How to Add a Shopify Free Gift With Purchase Offer (Boost Retention, Sales & More)

A Shopify free gift with purchases is a potent tool to encourage more sales, delight customers, boost retention, and more.

Afterall, everyone loves a freebie.

Offering free gifts is a tried-and-tested approach to convert browsers into buyers, and increase customer retention rates. 

Despite this, managing the logistics of a free gift strategy is a common challenge for Shopify retailers.

One of the main hurdles is implementing a new gift program effectively, but thankfully using Shopify’s in-built free gift functionality addresses and simplifies these challenges.

So, how does it all work?

In this article, you’ll learn how to implement “Shopify Free Gifts” for your lucky customers, make more sales, and create a strong ecommerce customer retention strategy.  

What is a Shopify Free Gift with Purchase Offer?

Shopify gives you the ability to add a "Free Gifts," which allows you to seamlessly offer complimentary items to customers via discounts or with dedicated Free gifting apps.

In Shopify's back-end, you can create rules and conditions for the gift program and tweak it to your liking. 

This allows you to set minimum purchase thresholds, choose specific products that trigger the gift, or run targeted promotions based on customer segments.

With a Shopify 'Free Gift with Purchase’ offers, you can easily set up and automate the process of adding your free items to customers' orders. This guarantees that customers receive their loyalty gifts without any manual intervention or additional steps during checkout. It’s s powerful ecommerce marketing automation worth considering, regardless of your conversion goal.

Shopify, and third-party apps, also offers various customization options, enabling you to tailor the free gift program to your specific branding and marketing goals. It’s possible to choose the type of gifts to offer, determine the quantity or value of the gift, and even create special promotions tied to specific events or holidays.

Why give Shopify Free Gifts?

Leveraging Shopify's ‘Free Gift with Purchase’ feature not only helps drive more business sales but also enhances the overall shopping experience–leading to increased customer satisfaction, more loyal customers, and higher customer retention.

Let’s explore these benefits in more detail. 

1. Give Shopify free gifts to express customer appreciation

Offering free gifts on Shopify not only enhances the overall customer shopping experience but also has the potential to boost your Shopify sales. A free gift adds a nice surprise element and a positive emotional connection, making your customers feel appreciated. 

On top of this, offering free gifts showcases the fact that your brand genuinely cares about its customers' experience. It goes beyond the mere transaction and demonstrates a commitment to creating memorable moments. 

Customers are more likely to remember and speak positively about your brand when they receive unexpected tokens of appreciation. This positive word-of-mouth marketing can lead to increased customer referrals, organic social media mentions, and an overall boost in brand reputation.

2. Offer free gifts on Shopify for enhanced marketing and promotion

Free gifts can be a powerful tool for marketing and promotion. Strategically use free gifts as part of your marketing campaigns to attract new customers and generate buzz. 

By promoting the offer of free gifts through various marketing channels, such as social media, email campaigns, or paid adverts, you can create excitement and draw attention to your products or services. This not only drives immediate sales but also increases brand exposure.

🚀 Pro Tip: Use Shopify's bundle builder tool to create enticing promotions that combine products with free gifts, offering customers a unique and valuable shopping experience.

3. Build better customer relationships with free gifts

By delivering extra value to your customers in the form of free gifts, you can strengthen customer relationships and encourage long-term engagement.

Additionally, integrating Shopify with ecommerce ERP software can take your relationship-building efforts to the next level.

This is because you can combine the valuable data generated from Shopify with ERP software, which acts as a centralized hub for managing various aspects of your business. 

This integration gives you a comprehensive view of your customers, their purchase history, and their preferences. With all this data in one place, you gain valuable insights that can help personalize your free gift offerings and tailor marketing strategies to each customer segment.

To get an even richer view, you can integrate eCommerce ERP software with customer relationship management (CRM) software. This provides a holistic view of customer interactions and enables more effective customer engagement. 

Ultimately, using Shopify Free Gifts provides an opportunity to nurture these relationships. By offering thoughtful and relevant gifts, you can deepen your customer connections. These acts of goodwill contribute to building trust and loyalty. 

4. Use Shopify free gifts to influence customer behavior 

Free gifts can act as a persuasive tool to boost sales. They can attract new customers, convert users, and encourage customers to spend more to qualify for the gift. 

For instance, consider offering a free gift for signing up for your newsletter, referring friends, leaving product reviews, or reaching a certain spending threshold. These incentives motivate customers to take desired actions, which drives engagement and promotes desired behaviors. 

By aligning the free gifts with the actions you want to encourage, you’ll be better positioned to achieve your revenue goals while providing added value to your customers.

5. Use Shopify free gifts for cross-promotion

Collaborating with other brands works well with the Shopify Free Gifts with purchase feature. 

For example, a clothing brand might offer a free gift with a purchase–such as an accessory from a partnering jewelry brand with qualifying purchases. 

This mutually beneficial strategy helps expand your reach and exposes customers to new brands or products. This approach fosters collaboration within the business ecosystem.

How to Add Shopify Free Gift with Purchase to your Store

Ok, so now you know how to use free gifts, let’s talk about how to add the free gift with purchase functionality to your store. offer free gifts to your Shopify store.

Essentially, there are 7-steps you need to follow:

1. Choosing a free gifts app or configure the free gift offer in your backend:  To implement this strategy, you can choose a 3rd party app, or set it up manually on Shopify’s backend. If choosing a free gift app, select a suitable Shopify app that specializes in offering free gifts. Look for features such as customizable gift rules, easy integration with your store, and a user-friendly interface (more on these apps later). 

2. Installing and setting up the app: Install your chosen app from the Shopify App Store and follow the provided instructions for setup. This usually involves granting necessary permissions and configuring basic settings.

3. Defining gift rules: Determine the conditions under which customers will be eligible for free gifts. This can include factors like minimum order value, specific products or collections, or customer segments. Customize the rules within the app accordingly.
   
   
4. Selecting gift options: Decide on the type of gifts you want to offer. You can choose a specific product, or a selection of items or allow customers to choose from a range of eligible gifts. Make sure that the gifts align with your brand and appeal to your target audience.

5. Customizing gift presentation: Personalize the way the free gifts are presented to your customers. Customize the appearance of gift pop-ups or banners to match your store's branding to create an engaging and visually appealing experience.

6. Promoting the free gift offer: Advertise the availability of free gifts on your website, social media platforms, email newsletters, and other marketing channels. Create compelling messaging to entice customers and highlight the value they will receive.

7. Monitoring strategy performance: Continuously monitor the performance of your free gift strategy through the app's analytics and reporting features. Analyze data such as conversion rates, customer feedback, and sales trends. Make necessary adjustments to optimize the effectiveness of your free gift offers.

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How to Manually Add a Shopify Free Gift with Purchase Offer

If you’d rather not use an additional 3rd party app - you can configure a free gift offer using Shopify’s existing discount functionality. You can create a similar effect using the automatic discount modality of ‘Buy X, get Y’.

This discount code will effectively reduce the price of the gift product to $0 without requiring the customer to manually enter any coupon code. However, there is a drawback to this approach: the customer must add the gift to their cart before proceeding to the checkout because it is not added automatically.

To set-up this offer, here’s what you need to do:

• Access your store admin panel and navigate to the "Discounts" section.
• Click on "Create discount" and choose the option for an automatic discount.
• Enter a name for the discount (e.g., "Free Gift over $100"). Keep in mind that this name will also be displayed as the coupon name during checkout, so it's best to use a shorter and clearer name.
• Select the "Buy X get Y" type for the discount.

• Define the gifting rules in the "Customer buys" section.

• To implement the rule "Buy product X and get a free gift," choose the option "Minimum quantity of items," set the quantity to 1, and select one or more products that the customer needs to purchase to qualify for the free gift. You will specify the free gift in the next step.
• To implement the rule "Spend $X (store-wide or in a specific collection) and get a free gift," choose the option "Minimum purchase amount," set the desired amount, and select a specific collection where the customer needs to make the purchase. If you want to offer it store-wide, select the collection "All Products" (you may need to create it if it doesn't exist).

• In the "Customer gets" section, choose the free gift product and set the "At a discount value" to "Free."

• Optionally, in the last step, you can limit the maximum uses of this discount per order if you want to restrict the customer to receive only one gift, for example.
• Finally, create the automatic discount by clicking the "Save discount" button.

4 Best Practices for Creating a Shopify Free Gift With Purchase Offer

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Following on from the steps of how to give free gifts on Shopify, here are some best practices and tips you can deploy to maximize your customer incentives:

1. Give offers your customers are interested in

Tailor your free gift offers to align with your customers’ needs and desires. 

To do this, conduct research, analyze customer data, and gather feedback to understand the types of gifts that would be most appealing to your target audience. By offering gifts that resonate with your customers, you increase the likelihood of engagement and positive reception.

2. Promote your offer

Take advantage of different marketing channels such as social media, email campaigns, website banners, and pop-ups to create awareness and generate excitement around the free gift. 

Craft compelling messaging that highlights the value and benefits of the gift, emphasizing how it enhances the overall shopping experience. Consistent and targeted promotion will attract more customers to take advantage of your offer.

3. Ensure seamless checkout process 

It’s important to optimize your Shopify store's checkout flow to make it user-friendly and hassle-free for frictionless shopping and offers. 

Clearly communicate the gift rules around how to qualify for the gift—such as reaching a minimum purchase threshold or adding the gift to the cart manually. Streamline the checkout process by optimizing the placement and design of your checkout button. It must be easily visible and accessible for customers to complete their purchases and redeem their free gifts.

4. Provide excellent customer service throughout the process

Providing excellent customer service throughout the process is essential for nurturing customer relationships and maximizing customer lifetime value. 

To this end, be sure to promptly respond to customer inquiries or concerns related to the gift offer. For example, offer clear instructions and guidance on how to redeem the gift, whether through automated processes or customer support channels. Explain if there are codes during checkout that your customers need to use. 

Another factor to think about is your inventory. You don’t want to turn a positive customer experience into a bad one by running out of stock of free gifts, especially if they’re what helped the customer to make their purchase decision.

To avoid this, consider automation. You can reduce the likelihood of error with an AI-powered solution like an ERP cloud solution or warehouse management software. This is because not only will you get up-to-date inventory data, but it will also help you to make better predictions, reducing the risk that you’ll over or under-order on your free gifts. 

The 5 Best Shopify Free Gift with Purchase Apps

If you’d rather use an app to add the free gift offers to your Shopify store, here’s five of the best ones we tried when researching this article:

1. ReConvert

ReConvert is an awesome Shopify upsell app that helps you maximize the value of every sale. Although the app has tons of functionalities such as checkout upsells, one-click upsells and thank you page upsells, you can easily configure it to offer free gifts to your shoppers.

All you have to do is configure ReConvert's one-click upsells feature, based on your free gift criteria. So, for example, let's say you want to offer a free gift to all order over $100. Simply set-up a one-click upsell and set your discount to 100% when the conditions for a free gift are met.

With ReConvert, you can surprise customers with a free gift, after they've already purchased - a great tactic to boost loyalty and reduce buyers remorse. Alternatively, you can let customers know about the free gift beforehand with a banner at checkout to drive more conversions.

The beauty of Reconvert is it allows to leverage advanced segmentation. You can configure virtually any type of free gift offer - for example, suppose you want to offer a free gift to your super-customers to thank them for their loyalty. Simply set-up an offer where by the conditions are something like 'more than 3 orders, and CLTV is over $200'.

Free gifts aside, ReConvert is also amazing for boosting revenue. For example, ReConvert user Tushy added almost $200k/mo in sales with a simple thank you page upsell. If you haven't installed it yet, definitely check out the free trial to see what it can do for you.

2. Gift Box

Gift Box allows merchants to add a gift to a customer purchase by selecting one of the templates (such as free product or free shipping) or creating a custom gift offer. 

The app offers an easy-to-use interface that enables you to set up and customize the gift rules based on your preferences. Define the conditions for offering gifts—such as selecting specific products or collections, setting cart value thresholds, or applying rules based on customer groups.

Gift Box also offers flexible types of gifts. Choose to provide a specific product as a free gift, offer a choice between multiple gift options, or let customers select their gift from a range of eligible items. This customization enables you to tailor the gifts to align with your customer's preferences and increase the appeal of your promotions.

3. Free Gifts

This popular app allows you to offer free gifts based on various conditions, such as cart value, specific products, or customer groups. 

The Free Gifts app offers a range of solutions for giving gifts, discounts, up-selling, and cross-selling to your customers on Shopify, whether it's for seasonal promotions or year-round incentives. With this app, you can easily implement various types of offers—choose from simple options to more complex ones in order to engage and reward your customers.

One of the key benefits of the Free Gifts app is that it provides clarity to your customers about their progress toward receiving a promotion. They can track their eligibility for gifts or discounts, allowing them to see exactly how close they are to unlocking a special offer. This transparency enhances their shopping experience and motivates them to take advantage of the promotion.

4. Sales Motivator

With Sales Motivator, you can create engaging pop-ups and banners that highlight special deals, limited-time offers, or discounts. These visual prompts capture the attention of your website visitors and encourage them to explore your products further.

The app also enables you to set up personalized incentives and rewards to motivate customers to complete their purchases. You can offer discounts, free shipping, or exclusive gifts based on specific actions or conditions—such as reaching a minimum order value, signing up for a newsletter, or referring a friend.

Sales Motivator provides customization options that allow you to design the appearance and messaging of the prompts and offers to align with your brand. It also provides analytics and tracking features, so you can monitor the effectiveness of your sales incentives and make data-driven decisions to optimize your strategies.

Expect a familiar Shopify interface that you can customize with your brand’s text options. Stack free gifts on top of other active discount campaigns to provide extra value for your customers. UpCart offers a free 14-day trial and a free plan for Shopify retailers. 

Add a Shopify ‘Free Gifts with Purchase' Offer Today!

Incorporating a free gift strategy into your Shopify store can be a game-changer for mastering customer retention. 

By offering complimentary gifts, you enhance the overall shopping experience, increase customer satisfaction, and generate positive emotional connections with your brand. Free gifts serve as powerful incentives that encourage customer loyalty, drive repeat purchases, and boost customer lifetime value. 

With the right tools, such as the Shopify Free Gifts app, you can easily implement and manage your free gift strategy, creating a memorable and rewarding shopping journey for your customers. Embrace the power of free gifts and unlock the potential to build long-lasting relationships with your customers while growing your business on Shopify.