How to build a Post-Purchase Cross-Sell experience

Build a Post-Purchase Cross-Sell strategy and encourage customers to add an additional product to their order post-checkout, either as a one-time or on a recurring basis with Recharge's flow structure to create personalized, time-sensitive offers that align with your brand and enhance the customer flow.

This guide explains how the Post-Purchase Cross-Sell flow works, and how you can configure the flow in your store.

Before you start

• You must enable the Recharge post-purchase setting on Shopify so that your cross-sell options display after customers check out.

How it works

Offer customers one-time or subscription products after they complete their initial checkout order.

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 with no option chosen.

Building the flow

Use Recharge’s flow canvas to create an automated flow and maximize customer engagement with targeted cross-sell offers. The flow canvas contains the Trigger node and three Cross-Sell nodes:

• The Trigger node determines what customers can access the cross-sell product
• The Cross-Sell nodes highlight the available cross-sell offers
  • Customers immediately see the first cross-sell offer after their successful checkout purchase
  • Customers see additional follow-on offers specific to the action they took on the first cross-sell offer

Step 1 - Access the Post-purchase page

Access the flow canvas in your Recharge merchant portal:

1. Select Cross-Sell & Upsell in the merchant portal and click Post-Purchase Offers.
2. Click Create new.
3. Select Cross-sell and then click Get started to open the flows canvas.
4. Click Manage settings to add a title and description to the cross-sell flow.

The flow canvas contains two nodes, the Trigger node, and the Cross-Sell node:

• The Trigger node determines what customers can access the cross-sell product
• The Cross-sell node, where you select which products you want to highlight to encourage customers to subscribe to more products

You can customize each node to personalize the cross-sell flow.

Step 2 - Configure the Trigger node

By default, Recharge displays the cross-sell opportunity to all customers immediately after they complete their checkout purchase. You can set conditions on the trigger node so that only customers who meet your criteria are shown the cross-sell product.

You can configure the trigger node to check for specific instances on a customer’s order to see if the cross-sell flow should apply to them. You can configure the trigger node to check for the following:

• If any item in the cart contains a specified product
• If any item in the cart is part of a specific Recharge collection
• If any item in the cart is a subscription
• If the subtotal matches the specified conditions
• If the customer has or doesn’t have a specific customer tag

If a customer meets the conditions configured in your trigger node, the trigger node result is a yes, and Recharge will display the post-purchase offer.  Customers only see the post-purchase offer if they meet the trigger node conditions.

Optional - Add the A/B test node

Use the A/B test node to try out different incentives and understand which ones resonate most with your customers. Customers always randomly choose either path at checkout, even if they purchase the same product twice.

1. Open the Add a node menu on the left-hand side of the flow canvas.
2. Select the A/B test node from the Conditions tab and drag it onto the flow canvas between the Trigger and Cross-Sell nodes.

Adding the A/B Test node automatically creates two paths, each with its own cross-sell node. Follow Step 3 to configure a different cross-sell flow for each path.

Step 3 - Configure the Cross-Sell node

After setting the conditions in the Trigger node, you must select the cross-sell product using the Cross-Sell node:

1. Click on the Cross-Sell node to open the editor.
2. Choose what product you want to offer as a post-purchase cross-sell:
   • Select Smart select to recommend cross-sell products based on the customer’s cart automatically.
     Select Specific products to choose specific products and variants to sell as a subscription.

3. If your product has multiple variants, you can select the specific variant to show to customers or allow customers to choose the variant under How are variants selected.

   

4. Under Purchase options, select if customers can purchase the cross-sell product exclusively as a one-time purchase, a subscription, or sell the product as either a one-time or subscription product, and give customers the flexibility to choose their own purchase option.
5. While not mandatory, you can offer customers a discount on the cross-sell product using the Enter post-purchase discount amount field. This discount only applies to the first purchase, and not on recurring orders if the product is available as a subscription.
6. You can also choose whether to offer the discount instead of the subscribe-and-save discount set for subscription products, or on top of it.

7. Configure your shipping settings under Post-purchase shipping fee. You can offer customers free shipping or set a shipping fee for their post-purchase order.

   

8. Check the Show timer box under Display Options to display a countdown timer that notifies customers how much time they have to take advantage of the cross-sell offer. You can edit the timer text and its length to encourage customers to purchase the cross-sell offer when customizing the post-purchase page.
9. Click Apply to save your changes.

Before applying your changes, you can click Customize post-purchase  to update the look and feel of the post-purchase offer to match the store’s branding.

Step 4 - Customize the post-purchase page

After configuring the cross-sell offer, you can customize the post-purchase page so customers can see the available offer after completing their checkout order. You can keep the sections as is, or reorder them to display a different flow on the storefront.

1. Click Customize post-purchase page to open the page builder.
2. Use the rich text editor to easily customize the font size, color, styling, and positioning for the following sections:
   • Heading: Update the header to let customers know about the cross-sell opportunity.
   • Timer: Update the timer description and the time customers have to make a purchasing decision
   • Product offer:  Update the text that describes the post-purchase offer to customers and the text communicating the available purchase options, such as the variant and frequency selection labels. The rich text editor is not available for this section.
   • Text and image: Upload an image to enhance your cross-sell offer, and add text to convey any relevant information to customers effectively. Alternatively, you can use the text field without an image to communicate with your customer. You can add this section multiple times.
3. Click Done to save any changes.
4. Click Apply.

Recharge shows a live preview of the page as you edit it. While the product image doesn’t appear in the post-purchase page preview, it displays on the live version that customers see.

Available variables

The post-purchase page uses the following variables to personalize the customer experience:

Optional - Review your settings

Review the Post-Purchase Cross-Sell Settings tab to understand how Recharge handles post-purchase cross-sell items when a customer's payment for the upsell item fails.

Sometimes, a customer successfully pays for their original checkout items and accepts a post-purchase cross-sell offer, but the payment for the upsell item fails due to issues like a declined card or insufficient funds. This creates a partially paid order, where the order includes unpaid upsell items alongside paid original items.

1. In the merchant portal, select Cross-Sell & Upsell, then click Post-purchase.

2. Click on the Settings tab.

   

3. You can now use the Settings tab to choose what action to take for a partially paid order:
   • Do nothing (default): Recharge keeps the upsell item in the order. The order remains partially paid, and you decide what to fulfill.
   • Remove the upsell item from the order: Recharge removes the upsell item after a delay you select (between 3 minutes and 24 hours), so the order becomes fully paid and easier to fulfill.

Step 5 - Save and activate the flow

1. Click Save in the top right corner to save the cross-sell flow.
2. Click Activate when you’re ready to go live with the flow, and present customers with a cross-sell product after their checkout purchase.

Step 6 - Enable post-purchases in Shopify

You must configure your Shopify settings to allow post-purchase options after a customer completes their checkout order:

1. Log in to your Shopify admin.
2. Click Settings and select Checkout from the Settings navigation menu.
3. Locate the Post-purchase page section and confirm that Recharge Subscriptions is enabled.
4. Save your settings if necessary.

Optional - Configure multiple flows

You can create multiple Post-Purchase Cross-Sell opportunities to target different customer segments. Recharge only displays one post-purchase option to customers after they finish checking out, even if they meet the criteria for multiple offers. 

Reorder the Post-Purchase Cross-Sell flows by priority to determine which flows should be executed first. For example, you may want to set your flow that has the most conditions as the top priority to target a narrower, more defined customer segment.

Update the flow priority from the Post-purchase page in your Recharge merchant portal:

1. In the merchant portal, select Cross-Sell & Upsell, then click Post-purchase.
2. Click Reorder priority.
3. Drag and drop the flows into your preferred order.

4. Click Save order to update the priority. 

   

Considerations

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

Frequently asked questions