There are key benefits to using Gift With Purchase (GWP) offers in your sales strategy. First, GWP offers inspire brand loyalty when word spreads about your free gifts. Second, you can use GWP offers to manage your inventory (buy X get Y). Finally, GWP inspires your customers to spend more which increases your AOV.
With the Gift With Purchase (GWP) widget, Rebuy makes it easy to create GWP campaigns that help you boost sales on BFCM and beyond. For example, when a GWP offer is accepted Rebuy automatically adds the gift to the cart for instant satisfaction. Because your customer doesn't have to search around to add the gift item themselves, you save them time.
NOTE: The Gift With Purchase Widget doesn't show items offered, as it simply handles the automatic adding of the free gift to the customer's cart when specific conditions are met. There is no interface for the customer to interact with.
If you wish to show a visual component for your free gift promotion, consider using the Smart Cart's Tiered Progress Bar to offer a free gift:
Installation Instructions
Step 1: Create a New Gift With Purchase Widget
Create a new widget as shown below in Rebuy Admin.
Step 2: Configure the Widget's Data Source
In the General setting of the widget editor you will see Data Source. Click the "edit" link to open the connected Data Source Rule Builder that has been created for this widget.
An example of how this is used is saying: IF Cart Subtotal is GREATER THAN X amount of $ RETURN Free Item. You can also say IF Cart Subtotal is GREATER THAN X amount of $ AND/OR Products/Collections CONTAINS/ CONTAINS ANY (etc) RETURN Free Item.
NOTE: GWP widgets are not compatible with Subscription products.
Only one-time purchase variants can be selected and returned using the GWP widget’s Data Source rules. However, subscription products can still be used as the input (trigger) product.
Step 3: Enable the Gift's Product Discount using Shopify Functions
Rebuy now supports product discounting using Shopify Functions directly within the GWP widget's settings. To enable the discounting of products both in the widget and throughout the customer’s cart and checkout experience, simply toggle on the "Use Shopify Functions (Recommended)" option below and input the specific discount you are looking to apply to the gift product(s) offered via the GWP widget. You can configure a "Fixed" discount, or "Percentage" based discount using this feature.
For more information on how discounting works with Shopify Functions via Rebuy, please refer to our Rebuy Discounting Overview guide linked below.
NOTE: If you only want to show a "visual" discount (i.e., Rebuy will display the discount in the widget, but will not apply the discount once the products are added to the cart), toggle off the Shopify Functions setting.
Step 4: Install the GWP Widget
If you do NOT want your widget to be visible to your customers, then be sure to toggle live mode OFF prior to installing the widget. The live mode setting is toggled ON by default. To understand the definitions of "installed," "uninstalled," and "live mode," you can refer to the Rebuy Widget Installation Definitions help article for more information.
After clicking the "install" button, a new window will open with specific instructions for you to follow to complete the install process. These instructions may include copying and pasting code, configuring settings, or other steps. It is important to follow these instructions carefully to ensure a successful installation.
NOTE: Since the gift with purchase widget is more of a global widget, you should install the widget within the theme.liquid file instead of app blocks even if you have access to app blocks. For more information on manually installing widgets, you can visit our help article that outlines that installation method.
Additional Settings
Gifts Without Purchase
We've recently updated the Gift With Purchase (GWP) widget settings, impacting how gifts are managed in carts:
Default to enabled for all pre-existing GWP widgets: By default, all existing GWP widgets will allow adding gifts to an empty cart.
Default to disabled for all future GWP widgets: By default, newly created GWP widgets will not add gifts when the cart is empty, and will automatically remove any gifts if they are the only remaining items in the cart
This update aims to prevent situations where free gifts remain in the cart after all paid products have been removed!
To adjust these settings, navigate to:
Gift With Purchase Widget's Settings -> General Tab -> GIFTS WITHOUT PURCHASE.
Quantity Selectors
The widget allows the option to hide the quantity selectors on all items added from this widget. This requires the use of Rebuy Smart Cart also, the quantity selectors will not be hidden in theme carts.
To adjust this settings, navigate to:
Gift With Purchase Widget's Settings -> General Tab -> Quantity Selectors
Best Practices
Date Scheduling using the Data Source
When editing the data source, it is best to set the time period for the specific sale. This way you don't have to lift a finger when the sale period launches.
Widget Settings
Since there is no visual aspect to the Gift With Purchase Widget, no editing of the layout is required. If you're using Rebuy's Smart Cart we will automatically set the add to cart redirect to none. If you WANT it to redirect to the cart, you can change the settings shown below.
Prevent discount caching by disabling the Discount in Rebuy Admin once your promotion has ended
To prevent discounts from being cached when a customer has added a product to their cart via a Rebuy widget (such as manually through a Product Page widget or automatically via a Gift With Purchase widget), you will need to ensure that the Shopify Functions Discount is set to "None" in the widget's settings once your promotion has ended:
Why does this happen?
Rebuy's Shopify Functions-generated discounts are attribution-based. If the product line item in the customer’s cart still contains the Rebuy widget attribution data (even after the widget is disabled), the discount configured in the widget’s settings will still apply.
⚠️ WARNING: Even if the Rebuy widget is disabled and set to Preview Mode in Rebuy Admin, the associated discount will remain active. Therefore, you must follow the steps above to fully disable the discount and prevent it from being applied.
Important Considerations
Disclaimer: The Smart Cart data is sourced from Shopify's cart.js and persists for up to 14 days. This means it’s possible for customers to still receive free gifts even after the free gift feature has been disabled or removed. If a customer added the gift to their cart prior to the change, the item will remain in their cart unless they clear their browser cache.
NOTE: If you see a situation where products are not being removed from the cart that once qualified but no longer due after the customer applies a discount, this is due to a limitation in Shopify, it's not possible to automatically remove a product from the cart after discounts are applied. This happens because Shopify doesn’t allow us to adjust the cart subtotal after the discount is calculated, and the system doesn’t share the updated subtotal with us through their API.
To work around this limitation, here are two options:
You could set up a system to flag orders that don’t qualify for the free gift so you can review them manually later.
Alternatively, you can set the discount or free gift threshold high enough that you’re comfortable with the possibility of the discount being applied in some edge cases.
Here’s a bit more detail: when a discount is applied, our system displays a visually updated price in the cart. However, this change is only on the front end (what you see in the cart) and doesn’t reflect the actual subtotal Shopify calculates on the backend. Since our logic relies on Shopify’s API for cart information, we can’t create rules based on this adjusted subtotal because Shopify doesn’t pass it back to us or account for discounts in its calculations.
See screenshots for a more visual representation:
FAQs
Do I need to be on a Shopify Plus plan to use the GWP widget?
No, a Shopify Plus plan is NOT required, as you can use Shopify Functions directly within the Widget's settings to enable a product discount for the free gift. The Shopify Functions discounting feature in the Widget settings is now available to all Shopify plans.
Is it possible to automatically add a free product to cart after a customer has entered a discount code?
No, currently is it not possible to trigger a gift to be added based on a discount code being used.
Why are products not being removed from the cart after discounts are applied?
Due to a Shopify limitation, it’s not possible to remove a product from the cart after discounts are applied. This is because Shopify does not allow certain adjustments to the cart subtotal after discounts are processed. Read more in our important details section.
Are Subscription products supported for GWP?
At this time, Subscription products are not supported for GWP.
How do I setup a Selectable GWP widget?
The "Selectable Gift With Purchase" widget is not a standard Rebuy widget (it is a customized version of a Cart Cross-sell widget), therefore additional custom code is required to ensure proper functionality. Refer to our on guide on custom implementation for this widget type: Selectable Gift-With-Purchase Widgets
Why is my GWP widget that is set to return a BOGO offer continuously looping in my Smart Cart?
If the INPUT product is the same as the OUTPUT product for your GWP Data Source (for a Buy One, Get One promotion), your "IF" statement must use a "Product" -> "Contains Any" rule. Although this is a cart-based workflow, a product specific rule is required in this scenario.
Why is my GWP widget's Data Source INPUT product tag rule not working properly when adding the tagged product to cart?
If you wish to have the GWP widget triggered when a specific tagged product is added to cart, your Data Source rule's IF statement must use a "Contains Any" INPUT statement. Although this is a cart-based workflow, a product specific rule is required in this scenario.
I'm using a URL Contains rule in my GWP widget's Data Source, but the free gift disappears from the Smart Cart when I navigate to another page/URL on my storefront. How do I ensure the gift always remains in cart?
For this scenario, we recommend using an Advanced UTM rule by following the steps in following guide: URL/UTM Based Rules
Essentially, you will need to ensure there is a specific UTM that can be keyed off of for your particular GWP campaign. For example, if you use a URL Contains rule that starts with
utm_source=,utm_medium=,utm_campaign=,utm_content=it should work as expected, and the GWP won’t disappear when the customer navigates away to a different page on the site.
Why is my GWP widget still providing the free gift after disabling it?
Once the GWP widget is disabled no new customers will receive any gifts from that widget.
However there may be customers who already had a gift added to their cart prior to the widget being disabled. Those items will not be removed from their cart when the widget is disabled.Example:
Customer A correctly receives a GWP item at 12:00pm.
The widget is disabled at 12:05pm.
Customer B begins shopping at 12:07pm and would not receive any items from the widget.
Customer A would keep the item they received unless they manually remove it.This means it is expected that you may see orders containing items from disabled widgets. It is from shoppers that already had the item prior to the widget being disabled and are completing their checkout.
The orders are not from new customers continuing to access the disabled widget.
Want to learn more about Rebuy features? Book a demo with our team today!