In this past week I discovered another cart solution for WooCommerce that already comes with the ability to handle post-purchase offers. You'll recall that I have told you about FAST before. And I gave a presentation about CartFlows more than a year ago.
But with the recent discovery of a new player, I knew that today I wanted to make sure you knew all the options that are out there.
What is a post-purchase offer?
The creation of an additional offer, based on what a person has already just purchased, is a post-purchase offer. If the only time you can make this purchase (at this price), it might also be a one-time offer (OTO).
Post-purchase offers don't have to be limited to a single offering. Some of the solutions out there allow you to create both upsell and downsell offers.
Let's break down some terms using an example.
Imagine you put a laptop in your cart.
- When you're checking out, if you are offered a $20 bluetooth mouse, that's an order bump.
- If you're offered an upgraded computer (more RAM) for an extra $200, that's an upsell offer.
- After paying, if you're offered a special option for an insurance plan, that's a one-time-offer.
While technically, the only one of those that is a post-purchase offer is the one-time offer at the end. But today, most software solutions bundle all of these features together – order bumps, upsells and one-time offers.
Why are post-purchase offers so important?
Imagine you have 10,000 people visiting your online store every month. Now assume that only 10% of these folks put something in their cart. That's 1,000 every month. But 90% of those won't finish their checkout. So that means you have 100 purchases a month. If the average order is $200, then you're making $20,000 a month.
Now let me ask you a question.
What do you think would take the least amount of work?
- To convince another 10,000 people to visit your store, adding another $20,000
- To create abandoned cart follow up emails to get 10% to come back, adding $18,000
- To create post-purchase offers, shifting their cart totals from $200 to $300, adding $10,000
I'm not going to tell you that you should only do one of these. You should do all of them. But the last one will take the least amount of work, and deliver results the quickest.
What makes a great offer?
Even though Apple doesn't do post-purchase offers online, they do a lot that's right, that we can break out and examine.
If you've recently bought a laptop from Apple, you've experienced everything I've been talking about.
- First you pick a computer, like the M1 MacBook Air.
- Then you're offered several upsells – like adding more storage and memory.
- Then you're offered order bumps – like Final Cut Pro or AppleCare+.
- Once you've put it into your cart, you get the cross-sell options – mouse, adapter cables, and more.
What do the upsells, order bumps and cross-sells have in common?
They're all “required” for some people. What they're offering isn't silly stuff. It's the stuff that they know some people need. Now you have to determine if you're one of those people.
Also, they're all a fraction of what you're spending on what you put into your cart. Maybe you were buying a $1500 item. Then adding $200 for RAM or storage doesn't feel bad. Adding another $49 for a mouse or $29 for an adapter isn't going to break the bank.
What made post-purchase offers difficult?
The hard part about post-purchase offers – like the one-time offers that a lot of digital products offer – is that you don't want the customer to have to check out multiple times. This means you have to be able to charge the card for the right amount, deferring the charge until all the OTO's have been decided on.
This used to be really challenging but in the world we live in now, many payment gateways support this and several software products have been created to help you.
WooCommerce Solutions Available
Like I said when I started, I'll likely do a deep dive on several of these options. I've built out a site where I'm testing them all thoroughly. But for today, I simply want to make you aware of the many options you have available to you.
Here are the top 7 to look at.
Whenever I make a list like this, I do it in alphabetical order so that you don't presume that the order means anything. When I write the full comparison, I'll score each.
CartFlows
CartFlows was one of the first products to work on WooCommerce funnels. So their stats are impressive. The product is clean and integrates with key Woocommerce extensions like the one for Subscriptions. I'm a big fan of this product and have used it on several sites for customers. It's also a work in progress – not that I'm saying it doesn't have key features. What I'm saying is that they keep working on it, adding more to it.
The only thing I can say about it that you should be aware of is building funnels requires some thinking / planning. For funnel builders who have done this in other products, it's no issue. But if you're new to funnels, the creation of flows and steps, and connecting the dots, can take some getting used to.
Checkout X
This product was built for people who don't code. Now, it's not like you'll be coding with any of these solutions. But this solution hides all of the complexity. Part of the way they do that is to move the checkout off your site and to their SaaS – so that all the upsells and managed from their platform. But in doing that, they can remove complexity and make it easy for people. They're focused on localization – languages and currencies – so if that's your main need, it's worth looking their way.
Custom Thank You Pages
This solution doesn't do everything but if you simply want a single post-purchase offer per product put in the cart, this may be the simplest of all the solutions. It's just a redirection after a purchase and on the next page (the “thank you” page), you can place any offer you like. At this price, it's also the cheapest approach for a simple offer.
LaunchFlows
LaunchFlows may not have been the first product in the market for WooCommerce funnels, but it's certainly a feature-rich solution that you'll quickly come to enjoy. They offer a demo, which you should certainly try. My favorite focus of theirs is the integration with your marketing automation solution (using WPFusion) so that you can add and remove tags at every step along the way – which allows you to get really creative.
MakeWebBetter
Maybe you've not heard of MakeWebBetter – but don't sleep on what they've been up to. They have many WooCommerce extensions to help you grow your revenue, when it comes to offers.
The timer on their funnel product adds a bit of an incentive to drive the additional upsell or downsell offers.
Smart Offers
Smart Offers looks at the world in a holistic way – bringing order bumps, upsell, cross-sell, one-time-offers, funnels, dynamic discounts, and more into a single product. They support pre-purchase offers (like offering a product when another is already in the cart) along with post-purchase offers. I can't describe it's flexibility in this short summary, so look for longer posts when I dig in deeper.
WooFunnels
You can't talk about post-purchase offers without mentioning another one of the solutions that's been around for a while – WooFunnels. If someone isn't already using CartFlows, they're likely talking about WooFunnels. And for good reason, it's a solid solution. They have a funnel product which comes with the one-click upsell, and a separate one-click upsell (if you don't want the funnel). They also offer an automation solution (think lightweight CRM + workflow engine), and you can buy the whole bundle of everything, if you're ready to go all-in.
Cart Offers are a no-brainer!
Let's face it, you're leaving money on the table if you're doing nothing with your cart optimization. These products are all available to help you capture more revenue for customers while offering them solutions they'll want or need. No one buys a laptop without wanting a bag, a mouse, and/or an adapter. Or a phone without a case. Or a desk chair without a floor mat. Or a mop without a bucket. Post-purchase offers are simple because they make sense. And now they're simple to implement because of all these software solutions.