Shopify Post Purchase Upsell: The Ultimate Guide for More Sales (2024)
Shopify post purchase upsells are probably the most underrated strategy to generate more revenue from your store.
Seriously, imagine you could serve targeted offers to customers immediately after they purchase. Like when a customer buys a pair of running shoes, and you immediately offer them 30% off a pair of running socks.
On Shopify, post-purchase upselling is part science and part an art form. It's about suggesting items your customers didn't know they needed, creating connections after every transaction., and taking home more profit.
In this guide, we'll unravel Shopify Post Purchase Upselling from what it is to how to integrate it seamlessly into your store. The best bit is that you don’t need to know how to code, or be a conversion rate optimization pro.
Whether you're a seasoned merchant or just starting out, get ready to unlock a new level of revenue potential.
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What is a Shopify Post Purchase Upsell?
At its core, a Shopify Post Purchase Upsell is an offer you serve to customers, after they’ve completed their initial purchase (it’s in the name!).
A post-purchase upsell is an extra nudge after a customer makes a purchase, encouraging them to add more value to their order - and more beef to your bottom line.
There are two main types of post-purchase upsells that thrive in the Shopify ecosystem:
1. One-Click Upsells
One-click upsells are offers presented immediately after a customer makes a purchase. They're designed for speed and convenience.
So, imagine your customer has just bought a sleek smartphone case from your store.
With one-click upsells, you could seamlessly present them with options like a screen protector, a wireless charger, or stylish earbuds that perfectly complement their purchase.
It's about anticipating their needs and offering solutions in a heartbeat.
2. Thank You Page Upsells
Once a customer completes their order, they land on the all-important order confirmation page (also referred to as the thank you page).
Your Shopify thank you page is a massive source of untapped potential. Seriously, it’s the piece of the puzzle that most retailers miss.
Because here, you have the attention of highly-qualified shoppers who are in peak-buying mode. It makes no sense to waste these valuable impressions on a placeholder page.
Instead, your thank you page is the ideal moment to showcase related or complementary products that enhance their original purchase.
The beauty is that you can laser target your product suggestions based on the items your customer purchased just moments ago.
Whether it's suggesting a matching accessory or a premium version of the item they just bought, it's all about maximizing value at this critical touchpoint.
By strategically incorporating one click-upsells and thank you page offers into your Shopify store, you're not just going to make more sales. You’re also providing a personalized shopping experience that leaves a lasting impression.
📖Suggested Reading: 8 of the Best Thank You Page Examples for More Conversions
5 Reasons Why Every Store Needs Shopify Post Purchase Upsells
Now that you know the two most powerful post-purchase upselling strategies, let’s quickly look at the benefits of Shopify Post Purchase Upsells.
1. Post-purchase upsells Convert Like Crazy
The frictionless nature of post-purchase upsells means customers find them hard to resist. Think about it: post-purchase upsells are served at the pinnacle of purchase intent.
And better yet, customers don't need to re-enter payment or delivery details, so friction is completely minimized.
Plus, since you know what customers bought, post-purchase upsells are incredibly easy to personalize, which can drive conversion rates higher.
Comparing the conversion rate of post-purchase upsells with other upselling strategies, such as email, shows a stark difference.
For example, luxury food retailer Laumiere Gourmet Fruits, achieved a 7.01% conversion rate on their post-purchase offers and added a whopping 10% to their revenue in under 3 months.
While post-purchase upselling via email is still a valuable strategy, you’d be happy to achieve a click-through rate of 7.01%. A purchase conversion rate that high would be almost impossible to achieve.
2. The Easiest Way to Make More Money
The main benefit of shopify post purchase upsells is they allow you to make more profit.
Think about it: if your acquisition costs and fulfillment costs remain the same, then more sales translate to a bigger profit margin.
For example, let’s suppose you sell cookware. So, you invest $5,000 to create a digital product (e.g. An e-cookbook to compliment your products). Then you install ReConvert and place your ebook as one click upsell offer.
Let’s say that your ebook offer increases your AOV by $5, here’s how this would look in real terms:
As you can see, even with increased expenses ($5,000 for the e-book and $360 for one year of ReConvert) we’re making much more profit from our store.
Without spending another cent on ads, post-purchase upsells amp your advertising campaigns by providing greater ROI for the same outlay.
This means that effective upsells can transform a previously unprofitable paid advertising campaign into a profitable one.
Plus, a higher profit margin gives you more wiggle room with your ad spend to try new things.
Essentially, the core takeaway is that small increases in your AOV from upsells, can translate to big increases in profits and company growth.
3. A Better Customer Journey
Unlike pre-purchase upsells that might disrupt the shopping experience, post-purchase upsells are reserved for customers who've already made a purchase.
This might seem like a moot point, but you may be surprised at how loading the customer journey with pre-purchase upsells can unintentionally affect your conversion rate.
For example, just three months after installing ReConvert, Lucyd saw a 5.6% boost in their net revenue directly attributable to their thank-you page upsells.
“What we’re seeing is a lot of customers who are coming back and buying something within a couple of minutes,” says Harrison Gross, CEO of Lucyd.
“When you think about it, It’s a much more logical customer journey compared with mid-sale upsells where you’re trying to sell to shoppers who may not be ready to buy yet” adds Harrision.
Essentially, post purchase upsells pose no risk to your existing conversion rate. It's all about enhancing the customer journey in a way that feels organic and customer-centric.
4. Easy to Implement
Many marketing strategies and CRO tactics are expensive and time consuming to implement.
For example, it’s easy to spend thousands of dollars on a CRO audit, to eek out an extra 2% in sales.
Similarly, building a well-oiled email marketing strategy is pretty difficult and requires a lot of expertise and time.
But implementing a post-purchase upsell strategy? It’s incredibly easy, it’s inexpensive, and with an app like ReConvert, it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to go live.
In fact, you could launch a post-purchase upsell funnel on your store, before you finish reading this post. You don’t need to know how to code or be a CRO genius.
ReConvert automatically builds a high converting post-purchase funnel for your store. It’s automatically branded and based-off data from over 40,000 active stores.
Seriously, post-purchase upsells are like the pareto principle applied to your store. Implementing them is the 20% effort that drives 80% of the results.
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How to Add Post-purchase Upsell on Shopify?
The easiest way to add post purchase upsells on Shopify is with ReConvert. ReConvert is a purpose built post-purchase upselling app that makes adding upsells to Shopify a breeze.
Here’s how to do it:
1. Add ReConvert from the Shopify App Store
The first step is to head over to the app store and add ReConvert.
Why ReConvert? Well, it’s the most popular upsell app - with nearly 4,000 five star reviews and over 30,000 monthly users.
Plus, it’s also trusted by some of the best Shopify stores - like bidet retailer Tushy who used the app to add an extra $191,786 in sales each month.
2. Create Your One Click-Upsell Funnel
Create Post-Purchse Funnels For Your eCommerce | ReConvert Upsell & Cross Sell
Once installed, find ReConvert in the apps section of your Shopify dashboard. Click the app, then navigate to the funnels tab.
Here you can choose Reconvert’s template ‘Conversion Monster Funnel’, or you can create your own funnel from scratch by clicking ‘Create a new funnel’.
If you’re new to Shopify post purchase upsells, and want a quick set-up choose the ‘conversion monster funnel’. If you want to create something more custom, then we recommend creating your own funnel to reach your specific goals.
Now you want to build the flow your customers go through when they complete checkout. The funnel builder is pretty intuitive - If you’ve used any email automation software it’ll be super familiar for you.
Your funnel is the flow that customers go through when they successfully complete a checkout. Use the funnel editor to:
- Create triggers and customer segments where you want them.
- Create filters and exclusions to prevent showing your offer to the wrong audience.
- Add upsells and downsells to capture more revenue
- Direct customers to the thank you page at the right moment.
Building a one-click upsell funnel is super easy. Here's a video of ReConvert's very own CEO Ariyeh showing you how to do it:
3. Create your thank you page upsells
Next you’ll want to transform your order confirmation page from a placeholder into an upselling opportunity.
Here’s how to do this:
- Access your Thank you Page Builder either from the ReConvert Thank You Page Menu (Or from the Funnel Editor where you created your one-click upsell)
- Go to the right area or left area menu on your Page Builder and click Add Section
- Select Product Upsell to add it to the page
Next, you can edit your upsell offer using the widget menu to change things like the product, price, shipping, call to action and more.
You can also select the conditions to show your offer or integrate with apps like Wiser to display dynamic product recommendations based on the user's browsing history.
Check out our help article for more information, and specific steps to build a thank you page upsell that meets your goals.
4. Add a Thank You Page Pop-up Upsell
One of the best converting post-purchase upsells is to add a thank you page pop-up. Pop-ups are great because they grab your shoppers’ attention.
To add this feature, you need to take the following steps, which are also shown below
- Go to your Thank You Page builder by clicking the ‘Thank You Pages’ dropdown in ReConvert.
- Select ‘Customize’ to open a thank you page
- Click ‘General settings’ and then select ‘Pop-up with timer’
From where you can customize your pop-up and offer how you like it. For more information about how to edit and optimize your pop-up, check out our help article on the topic here.
Once you’re happy with your thank you page upsells and pop-up, click save, set your whole post-purchase funnel live, and get ready for additional sales to roll in.
Shopify Post-purchase Upsell Examples
It’s often said that a good example is better than a good idea. So let’s look at a few examples of well-executed post-purchase upsells on Shopify.
1. Thank You Page Upsell Example
Last year, Laumière Gourmet Fruits faced a challenge: escalating advertising costs per impression (CPMs) were shrinking the brands profit margin.
Unwilling to skimp on product quality, co-founder Varun Sharma, looked for another way to offset these increasing costs.
He turned to ReConvert and created a series of thank you page upsells. The main offer allowed customers to pick up a second box of chocolates for between 5-20% off the original price.
The results of these thank you page upsells were striking. ReConvert propelled Laumière to a record-breaking Q4, contributing a substantial 10% increase in gross revenue, representing a remarkable 4,246% return on investment.
2. Reorder button post-purchase upsell example
Bulk nutrition cleverly uses a ‘Reorder’ button on their order confirmation page. This allows customers to reorder a previous order in a single click.
Reorder buttons are especially powerful for brands who sell consumables - such as nutritional supplements, make up or coffee.
The idea is to make it as frictionless as possible for customers to come back and convert again. With a reorder button, there’s no need to add products to the cart and fill out card/shipping detail forms.
📖Suggested Reading: How to add a reorder button to your Shopify thank you page
3. One Click Upsell Example
This one click upsell example comes from our very own ReConvert demo store. As you can see, when the customer clicks ‘complete purchase’, they’re immediately redirected to the post-purchase upsell offer page.
As we mentioned above, this represents the first step of the post-purchase upsell funnel. Should the customer decline the offer, you can add on an additional upsell or downsell offer before redirecting them to the thank you page.
Post Purchase Upsell Shopify Best Practices
Not all post-purchase offers are created equally. Let’s look at the four core elements that underpin the best post-purchase upsells. By implementing these five concepts into your post-purchase strategy, you’ll get more conversions and generate more revenue.
1. Add Urgency
When items are scarce, they’re often perceived as more valuable. So, add an element of scarcity and urgency to your post-purchase offers. A simple countdown timer can work well. When customers feel like they need to act quickly, they’re more likely to convert. Especially if your offer is exclusive to the transaction, and can’t be claimed again.
2. Use Personalization
According to NetCore, personalization makes 28% of buyers more likely to buy a product they didn't mean to buy. What’s more, 26% say it may drive them to buy something more costly than expected. So, tailor your offers with triggers and segmentation. Use your analytics to find which offers resonate best with your customer segments. Then double down on your best performing offers.
3. Minimize Friction
Friction is the enemy of conversion. Seriously, the more steps a customer needs to take, the less likely they are to convert. This goes for every aspect of your eCommerce strategy. So, ensure post-purchase offers can be claimed with as little effort as possible - ideally in a single click.
4. Limit Choices
The more choice a customer has, the more they need to consider their options. Limit your post-purchase offers to a maximum of three options. Ideally, never present more than one option at the same time. Again, limiting choice is about reducing friction. You don’t want the opportunity cost of additional options canceling out each other's appeal.
5. Make it Easy to Decline
The best post-purchase offers can tempt over 10% of shoppers to buy again. But that still means that around 90% of your customers aren’t interested. So, make it easy to opt out. The last thing you want is for your post-purchase offers to harm customer opinion of your brand. Use no more than three one-click upsells (an upsell, a second offer, and a downsell).
Best Shopify Post Purchase Upsell Apps
With the best post purchase upselling best practices under our belts, let’s review the best SHopify post purchase upsell apps. These apps will help you implement post-purchase upsells without the need to code or access the Shopify post-purchase API.
1. ReConvert Post Purchase Upsell
ReConvert is the most popular post purchase upsell app on Shopify with over 40,000+ monthly active users. ReConvert takes the #1 on spot on this list as it’s the highest rated upsell app on the Shopify app store with a score of 4.9/5 from over 4,200 reviews.
ReConvert allows you to seamlessly launch a complete post-purchase upselling strategy in a few clicks. The app comes with a data-backed upselling template called ‘Conversion Monster’ which means all you need to do is select your discount value and the app takes care of the rest.
If you’d rather get more granular with your offers, ReConvert has powerful segmentation and targeting tools. These tools allow you to personalize your offers, delight your customers, and drive more conversions.
Plus, support-wise, ReConvert is the best of the bunch. ReConvert boasts 24/7 support from conversion rate optimization pros. So, if you run into any issues, or need help creating more powerful offers, simply hop on the live chat and get the help you need, when you need it.
Shopify App Store Rating: 4.9/5 (4,200+ ratings)
2. Bold Upsells
Bold upsells is another powerful Shopify post-purchase upsell app. Bold has a reputation for building useful apps, and their upsell solution is no different.
Bold allows you to create post-purchase upsell funnels, as well as thank you page offers. The app has a user-friendly interface which makes it easy to create and launch offers.
We like that Bold also offers pre-purchase upselling functionality - it’s a great solution if you’re looking for one of the best in-cart upselling apps.
One thing to consider with Bold upsell is that users have reported compatibility issues with certain themes.
Some reviews report that even after uninstalling the app, lots of code remains on their sites - which can affect page loading speed and ultimately harm your conversion rate. So, we strongly recommend checking with their support before installing to ensure your theme is compatible with the app.
Lastly, if you want to offer discounted upsells (which is best practice), you need to pay for another app, Bold Discounts. So, ensure you calculate the total cost of both apps, before making a decision to use the product.
Shopify App Store Rating: 4.7/5 (1,500+ reviews)
3. Honeycomb Upsell
Honeycomb is another Shopify post purchase upsell app to consider. Honeycomb is one of the newer upsell apps on the market, so isn’t as time-tested as either ReConvert or Bold.
That said, the app is generally appreciated by its users. Like ReConvert, Honeycomb allows you to build post-purchase upsells and thank you page offers. The app has an intuitive interface and offers basic customization and targeting.
The a/b funnel testing feature is nice - which means you can quickly optimize your post-purchase offers for better conversion rates.
But the app’s ability to create customized thank you pages is somewhat lacking. For example, at the time of testing, you can’t add post-purchase surveys or collect customer birthdays on the Honeycomb thank you page.
Some reviews also mention that support is lacking. The lower ratings cite how users were unable to contact support when they needed it. Long response times and somewhat unhelpful solutions are cited as reasons for uninstalling the app.
In our test we found that Honeycomb responded within 30 minutes to our query - which is pretty good. However, at a critical time (e.g. Black Friday) most merchants would prefer a much faster response. ReConvert support responded to the same query in under 3 minutes.
Shopify App Store Rating: 4.8/5 (500+ reviews)
4. Carthook
Carthooks is a decent Shopify post purchase upsell app. It’s simple to use and is good for those who want to dip their toe in the world of post-purchase optimization. The user interface is nice and from the limited selection of reviews, it appears that support is pretty good.
Carthook’s biggest downfall however is that at the time of writing, the app doesn't offer thank you page upsells. Its only upselling feature is one-click upsells. Given that data from ReConvert shows that thank you page offers convert at up to 15%, this means you may be missing out on a good chunk of additional revenue.
Shopify App Store Rating: 4.8/5 (40+ reviews)
5. Aftersell
Aftersell is another good post purchase upsell app for Shopify. Users recommend Aftersell for its features like A/B testing, customizable thank you pages, and trust badges.
Aftersell is reliable, provides insightful analytics, and is suitable for both new and experienced merchants. The customer support team is generally good and they provide quick and personalized assistance.
While Aftersell is a great app - it doesn’t integrate with major email marketing platforms. Which means if you wish to enhance your post-purchase campaign with targeted emails, you won’t be able to do that.
Shopify App Store Rating: 4.9/5 (500+ reviews)
Launch Your First Shopify Post Purchase Upsell Today!
Launching a Shopify post purchase upsell can radically impact your top (and more importantly) your bottom line.
Post purchase upsells are a low-risk, low-investment way to maximize your store’s revenue. They’re easy to launch, convert like crazy and are a frictionless way to enhance your customer’s experience.
Despite the power of post-purchase upsells, the number of digital retailers using them is still incredibly low.
This means that post-purchase upsells represent a big opportunity to get ahead of your competition. All things being equal, if your products, ads and site are as good as your competitors, post-purchase upsells can be the difference between success and failure.
So, don’t sleep on this opportunity any more. Get started with one of the apps above. They all offer free trials - so you literally have nothing to lose. Implement a simple post-purchase upsell strategy, and watch your additional sales roll-in.
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Shopify Post Purchase Upsell FAQ
Let’s quickly answer some of the most common questions related to Shopify post purchase upsells.
What is the best post purchase upsell app for shopify?
ReConvert is the highest rated and most popular Shopify post purchase upsell app. This is based on its list of powerful features, its pricing, its ease of use, and its excellent 24/7 support. It has the highest rating of any post purchase upsell app with a score of 4.9 out of 5 from over 4,200 verified reviews on the Shopify App Store. ReConvert is trusted by many of the world's leading eCommerce brands such as MyTushy, Dressbarn, OPositiv+ and Oddballs.
What is a post purchase upsell Shopify?
A post purchase upsell on Shopify is an additional sales opportunity that you present to customers after they’ve completed their initial purchase. Post purchase upsells can be one-click upsells - shown immediately after purchase, before the customer reaches the thank you page. Another type of post-purchase upsell is thank you page upsells. These are offers and product recommendations which you display on the order confirmation page. Both post-purchase upsells aim to increase your average order value and boost your profit margin.
What are the limitations of post purchase on Shopify?
Shopify has three main limitations on post-purchase upsells. Firstly, post-purchase upsell offers can’t be used on orders for local delivery. Secondly, orders need to be $0.50 or more to qualify for post-purchase offers.Lastly, a customer can accept a maximum of two post-purchase offers for each checkout.
