial purchase and again for the cross-sell. Shopify initially sets the order status to On hold, and it switches to Unfulfilled after the customer accepts or declines the post-purchase offer or after an hour passes without a choice being made.

Key features

Offer customers products after they've made their initial purchase

Encourage customers to purchase an additional product, either as a one-time purchase or on a recurring basis, without having to go through checkout again. Show all of your customers the cross-sell product, or set up specific conditions so that only certain customers can access the offer.

Automate and personalize the experience for customers

Use Recharge’s flow structure to configure a Post-Purchase Cross-Sell flow for customers, and display a relevant product for purchase after a customer completes their checkout order. Add a timer to increase urgency and let customers know this offer isn’t available all the time. You can also customize the post-purchase page to match your brand’s tone, ensuring a seamless customer experience.

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Follow-on offers

Follow-on offers allow you to present a second offer after the first is accepted or declined. Recharge presents multiple cross-sell offers to customers in sequence, ensuring a seamless experience. Use follow-on offers to personalize the shopping experience and maximize revenue without overwhelming customers.

A/B testing and analytics

Use A/B testing and analytics to build segmented flows and monitor their performance after activation.

Add the A/B test node to your flow to send customers down two random paths, each configured with different cross-sell incentives. For example, you could offer:

  • Different cross-sell product or variant options
  • Different product discount amounts
  • Different subscription types for your cross-sell products
  • Free shipping to only one group of customers

You can then review your Performance analytics to determine which incentives perform better and fine-tune future flows with accurate customer feedback and insights.

Use cases

This feature is a great way to target existing customers who recently purchased from you. Review the following use cases to understand when it is most effective:

Use case

Description
Offer product accessories

Target customers who purchase a specific product with additional product accessories at a discounted amount.

For example, offer customers who purchased a camera additional accessories, such as a camera bag or a specific lens.
Convert to subscription

Offer customers subscription products at a heavily discounted rate.

For example, offer customers the subscription version of a one-time product at a discounted amount on their first order. 
Advertise seasonal or special occasion products Tailor cross-sell recommendations to the season or special occasions. For example, after a clothing purchase, suggest accessories or seasonal items like scarves, hats, or event-specific pieces.

Set-up instructions

See How to build a Post-Purchase Cross-Sell strategy for detailed setup instructions.

Performance analytics

Use the Performance tab to monitor the success of your post-purchase cross-sell flows.

Metric

Definition
Total Revenue The total revenue generated from products successfully cross-sold during checkout.
Impressions The number of unique checkouts where the cross-sell app block appeared. Recharge does not count a checkout twice if refreshed.
Total Post-purchase Line Items The total number of individual line items added to an order via the post-purchase offer.
Total Post-purchase Orders The total number of successful post-purchase offers added to orders.
Conversion Rate

The percentage of customers shown the Post-Purchase Cross-Sell offer and added the product to their order.

Formula: (Total Post-purchase Orders / Impressions) * 100
Avg Post-purchase Value

The average dollar value of orders that added a post-purchase product.

Formula: Total Revenue / Total Post-purchase Line Items
Performance by product This table displays the total revenue associated with all of the times each product was purchased after checkout.
Tip: Use the A/B test filter when reviewing the performance of individual flows to deep-dive the success of your A/B tests.

Activity tab

Review the Post-Purchase Cross-Sell Activity tab to understand how customers interact with your post-purchase offers at the order level, and to see a breakdown of the total cross-sell value per order.

Use this data to analyze customer behavior patterns and optimize cross-sell strategies for future offers.

Considerations

Consider the following when configuring and using the Post-Purchase Cross-Sell feature:

Consideration

Notes
Shopify order fulfillment status
  • Shopify sets the fulfillment status to On hold for Shopify Checkout orders with post-purchase offers to prevent fulfillment while the customer interacts with the offer. You cannot fulfill on-hold orders.
  • Shopify lifts the hold when the customer reaches the Thank You page, or after one hour if they do not reach the Thank You page (a Shopify limitation).
  • After Shopify lifts the hold, Recharge updates the fulfillable_quantity amount and sets the fulfillment status to open, ensuring you can fulfill the order.
Bundles
  • Post-purchase offers are not compatible with bundles at this time. 
Limits on the number of subscriptions a customer can purchase
  • Due to a Shopify limitation, customers can only purchase one subscription item between their checkout and the post-purchase orders.
    • If a customer checks out with a subscription product, the post-purchase strategy only displays a one-time product, if available.
    • If a customer checks out with a one-time product, they can purchase the post-purchase product as either a one-time product, or a subscription product.
Post-purchase offer does not display
  • There are instances where the post-purchase offer may not display:
    • Minimum order amount: The checkout order must cost at least $0.50 for the post-purchase flow to trigger.
    • Duties and multi-currency: Post-purchase offers will not display on orders with duties or multi-currency. If the customer checks out using a currency that is different from your stores default currency, Shopify will not display the Post-Purchase offer.
    • Local pickup and delivery: Post-purchase offers will not display on orders for local pickup and delivery.
    • Delays in order creation: During high-demand events such as Black Friday sales, when the Shopify platform is very busy, our system may focus on quickly capturing orders, which might slightly delay order creation. As a result, post-purchase offers may not display.
One-time post-purchase offers may not display in Recharge 
  • One-time products added during the post-purchase flow may not display in the order details on Recharge. This is due to a Shopify limitation.
  • Review the order in Shopify to see the complete order summary. 
Third-party fulfillment services
  • Recharge works with third-party fulfillment apps since Shopify sets orders with post-purchase offers to On hold until customers reach the Thank You Page or after one hour, and then updates the required variables for fulfillment.
  • This does not impact third-party fulfillment apps using the Shopify Fulfillment Orders API.
  • Fulfillment apps using other APIs cannot fulfill on-hold orders, and may run into issues.
    • Try retrying fulfillment after one hour as a workaround.
  • To ensure compatibility, all third-party fulfillment services must use the fulfillable_quantity field.
  • See How do post-purchase orders work with third-party fulfillment logistics? for detailed information.
Payment declined issues
  • On occasion, customers may see a payment declined message for post-purchase offers. Typically, the item is added to the order regardless of payment success and Shopify notifies the customer with a link to complete payment.
  • See Handling payment declines for post-purchase offers for more information.
Post-purchase product availability
  • Post-purchase product availability depends on the customer's cart and checkout information:
    • If the customer purchases a subscription product and provides a shipping address: The customer can post-purchase a digital or physical one-time product
    • If the customer purchases a one-time product and provides a shipping address: The customer can post-purchase a digital or physical one-time or subscription product
    • If the customer does not provide a shipping address: post-purchase offers do not display for physical products. Only digital one-time products are supported.
    • The customer can post-purchase a digital one-time product
  • Customers are not required to provide a shipping address when they purchase a digital product, a gift card, or set their order for local pickup.
Prepaid products
  • Prepaid products are not supported with Post-Purchase Cross-Sell
Password protected stores and Smart select
  • If your store is password protected and you use Smart select, the cross-sell block will not display after the customer checks out. This is because Smart select requires live storefront and cart data, which is not accessible on password-protected stores.
Smart select
  • When you set products to be offered through Smart Select, Shopify selects the product based on the customer’s cart. If the selected product does not have an active product plan in Recharge, the post-purchase offer will not trigger.
Quantity Upsells
  • Post Purchase Cross-Sell is not compatible with Quantity Upsells
Dynamically priced products

  • Dynamically priced products cannot be used as cross-sell products. However, they can be used as the trigger product for a cross-sell offer.
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