How to add an order bump to the shopping cart on Shopify

Nina De la Cruz Nina De la Cruz 5 min read

Order bumps are every online retailer’s best friends.

Just like candy racks in grocery stores, these low-cost product recommendations can help increase your average order value (AOV) and improve your customers’ shopping experience.

But how do you implement an order bump in a Shopify store?

From our experience, a timely slide-in in a shopping cart is all you need. This is what it looks like:


Here is why this is a good example of an order bump:

  • It pops up in the cart when a customer is determined to purchase
  • It contains a sufficient product description, image, and price
  • The button lets customers add the product to the cart with one click

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to create an order bump for Shopify using Getsitecontrol – the same popup app you can use for collecting emails, promoting coupons, and announcing deals.

The entire process takes less than 20 minutes and requires zero technical skills.

Let’s see how it works.

How to create an order bump in Getsitecontrol

Assuming you already have a product that could be a good order bump, let’s see how you can start recommending it to your customers during checkout.

To get started, we recommend using one of the templates from the gallery.

Once you log into your Getsitecontrol dashboard, just click Create widget and head to the Template gallery link at the top. Select Use cases and scroll down to the section named “Cross-sell products”:

Cross-sell popup templates from the Getsitecontrol gallery

The gallery features 15 templates designed to help you recommend products on product pages or in the shopping cart. Each template can be easily customized, so just select what appeals to you and add it to the dashboard.

For example, we’re going to use the following slide-in:

Step 2. Replace the image with the photo of your order bump

Start editing the template by replacing the default image with the image of your order bump.

Click the image on the template, proceed to Change image and either upload a photo from your computer or pull it directly from your Shopify store.

Customizing the order bump popup appearance in Getsitecontrol

On the same screen, you can check how your order bump is going to look on mobile devices. If the image doesn’t seem to fit perfectly, just toggle the sizing and spacing controls to move it around and achieve a better look:

Knowing how the order bump looks on smaller screens will help you stay concise with the copy and choose the right image – or deactivate the image for mobile devices entirely by unchecking the “Visible on mobile” box.

Step 3. Change the order bump description

In the next step, you’ll need to type your copy and call to action. Since you’re going to display this order bump in the shopping cart, keep it short and simple: just let your customers know what you’re recommending and how much it costs.

Changing order bump description in Getsitecontrol dashboard

On the primary button, make it clear for the customers that by clicking, they will add the recommended product to the cart. For example, you can write something like “Yes, add it to my cart” or just “Add to cart.” The secondary button is designed to decline the offer and close the slide-in.

Step 4. Set up the button click

To make the button work as intended — i.e. to add the recommended product to cart — we’ll need to tweak a couple of settings.

Click on the button and remove the default action; then hit + Add action and select Add to cart → Add custom product variants. Start typing the product's name in the search field and select the correct variant when it pops up. Leave the rest of the settings unchanged.

Setting up the button click for the order bump scenario in Getsitecontrol

When customers click the button, they’ll see a brief confirmation message. By default, it says “Added,” but you can change the copy if you want to.

Hit Next → in the top right corner to move on to the targeting settings.

Step 5. Set up shopping cart targeting

The last step is setting up page targeting for your order bump. Since we want it to pop up in the shopping cart, here are the controls you’ll need to use:

Targeting settings for order bump scenario

Display widgets on → Include: shopping cart. This means that the popup will only be displayed in the shopping cart.

Display widget if → Product is not: your order bump. If a customer’s cart already contains the product recommended as the order bump, the popup won’t be displayed.

Stop displaying widget → Upon action: forever; After closure: for X days. If a customer accepts the offer, it won’t be displayed to them anymore; if they close the popup, it won’t be displayed to them for the selected period.

Once you’re done with targeting settings, click Next → again, then save and close the popup.

🥳 The order bump for your Shopify store is ready. As soon as you activate it in the dashboard, it will go live and will be displayed to the customers in the shopping cart.

Can I offer different order bumps for different orders?

Yes, you can.

If you want to display different order bumps based on which items your customer has added to the cart, you’ll need to create a separate slide-in for each order bump and set unique targeting conditions.

The more relevant your product recommendations are, the more likely your customers will accept them.

Suppose you want to recommend a certain product to the customers who have added a shirt or a pair of shoes to the cart. In that case, in the Targeting tab, you’ll need to select Show widget to visitors ifCart product type is → “Shirt or “Shoes”:

Do the same for each order bump and test them in your store to ensure everything works properly. Using the targeting settings, you can display order bumps for product types, different vendors, tags, and so on.

How do I know if customers accept my order bump?

There are two ways to find out if your customers accept your in-cart recommendation.

First, you can get an engagement overview right in the Getsitecontrol dashboard. It includes the number of views and the number of “Add to cart” clicks the order bump has received.

Order bump performance statistics overview

Second, you can access a more detailed Statistics report featuring widget-related sales.

Widget-related sales are sales that have happened after customers interacted with the widget. In this case – after customers accepted the order bump.

The report helps you understand how many sales your order bump has participated in, and what’s the total share of these orders for a given period.

Widget-related sales report in Getsitecontrol

Remember to filter results by the device to see if the order bump works well for both desktop and mobile shoppers.

💡 Willing to go the extra mile? Then consider A/B testing two or three different order bumps to see which one your customers are more inclined to accept. To learn how to A/B test popups in Getsitecontrol, read this guide.

So, what is a good order bump example?

A typical order bump example is an inexpensive product that makes a valuable addition to other purchases in your store. For instance, if you’re selling apparel, consider recommending low-priced items from the essential collection; if you’re selling electronics, protection accessories or cleaning kits could be a good order bump example. If you have different product categories in your store, you can create different order bumps to maintain relevance.

Unlike most cross-sells, order bumps are offered in the shopping cart.

Wrapping up

Adding an order bump to your Shopify store is a matter of minutes – meanwhile, its potential value for your business can be significant. Go ahead and try this tactic in your Shopify store to see how it can help you increase average order value in the long run.

Nina De la Cruz is a content strategist at Getsitecontrol. She is passionate about helping small and medium ecommerce brands achieve sustainable growth through email marketing.

You’re reading Getsitecontrol usecase collection where we talk about the best practices for using website popups. This usecase is a part of Grow on Shopify section.

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