Put product recommendations where shoppers decide: right below the add to cart button on product pages, and inside the cart drawer, where they've decided. The home page and the thank you page come after those. Show two to four products in your store's fonts and button style, keep them inline instead of in a popup, and judge each placement by its adds and sales per view on your own store.
Product page or cart drawer: who each one reaches
The product page reaches every visitor who opens a product, which on most stores is far more people than ever add to cart. Many of them are still deciding or comparing. The cart drawer reaches only shoppers who pressed add to cart: fewer people, all close to buying. Use both, and give them different jobs.
On the product page, show products that go with the one on screen ("You might also like") and, if your catalog has them, a set that is often bought together. A shopper unsure about this exact item may also find a better match there. Put the row right below the add to cart button, so it doesn't push the price and the button down, and keep it to two to four products. The product page guide has the setup steps.
In the cart drawer, show small add-ons that complete what's already in the cart (consumables, accessories, care products), cheaper than the main item, and leave out anything already there. Alternatives don't belong in the cart, because the shopper has chosen. If your theme has a cart page instead of a drawer, the same rules apply there. The cart drawer guide covers the steps for each kind of cart.
Keep the cart row out of the way of checkout
Cart recommendations only push shoppers away when they get in the way of paying: a popup that has to be closed first, a long list that pushes the checkout button off a phone screen, add-ons that cost more than the item in the cart, products that are already in the cart or sold out, or anything added without asking. Keep the row to two or three products, below the cart items, and check on a phone that the checkout button stays visible without much scrolling.
Relevance is the part most stores get wrong. According to Baymard Institute's ecommerce UX research, 52% of sites fail to show relevant cross-sells in the cart. A quick test for each pick: would a shopper who found it in their cart think "good, I needed that"? A belt with jeans passes; a random best seller next to a kitchen knife doesn't.
The home page: a starting point
On a product page you know what the shopper is looking at. On the home page you know almost nothing, so a row there has to work for everyone. Two rows do: best sellers, based on recent sales and labeled plainly ("Best sellers"), which gives a new visitor a sensible first click, and recently viewed, which shows a returning visitor what they looked at last time on the same device.
Four to eight products in one row is enough, placed below your main banner or first collection. With a dozen products in the whole store, a best sellers row repeats your catalog, and a clear first screen with one link to your main collection works better. Add the home page after the product page and the cart, not before.
After payment: thank you and order status pages
The thank you and order status pages can show recommendations on Shopify Basic and higher, but the order is already placed, so an add there starts a new cart. They suit products a buyer may want next time, such as a refill. Checkout itself only accepts app blocks on Shopify Plus. The guide to checkout upsells without Plus lists what each plan allows, page by page.
On a phone
Check how many of your shoppers are on a phone in Shopify Analytics (the Sessions by device type report). On most small stores it's a large share, so do every check below on a real phone.
- Show two to four products, in a row that scrolls sideways or a two-column grid. Each card needs a recognizable image, the name on one or two lines, the price and an Add button.
- Make the Add button big enough for a thumb and far enough from the next card's button, and show clearly that the item was added, so shoppers don't tap twice.
- The product page is one long column on a phone. Put recommendations right after the add to cart area, not after the reviews at the bottom.
- The cart drawer covers most of the screen. One short row, with the checkout button still in view.
To test, open your live store in a private tab on your own phone, go through a product page, add something, open the cart and start checkout. Try an iPhone and an Android phone if you can.
Inline rows instead of popups
An upsell popup after add to cart puts a decision in front of every shopper, including the ones heading straight to checkout, and on a phone it often covers the whole screen. Some of its clicks are just people closing it. An inline row sits on the page: shoppers who want an item tap Add and everyone else scrolls past or checks out. The FTC and UX researchers also flag some popup habits as dark patterns, like confirm-shaming and countdowns that reset; the guide to honest urgency covers them.
A popup is less intrusive when the shopper asked for it, such as a quick view they opened. To switch from a popup app, note your average order value and Shopify's Conversion rate for the last 30 days, uninstall the app and check your theme for leftover code (the removal guide has the steps), add inline rows on the product page and in the cart, and compare the same two numbers 30 days later.
Make the row look like your store
Shoppers skip page elements that look like ads, a habit researchers call banner blindness, and a row in a different font with a button that doesn't match yours reads as something bolted on. Check five things on a computer and on a phone, next to your own collection grid:
- Product names and prices use the same font as your product titles and prices.
- The row's button looks like your main add to cart button, or a quieter version with the same corner shape.
- Backgrounds, borders and the button color come from your palette.
- Product images use the same shape and crop as your collection grid.
- The row has the same spacing as the sections around it.
Fix what's off in the app's own style settings before you reach for custom CSS, which needs re-checking after every theme update. Heavily customized themes are where automatic matching most often falls short.
How to tell if a placement works
Run your placements for a few weeks and compare, for each one, how many times it was seen, how many products were added from it and what they sold for. Compare adds and sales per view, not totals, because the product page will always have more views. Wait until a row has been seen a few hundred times before you judge it; on a small store that can take weeks. Change the picks on rows that are seen often and never added.
For the whole store, compare your average order value and Shopify's Conversion rate for the 30 days before and after a change, on the same days of the week if you can. A/B tests need more traffic than most small stores have, so fixing the problems above usually helps more. The guide to tracking upsell revenue explains what each app counts as a sale.
Where Dropr fits
Dropr only shows recommendations inline, with no popups or timers: product pages, the cart drawer and cart page, home and collection pages ("Popular products" and "Recently viewed"), the thank you and order status pages, and checkout on Shopify Plus. In the cart drawer it shows up to three products, leaves out sold-out items and what's already in the cart, and never adds anything on its own. Its rows render inside your page, so they use your theme's fonts, and it reads your store's colors when you install it to set the button color. Under Recommendations you choose the heading, the button text, a grid or carousel layout and how many products show. Its Performance page shows views, adds to cart and sales for each placement.
Frequently asked questions
Should I show the same products on the product page and in the cart?
Usually not. If the product page suggested a case and the shopper skipped it, the same case in the cart rarely changes their mind. Use the cart for smaller add-ons.
Do recommendations lower the share of shoppers who buy?
They shouldn't when they sit below the add to cart button or inside the cart, where they block nothing. Check Shopify's Conversion rate report for the weeks after you add them.
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