Shopify Post-Purchase Upsell Design Strategy [2025]

Acquiring new customers is hard — and costly, too. 

So, why not sell more to the customers who have already bought something from you? With post-purchase upsell offers, you can sell more products to converted buyers without having them go through the entire buying process again.

Post-purchase upselling is a great way to increase your revenue and profits by maximizing your average order value (AOV).

In this blog post, we’ll help you with a detailed guide on how to create a Shopify post-purchase upsells design strategy that you can implement on your store.

Let’s get started!

What is a Post-Purchase Upsell?

A post-purchase upsell is a strategy in which customers are offered additional product recommendations once they complete an initial purchase. Customers can add more items from the given recommendations and complete checkout without re-entering their details or payment information.

The idea is to capitalize on customers’ ongoing momentum and high purchase intent to entice them to buy more from your brand. Ultimately, the goal of the post-purchase upsell is to increase your average order value (AOV) as well as revenue and profits.

Pre-Purchase Upsells Vs. Post-Purchase Upsells

Both these terms have one thing in common, i.e., upselling additional products. But the key difference is the timing when it occurs.

Pre-purchase upsells are promoted even before the customer has completed the initial purchase — whereas post-purchase upsells are displayed after the customer has completed the initial purchase.

Example of a pre-purchase upsell:

When a customer is browsing through different products, pre-purchase upsell offers could be displayed on the product page. For example, a banner stating “Buy a set of 3 items to get a 15% discount.”

Also, you could display pre-purchase offers on the cart page and checkout page to let customer add those products to their order before completing a purchase.

Gymshark — a popular gym and workout clothing brand — uses the pre-purchase upsell strategy very effectively. For example, this product page for a crop top displays a “GET THE LOOK” box where customers can choose to purchase a complete package with three matching products: crop top, leggings, and shorts.

Example of post-purchase upsell:

Now, let’s understand how a post-purchase upsell works, with a similar example.

Let’s say you’re selling clothing products, just as we’ve seen in the above example of Gymshark. A customer has purchased a crop top from your brand. Now, you can display other relevant products (e.g., leggings and shorts) on the order confirmation page or thank-you page.

Since the customer has already purchased one item (crop top) by inserting the name, address, and payment details — the upsell items can be included in the order with just one click.

Once again, this example explains how a pre-purchase and post-purchase upsell are kind of the same strategy at its core, but the ways and places to promote the upselling items are different.

How to Create a Shopify Post-Purchase Upsell Design Strategy

Here’s the step-by-step guide to building a post-purchase design strategy for your Shopify store:

Step 1: Define Your Post-Purchase Upsell Strategy

Before you start designing your post-purchase upsell funnel, you need to define your core strategy based on your pain points, business goals, and of course, customers’ requirements.

What type of products/discount offers do you want to promote on your post-purchase upsell page? 

Again, this depends on your business goals. For example, let’s say you’re looking to clear inventory of a certain product. In that case, you could offer more of the same product at a discounted rate. Also, you can promote that product as a cross-selling upsell on other products, too.

Define your offer. Here are the examples of types of promotional offers you can display on your post-purchase upsell page:

• Volume Discount Offer: Offering higher discount for buying more quantity of the same product, e.g., “Buy two more for 20% OFF”, or “Buy a pack of 6 to get FREE shipping”.

• BOGO Offer: We all must’ve often seen these “Buy one, get one free” offers as it’s one of the most popular strategies in eCommerce. E.g., ”Buy one T-shirt, and get one free.”

• Add-On Offer: Offering complementary products relevant to the main purchase, e.g., “Add laptop bag and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse with the purchase of a laptop.”

• Subscription Offer: Useful for the products that replenish or are used frequently. E.g., “Buy a monthly coffee subscription and enjoy 20% OFF every month.”

• Multiple Products Upsell: Offering multiple product options to choose from. For example, upon buying lipstick, a customer can be offered other makeup or personal care products such as eyeliners, moisturizers, body lotion, and so on.

Learn more: Sales Funnel Post Purchase Upsell Strategies

Step 2: Choose Your Tech Stack

Choosing your tech stack means equipping your Shopify store with the right tools or apps. This is important to ensure you achieve the desired results efficiently and effectively.

For any eCommerce brand, a landing page builder plays a crucial role in the tech stack. 

At GemPages, we have studied the latest UI/UX techniques at leading brands to analyze the factors that contribute to high conversion rates in post-purchase upsell pages. While some brands reported upsell conversion rates as high as 28-30%, in general, achieving at least 10% is within reach too.

Based on our observations, here’s the key factor of a successful post-purchase upsell page: Capture the customer's attention right from the get-go. Present what the offer is and why they should buy it in the above-the-fold field section — i.e., the top part of the page that customers see before scrolling down.

Pro tip: In this article, we’re only covering post-purchase upsells that are displayed on the order confirmation page or thank you page. However, your post-purchase upsell strategy could go even beyond that, e.g., post-purchase email marketing strategy. If the customer does not convert through the upsell page, you could send an email follow-up. Thus, you should also consider an email marketing tool in your tech stack.

Step 3: Create & Design Your Post-Purchase Upsell Funnel

With GemPages, designing your post-purchase upsell funnel is fairly easy. You can create a robust strategy in just a few steps within GemPages.

3.1 Install the GemPages app

(If you already have the GemPages app installed, skip this step!)

Go to the Shopify App Store and find the GemPages app. Click on the Install button to proceed with the installation process.

Review the access permissions and click the Install button.

Note: GemPages offers affordable plans for businesses of all sizes. “Sales Funnels & Post-Purchase Upsell” features are available with the Optimize plan, which is just $59/month.

Your GemPages app is ready to create your post-purchase upsell funnel. However, you can explore the dashboard and different features, as GemPages offers a wide range of advanced features.

3.2 Create a new funnel

Now, it’s time to create the post-purchase upsell funnel. On the app dashboard, you’ll see the option “Create new funnel”. Click on it.

Once you click that button, you’ll see  two options:

• Post-Purchase Offers

• Sales Funnel: From Sales Page to Post-purchase Offers

You can choose the “Post-purchase Offers” option to begin the offer configuration. However, if you’re not sure how to proceed; don’t worry, we’re here to help. You can click on the “Book a demo call” link to get a personal demo, and the GemPages team will help you create your first post-purchase upsell funnel.

If you wish to start from scratch, on your own, you can start by clicking on the first section — “Create Post-purchase offers”. You’ll see the visual map of the funnel steps.

First, you need to select a trigger, which basically defines when and what post-purchase upsell offer should be displayed (based on the purchase made by a customer). Select the trigger from the following:

1. Any products: Display the offer if the customer buys “any product”.

2. Specific products: Display the offer if the customer buys a “specific product”.

3. Custom triggers: Display offers when any conditions are met, personalized based on purchased products and order details.

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll select the “Any products” option; however, you can change this setting based on your strategy. Once done, click the “Save trigger” button.

After the trigger selection, it’s time to define the offer along with the products you’d like to promote as upsells. Click on the “Add product” button to proceed.

Then, you’ll see two options: 

1. Specific offers: Display an offer with specific products that you choose.

2. Custom offers: Display an offer with products that meet any conditions, personalized based on products in the store and in the order.

Again, this depends on your post-purchase upsell strategy as to which products you’d like to display. For example, let’s say you’re aiming to finish the inventory of certain products at the earliest. In that case, you may choose the “Specific offers” radio button and then click “Next: Select products” to select and promote those products only.

Alternatively, you can also select “Custom offers” to set up conditions for highly targeted product recommendations. To do this, click on the Custom offers radio button and click on the “Next: Setup conditions” button.

Then, click the “Add conditions” button and configure the conditional logic and set up offers based on any product in the collection, product price, specific product, or the product inside the current order.

For example, in the below demo, we’ve set up a combination of two conditions — "Any product with the price greater than $75 and from the Personal Care collection.”

Important note: If you don’t want to recommend a product that’s already purchased by the customer, make sure to check the box at the bottom that says, “Do not offer purchased products”. This needs to be implemented based on what type of products you’re selling. If you’re selling a product that customers may not want to purchase in more quantities, you should avoid recommending the same product in upselling promotions.

Next, select the discount you’d like to offer to customers for accepting your upsell offer. In this example, we’ve inserted a 20% discount. Once done, click the “Save offer” button.

Once you’ve saved the offer, you’ll be back to the visual map where you can see your ensure post-purchase funnel with visual steps.

Now, you still have the opportunity to take your post-purchase upsell funnel to the next level by setting up “2nd upsell” and “Downsell” offers, too. 

As shown in the demo below, if the customer accepts your initial offer, you can set up another upsell. Or if the customer rejects your initial offer (possibly because it’s an expensive item), you can entice them with another offer (downsell) with a less expensive item.

Once the entire funnel configuration is completed, click the “Activate” button at the top right, and then click “Confirm activation” to publish your post-purchase upsell funnel.

Now, as soon as you activate the funnel, you may see this notice popped up in your dashboard: “Your Post-purchase app is not set as GemPages yet.” Basically, you just need to select "GemPages Builder" in the “Post-purchase page” section in your Shopify Checkout settings.

And that’s it! The GemPages post-purchase upsell funnel is now live in action.

Step 4: Test the Post-Purchase Upsell Funnel

Once you’ve published your post-purchase upsell funnel, the first thing you should do is test your funnel and check if everything’s functioning as expected.

You can perform the test either with a bogus gateway or a real order by creating a $1 product — it’s totally up to you. For this demo, we placed a test order, and the post-purchase upsells were displayed correctly on the order confirmation page.

Step 5: Measure and Analyze the Performance

As an eCommerce brand, you must develop a data-driven approach. Meaning, your strategies and decisions should not be driven by assumptions or what you feel is right. You must consider data to make robust decisions.

After launching your post-purchase upsell funnel, make sure to monitor and measure its performance. Check your analytics and metrics to see how the strategy is enhancing your average order value and customer satisfaction.

Identify areas of improvement, if any, and keep enhancing the strategy.

Pro tip: After implementing the post-purchase upsell strategy, gather feedback from your customers as to how they feel about it. The goal should be to enhance the customer experience with product recommendations and offers they find relevant and beneficial. You can conduct post-purchase surveys through email to collect customer feedback, insights, and suggestions.

Benefits of Using the Post-Purchase Upsells

Before implementing the post-purchase upsell strategy, you might wonder: Why use a post-purchase upsell strategy? Is it worth the effort and investment? We’ve got you covered! 

Here are the key benefits of using the post-purchase upsells on your Shopify store:

• Increase revenue and profits

The main benefit of a post-purchase funnel is to increase your revenue and profits by enticing customers to make repeat purchases. When customers accept your upsell offer, it’ll boost your AOV, and consequently, the overall revenue.

• Boost Customer Loyalty

With the right post-purchase upsell strategy, you can win customers for life. What you need to make sure is that your post-purchase upsell strategy considers customers’ interests too. It should be designed to help enhance their shopping experience.

• Save on Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition costs are going high. Many business owners focus too much on acquiring new customers instead of thinking of all the possibilities of selling to the customers they’ve already earned.

• Maximize Your eCommerce ROI

If you’re spending a huge budget on running paid ads or marketing campaigns, you must ensure a good ROI on those campaigns. A powerful post-purchase funnel can boost your ROI by increasing the AOV.

Why Use GemPages for Post-Purchase Upsells?

If you’ve never used GemPages before, you may want to ensure that GemPages is the best option for post-purchase upsells. We get it! There are literally plenty of great options in the Shopify App Store.

But GemPages is not a typical page builder or upsell app. Here’s what you get with GemPages:

• Suite of Advanced Features:

GemPages has been built for eCommerce with years of expertise and experience. From eCommerce elements to headless technology to AI-powered features, GemPages has built features that help grow and scale eCommerce brands. 

• Landing Page Templates:

GemPages will take care of your customers' entire shopping experience and not just their post-purchase experience. The vast library of professionally designed templates will help you prepare your store for every occasion with ease of use and speed.

• CRO-Focused Elements:

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is at the core of GemPages. Leverage several CRO-focused elements such as product bundles, countdown timer, stock counter, sticky CTA buttons, customer testimonials and reviews, before & after comparison, popups, and many more.

• Instant Landing Page: 

The "Instant Landing Page" (ILP) is a feature — powered by Shopify’s Hydrogen framework. It helps you implement headless technology that decouples the frontend (landing page) from the backend (Shopify admin) to provide a faster and smoother experience to your customers.

• GemAI — Image to Layout:

Speed up the design process with the power of AI. Simply upload a reference image or URL, and GemAI will convert it into a customizable layout.

• Interactions & Animations

Getting traffic to your website is one thing, and keeping them engaged is another. With interactions and animations, you can design an interactive website that can grab the attention of your website visitors and immerse them in visual storytelling.

Well, there are many more features, and we could go on exploring them, but the article would become too lengthy. Feel free to explore on your own, though.

Final Thoughts on Post-Purchase Upsell Design Strategy

When creating post-purchase upsells on your store, you need to consider the visual design as well as the psychological strategy. Recommend products that are relevant, create an offer that’s enticing, and present them in a convincing manner with a solid copy.

We at GemPages are ready to help you build your first post-purchase upsell funnel. GemPages enables you to create an upsell design strategy that feels natural to your customers while bumping up your bottom line with high conversions.

To learn more about other eCommerce marketing strategies, trends, and best practices — check out more resources on the GemPages Blog. Also, join the GemPages Facebook community to network and learn from like-minded entrepreneurs and experts.

FAQs About Post-Purchase Upsells Design Strategy