AMA Recap | Crafting Free Gift with Purchase with the BOGOS Team

[Ellie-BOGOS]

And that’s a wrap! 🎉

Our Shopify Community AMA on crafting Free Gift with Purchase with the BOGOS team got so much love. A big thank you to everyone who joined with us 💙💚 

Now that we’ve wrapped up, we hope you walked away with practical tips & easy setup guides to help boost AOV with GWP magic!

💬Top 7 Questions We Got (and Loved!) During the AMA:

Q1: How can I set up a free gift based on cart value, and what's the best way to set the minimum purchase threshold?

A1: 

1. To set up a free gift based on cart value, you have two options:

• Free with min cart value: Easify by heading to your Shopify Dashboard > Discount > Create Discount > Amount off order > Filling in all information you need > Scroll down to see “Minimum purchase requirements” field > Choose “Minimum purchase amount ($)” and set the min cart value you want (tutorial video).
• Paid with min and max values: Usually done by a 3rd-party app (explore options here). For example, if you use the BOGOS app, simply choose Gift offer > Cart value condition > Set your desired min/max purchase amount.

2. To set the minimum purchase threshold effectively, set it slightly above:

• Product price to make it feel achievable, encouraging customers to add more to their car to qualify for gifts.
• Your AOV and current customer behaviors to define a threshold that motivates customers to spend a bit more than usual.

BEST PRACTICE: If your AOV is $60, try setting the GWP threshold at $69. This way, customers only need to spend an extra $9 to get gift, which can easily be done by adding a small product in your store.

Q2: How many ways are there to set up a Shopify Buy One Get One Free (BOGO)?

A2:  You have several solid options to set up BOGO promotions easily in Shopify:

• Free with Shopify native discount > "Buy X Get Y" > Customers enter a discount code at checkout or manually add both items to the cart to get the second one free.
• Third-party app. Apps (explore options here) make the customer's experience smoother by automatically adding the free item to the cart. Just find what suits your needs and budget most.
• Custom code: Ideal for very specific needs; it’s expensive upfront, but cheaper in the long run.

Q3: What should I offer as a gift so customers actually want it?

A3: Choosing the right gift is essential to make your offer effective. Consider these guidelines:

• Pick gifts that naturally complement the main products your customers are purchasing. (e.g, gaming keyboards with a free mouse pad).
• Avoid low-quality items, which can negatively impact your brand reputation.
• For new products, offer samples instead of giving them away at 100% off to maintain perceived value.
• Auto-add gifts to customer carts to improve the shopping experience and provide options for discounted gifts, giving them more control over what they get.

Q4: Can I offer free gifts to specific customer groups or segments? What's the best way of tracking this?

A4: Absolutely. As Shopify’s built-in discount doesn’t support this, so I highly recommend you follow these steps:

1. Use Shopify Flow to automatically tag your customers (newsletter sign-ups, first-time buyers, VIP,...)
2. Use a third-party app to set up gift offers for those tags. When customers have the right tag, the free gift will be automatically added to their cart. 
3. Track performance by using your app's analytics and filtering by each offer.

Q5: How to promote a free gift on my product page without annoying customers?

A5: Here are some best positions for you to take reference: 

• next to the product name (gift icon)
• in product description (gift thumbnail, countdown timer)
• at the corner of product page (Today Offers widget),
• on the top of your cart (cart message)

Remember, the key is to make the promotion feel like an added bonus, not a hard sell.

Q6: How to hide the gift product so customers can’t search for it and check out with only gift on Shopify?

A6: This is an advanced feature so it must be done using a third-party app. Please follow these steps:

1. Shopify admin > Product > Change the free gift product’s status to “draft”. This will hide it from search results and prevent customers from adding it to their cart independently. 
2. Set up a free gift with purchase using a third-party app that supports “clone product” mechanics, such as BOGOS, BOGO+, Sales Motivator,... (Not many apps offer this feature, so be sure to check.)

Q7: How to offer gift or BOGO at checkout?

A7: To offer a free or discounted gift at checkout, use the Checkout Upsell feature (available for Shopify Plus only). If you're not on Shopify Plus, automatically adding a gift to the cart still works great for many customers.

🎉WOW! That’s a wrap on our recap. But wait, before you go, check out the full AMA board here for all the valuable insights shared by BOGOS team. 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the AMA board for future sessions!