StoreFront Upsells

Overview

This tutorial will walk you through the process of creating an Upsell using the new Visual Builder functionality.  This new  functionality provides several important benefits:

  • Design your upsells visually without writing HTML/CSS/JavaScript
  • Easier path/offer configuration
  • Drag and drop re-arrange the ordering of your offers
  • Perform A/B experiments on paths and offers
  • Easy to embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo or Wistia
  • Completely responsive (mobile friendly)
  • Real-time performance statistics
  • Tracks abandons and refunds
  • Calculates true net incremental revenue generated
  • Easy to copy paths between multiple StoreFronts

Webinar Video: Upsell After Visual Builder

Storefront Themes that have the Visual Builder

It's important to note that this new functionality is available only in the following themes:

  • Elements version 0.96 or higher
  • Fashion 0.20 or higher
  • Mr Teas 0.48 or higher
  • Natural 0.27 or higher
  • Woodland 0.21 or higher
  • LIFTY
  • Jewel
  • Native
  • Natural VB
  • Elements
  • Hero

To get started, expand the Content section (Tab) of your StoreFront and click on Upsells.  If you do not see Upsells, then you are not running a theme that supports them.

Create a Path

The first thing that you want to do is create a path by clicking on the Add Upsell Path button.  A path is a sequence of offers that a customer will experience during the checkout if they have an item in their cart that triggers the path.  A customer will go through each path that they qualify for starting at the top of the page and working their way to the bottom.

Path Settings

Once you have created a Path you can also configure Path settings to trigger what path a customer might see based on different factors. To view the Path settings simply click on the Pencil Icon on the right as shown below.

This will open the Upsell Path Editor.

Upsell Path Editor Settings

Upsell Path Field NamesDescription
NameAllow you to name the path.
Customer TypeAllows a Path to be triggered based on the customer email address and if they are a New Customer or an Existing Customer. All Customers is the default setting and will allow all customers to see this upsell path.
Trigger Item IDs

Allows you to trigger the Upsell Path based on the items in the cart.

NOTE: Items with 'Exclude from search' setting enabled cannot be added as a trigger item.

Trigger Tags *NewAllows you to trigger the Upsell Path based on the Product Tags for the items in the cart.
Trigger Gender *NewAllows you to trigger the Upsell Path based on the customer Gender *Requires Tower Data
Trigger Age *NewAllows you to trigger the Upsell Path based on the age of the customer *Requires Tower Data
Flow Control This allow you to tell the Upsell Path to stop after this path is complete or continue to the next path in the list.
Flow Location

Post Checkout (Default)

Pre Checkout (Upsell Modal within the checkout process)

Externally Hosted Upsell Offers

Externally hosted Upsell Offers require the 'Post Checkout' Flow Location. The Offsite Content URL field will only appear in the upsell offer editor when the path is configured for 'Post Checkout'.

Maximum Viewed OffersAllows you to set a limit to the number of offers a customer can see within the Path.

Simply click Save at the bottom of the model to set and changes to the setting you would like to make.

Creating an Upsell Offer

Click on the + button to create your first step. 

A prompt will appear on the screen.  We're going to create an Offer so click on OK as shown below.

When the editor appears, there are 5 minimum things that you must complete.  They are:

  1. Give the offer a meaningful name (not visible by the customer)
  2. When ready, set the offer to active.
  3. Choose the item(s) that are being upsold to the customer.
  4. Pick one of the pre-defined layouts that you want to start with.  After selecting your layout click on the preview of the offer to launch the visual editor for the upsell.  Make whatever content adjustments to the offer that you want.  Note that the first two pre-defined layouts use a textblock of "lorem ipsum" as a placeholder.  So make sure you change that to some meaningful marketing verbiage.
  5. Save

Offer Settings

FieldDescription
ActiveIf Check, the offer is active.
Test Orders OnlyIf selected the offer will only appear when the test credit card is used during the placement of the order.
Upsell Item Id'sThe item(s) added to the order if the customer selects 'yes' for the offer.
Allow Upsell Item In Cart AlreadySelect this when the upsell Item ID is already in the cart prior to the display of this offer.
Free ShippingFlags the upsell item as a free shipping item in the offer even if the item normally charges for shipping.
Arbitrary Unit Cost

If you are selling the item blow the cost configured on the item, then enter the new lower unit price here.

Optional Setting: "By Day of Week" → Allows for a different arbitrary unit cost for each day of the week.

Max QuantitySets a max quantity for the upsell item.

Start Date

Sets the Starting date for this offer (this is useful for setting time sensitive offers (like a Memorial Day special, for example.)
End DateSets the end date for this offer (this is useful for setting time sensitive offers (like a Memorial Day special, for example.)

Advanced Settings

Important Note regarding External Upsell Offers

PLEASE NOTE:  The Offsite Content URL will only appear in the upsell offer editor when the Upsell Path is set to 'Post Checkout' flow location.



Advanced Settings

FieldDescription
Trigger Item Ids

If the configured items are in the customer cart during the initiation of the upsell offers, they will trigger the offer to be presented to the customer.

Optional Settings: 

  1. Require All - (If multiple trigger items are configured all all trigger items must be in the checkout to trigger the offer)
  2. Remove Trigger Item - (Remove the trigger item if the customer chooses yes to the offer.)
Suppression Item IdsIf the configured items are in the customers cart, the offer to be suppressed to the customer.
Trigger Tags

If the configured Tags are in the customer cart during the initiation of the upsell offers,  they will trigger the offer to be presented to the customer. 

Tags are configured within the item editor.

Suppression TagsIf the configured Tags are in the customers cart, the offer will be suppressed to the customer.
Accessory Item Ids

The configured Item Ids will be added/removed if the customer selects yes to the offer.

  1. Add
  2. Remove
Migrate Accessory Item Ids


  1. Add
  2. Remove
Trigger CountriesIf selected, only customers ordering to the configured countries will trigger the offer.
Suppression CountriesIf selected,customer ordering from the configured countries will not be shown the offer.
Trigger Shipping MethodsOnly orders that selected the configured trigger shipping method will be presented with the offer.
Suppression Shipping MethodsThe offer will be suppressed for any order in which the selected shipping method was selected during the initial checkout.
Trigger Payment MethodsOnly orders that have selected the configured trigger payment method will be presented with the offer.
Suppression Payment MethodsThe offer will be suppressed for any order in which the selected payment method was selected during the initial checkout.
Trigger Age

The offer will only be triggered if the customer is within the range of ages selected, by default it is shown to all customers if nothing is selected

 *Requires Tower Data

Trigger Gender

The offer will only be triggered if the customers gender matches the selected gender, by default it is shown to all customers if nothing is selected.

 *Requires Tower Data

Suppression Device TypeThis allows you to prevent the customer from seeing the offer based on the device size they are ordering from. Mobile , Tablet , Desktop. 
Removable On ConfirmationIf selected, the customer will be presented with a upsell confirmation page in which they are able to remove the upsell items they have added to their order.
Lock Shipping

When selected, the shipping estimate from the initial checkout will be retained, even if the upsell includes a shippable item.

Lock Shipping - If enabled, this will need to be set on all upsells that qualify. If this is not set on all upsells, then the shipping cost will change if needed.

Skip Existing CustomersWhen selected, if the customer will be skipped if their email address is contained in a previous order.

Path View

Now that we have our first offer created, let's look at how it shows in the path.  When you hover over the offer you will see a grey popup set of tool icons along with a DOWNSELL option.  There is also a quick toggle to make the offer active (blue) OR inactive (grey).

Editing the Path Settings of an Existing Path

Clicking the pencil in the top right corner of the path row will open this dialog window:

Path Settings

You can edit the:

Upsell Path Field NamesDescription
NameAllow you to name the path.
Trigger Item IDsAllows you to trigger the Upsell Path based on the items in the cart.
Trigger Tags *NewAllows you to trigger the Upsell Path based on the Product Tags for the items in the cart.
Trigger Gender *NewAllows you to trigger the Upsell Path based on the customer Gender *Requires Tower Data
Trigger Age *NewAllows you to trigger the Upsell Path based on the age of the customer *Requires Tower Data
Flow Control This allow you to tell the Upsell Path to stop after this path is complete or continue to the next path in the list.
Maximum Viewed OffersAllows you to set a limit to the number of offers a customer can see within the Path.

Creating an Offer Experiment

Hover over an offer and click the experiment icon as shown below.

Now that the single offer is contained in an experiment we can hover over the offer and use the duplicate tool as shown below.

We now have two offers within an experiment.  Since there are two offers, each one will receive 50% of the traffic.  If there were three offers in an experiment then each one would receive 33.33%, etc. (Please note that the traffic percentage is fixed between the experiment offers.)

Experiment Initialized

A border around an upsell offer indicates that an experiment has been initialized. If the user hovers over the bordered area, a trash can icon (delete) and plus '+' symbol appear in the top right, to add an offer to the experiment.

Mousing over an offer within the experiment, there is a menu with 4 options:  promote offer, duplicate, edit, and delete.



Winning Offer

When you've decided on the winning offer in an offer experiment, hover over that offer and click the promotion tool as shown below.  
Once done, only the winning offer will remain.

Creating a Path Experiment

You can also create A/B tests for a particular path.  These can be used to test different sequences or combinations of offers to see what is the optimal arrangement.  To create a test you can either click the "Add Variant Path" button or duplicate an existing path as shown below.

Once you have two or more variants to a path, you will see that the traffic is going to be split between the variant paths.

After a winner has been determined you can click the promote tool for the variant path winner.  The looser will automatically be removed. 

Drag and Drop

You can drag and drop offers/experiments to rearrange their position within the path or move them into new paths.  You can also drag and drop offers into or out of an experiment.  See the video below.

Viewing Statistics

To view the statistics enter the start/end dates and then click the view button as shown below.

For each offer you will see the following statistics

  • Conversion percentage
  • Average Visitor Revenue (AVR)
  • Average Visitor Profit (AVP) - requires configuration of cost of goods sold (COGS) on your items
  • Views
  • Transactions (TRANS)
  • Revenue (REV)
  • Per Sale Revenue (PSR)
  • Abandons
  • Declines - number of people that clicked no to the offer.

For each of the paths you will also see:

  • Average Visitor Revenue (AVR)
  • Average Visitor Profit (AVP)
  • Views
  • Transactions (TRANS)

Advanced Topics

Replacing default Yes-No buttons with custom Yes-No buttons

Using custom buttons in place of the defaulted 'Yes'& 'No' buttons for your upsell offer is a simple process. 

To modify the button images, edit your upsell offer, then highlight a button in the Visual Editor then clicking the "setrtings" icon or clicking the 'S' hotkey:

In the settings panel that opens you can edit the button by:

  • Changing the default button text and customizing the text and background colors, etc.
  • Adding sub-text
  • Applying an icon
  • Uploading a custom image

Offsite Content

One of the advanced features of the StoreFront Upsell system is the ability to have an offsite page as part of the upsell sequence.  Below is a screenshot of the portion of the advanced configuration associated with offsite content.


Here is what the three fields represent:

SettingDescription
Offsite Content URLThis is the URL to the offsite content.  It MUST be an https URL.  The system will not work if you use regular http URLs as browsers won't send the proper referrer header.
Offsite Confirm YesThis is the URL that you should redirect the browser back to when the customer clicks the Yes button on your offer.
Offsite Confirm NoThis is the URL that you should redirect the browser back to when the customer clicks the No button on your offer.


If your offer page contains multiple items that the customer to choose from you can redirect back to the Offsite Confirm Yes URL and specify ?ADD=ItemId parameter on the URL.


Frequently Asked Questions

Q: When I create the VB version of the upsell, will it automatically replace the legacy one, or will I need to switch it over, or delete the old one? What's the mechanism that switches from the old to the new?
A: Once you have created an upsell offer in the Visual Builder, it will take over and the old offers will be ignored. You will not need to delete the old offers for the VB offers to take affect.

Q: How do I test to see if I got my upsell offers configure correctly?
A: Place a test order to verify that the correct offers for the checkout scenario appear. If you do not see the expected offers, email support referencing the test OrderId and a description of any offers that were expected to be displayed but did not appear. UltraCart support will inspect the server-side shopping cart logs to troubleshoot the issue and then report back to you.

Q: I am trying to add an item as a trigger item to a path, but the item is not being accepted. Why is that?
A: If an item has the item option enabled 'Exclude from search' then it cannot be added to the upsell path as a trigger item. Edit the item and remove that setting, then go back to configure it as a trigger item in the path.

Q: We have had a few customers reporting that they were unable to click the 'yes/no thank's buttons in an upsell after offer, what could cause that to randomly occur? 
A:  The yes no buttons require Javascript to be enabled. IF the customer has disabled Javascript in their browser, that will prevent them from being able to click either option. Their order will be captured by the upsell after inactivity closer routine