Getting started with fixed-price customizable bundles

Sections

Before you start
Key features
Use cases
Set-up instructions
Considerations
Resources

Fixed-price customizable bundles let you offer a "build-a-box" experience on your storefront by using a single subscription product to bundle multiple Shopify products, allowing customers to select items for their bundle.

This guide explains key features of fixed-price customizable bundles, plus use cases and considerations.

Platform:

Recharge Checkout on Shopify
Shopify Checkout Integration

Before you start

Merchants on Pro or Custom plans can offer customers fixed-price customizable bundles.

Key features

Parent bundle product

In Recharge, a bundle consists of a parent product/SKU and individual products/SKUs for each item in the bundle. Bundles are fixed-price, with the parent product's price representing the total cost.

Bundle item prices and discounts affect Shopify reports. Since bundle items are added at full price and then discounted by 100%, they impact gross sales and discount reports. You may need to reconcile these reports for accounting purposes.

Fixed-pricing

Fixed-price customizable bundles have a fixed-price and the price of the bundle does not change based on the contents selected.

Bundles specific product details page

Fixed-price customizable bundles use a custom bundle product template called recharge-bundle, which includes the Recharge bundles widget. After creating and publishing a fixed-price customizable bundle, Recharge automatically set the recharge-bundle template as the product template in Shopify, ensuring the widget displays correctly.

Bundles must be purchased via this widget or a custom widget using . Customizable bundles cannot be added to the customer's cart using any quick-add methods from another page of your storefront or cart abandonment emails.

When a customer purchases a bundle through the recharge-bundle template, the Shopify checkout order includes a _rb_id line item property. If the Shopify order doesn’t contain this line item property, the bundle was purchased with an unsupported method and the bundle may not process successfully.

On the product details page, customers can:

Select bundle products
Choose a subscription type
Add any available add-ons or extra products

Example of a customizable Bundle's product details page on a storefront

The bundles widget lets customers build their bundles, providing flexibility and convenience. For more information on the bundle widget layout options and customizations, see Bundles layout overview.

Bundles specific customer portal content

Customers can manage their bundle contents and update their selections for upcoming orders from the customer portal.

Customer portal with Bundle widget

The customer portal bundles widget automatically displays for bundle subscriptions on the following customer portal themes:

Novum, Prima, or Affinity
Multiple Payment Method Novum Theme Engine theme v4.2.0 or above
Single Payment Method Novum Theme Engine theme v5.0 or above

If you are using an older version of the Recharge Theme Engine, you must add the bundle code manually. For more information, see Option 2 in Customer is unable to customize bundle contents in their customer portal.

Bundles management in the merchant portal

Bundle contents can be adjusted through the merchant portal from either the Customer details page or the Subscription details page.

Customizable fixed price bundle editing

Use cases

Scenario	Benefit
A monthly snack subscription service allows customers to build a personalized box with their favorite treats.	Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by offering the ability to personalize and select the products included in the bundle.
A children's toy store lets customers create custom one-time gift boxes for birthdays, anniversaries, or holidays.	Enhance the shopping experience and boost sales during special occasions with unique, personal gifts. Additionally, use word-of-mouth marketing to attract customers who may not have heard of your brand.
A skincare brand offers build-your-own sample kits of trial-size products so customers can try different products before committing to full sizes.	Encourage customers to sample different products and encourage future purchases, while helping customers find what products work best for them.

Set-up instructions

See How to create a fixed-price customizable bundle for detailed set-up instructions.

Considerations

Review the following considerations when configuring and managing fixed-price bundles:

Considerations	Notes
Prepaid subscriptions	Fixed-price customizable bundles are compatible with prepaid subscriptions. You can use a product with multiple variants as the parent product for a prepaid subscription, however, customers can only select the variant during the initial checkout purchase. Customers cannot change the variant in the customer portal after they check out.
Editing bundles content for customers	Swapping or changing the variant of a bundle subscription removes the bundle contents and requires the contents to be re-selected Bundle rules configured in the bundle settings must be followed (i.e. single item limits, collection limits, quantity limits)
Product updates	You must update product images and adjust product settings such as inventory and taxes directly in Shopify.
Multi-currency	Fixed-price customizable bundles are not compatible with Multi-currency.
Store analytics	Recharge only tracks the parent bundle product The product forecast is incorrect as bundle contents are not displayed The revenue numbers displayed are accurate for fixed-price customizable bundles
Quick add methods	Fixed-price customizable bundles cannot be added to the customer's cart using any quick-add methods from another page of your storefront or cart abandonment emails.
Customer portal	The Bundles customer portal widget is only compatible with customer portals embedded in the storefront. See Understanding the customer portal for more information.
Order Management Systems	If you use an Order Management System (OMS), ensure it is compatible with your bundle setup. If the OMS pulls order information as soon as the order is placed, it is best to adjust the sync configuration to update after a few minutes, allowing time for the Bundles breakdown to be updated.
Subscription-only products	You can sell any product in a bundle collection separately as a subscription in Recharge, but the product cannot be a subscription-only product due to a Shopify limitation.
Inventory	If content in a subscriber’s bundle is out of stock, the content is still processed and added to the order. To prevent this from happening, Recharge recommends exporting your bundle contents to assist with inventory planning and using the bulk swap function to swap out the out of stock product for all active subscribers. If the parent bundle product is set to not track inventory but the child products are set to track inventory, the inventory for the child products is reduced.
Shopify shipping profiles	The Recharge custom shipping profile is not compatible with fixed-price bundles not compatible with fixed-price bundles. See Incorrect shipping charge for a fixed-price bundle for additional information and workarounds.
Shipping rates	Shipping rates for fixed-price customizable bundles differ depending on: If you are trying to process a checkout or recurring order If your store uses the new or old method for processing recurring bundles orders See Shipping calculations for more information
Workflows	Fixed-price customizable bundles are partially compatible with Workflows, with some limitations. Note the following about using Workflows with customizable bundles: If you use a workflow to swap a subscription product to a customizable bundle, the contents are not carried over. In this scenario, the customer must log into their customer portal and select bundle contents prior to the charge date. It is recommended to use fallback contents for all bundles to prevent empty bundle orders. You can use a workflow to swap a customizable bundle to a regular subscription. In general, Workflows will not impact individual bundle contents. Workflows can swap to or update the parent bundle product but content selections will still need to be made through the customer portal.
Win Backs	Customers can reactivate customizable bundles through Win Backs, however, you cannot offer a customizable bundle as a free gift in a reactivation flow. Customers are subscribed to the original bundle contents when they reactivate. You can bulk swap bundle selections if the original bundle contents are no longer available. Contact the Recharge team at earlyadopterprogram@rechargeapps.com if you wish to bulk swap bundle contents for cancelled subscriptions.

Resources

There are a variety of Bundles resources to help you get started, or to troubleshoot common issues. See the following resources below for additional information:

Getting started guides

Getting started with Bundles

How to guides

How to create a fixed-price customizable bundle

Using bundles guides

Troubleshooting and FAQs

Developer documentation

Curating the Bundles experience

Merchant academy resources

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