Gift With Purchase (Auto Add To Cart)

Overview

Gift with Purchase adds a free item to the shopper’s bag automatically once their cart qualifies.

You can:

Set the spend or quantity a cart must reach
Require the cart to contain items from particular categories or collections
Schedule the promotion to start and end on its own
Run up to five rules at once, each with its own gift
Choose the messages the shopper sees when the gift is added or removed

Availability: Gift with Purchase (Auto Add to Cart) is a module. Contact your Shopcada account manager if it is not on your store.

How It Works

You set up rules. Each rule says what a cart must contain, and which product is given free when it does.

Shopcada checks the cart every time it changes.
Rules are checked in order, from Rule 1 to Rule 5. The first rule that qualifies wins.
Only one gift is given, even when the cart qualifies for more than one rule.
The gift is added to the bag on its own. The shopper does not choose it.
If the cart stops qualifying, the gift is removed again automatically.

Because the first match wins, put your most generous rule in Rule 1 and work down. See Using More Than One Rule.

Setting Up a Rule

Turning the Rule On

Field	Description
Enable Gift With Purchase	Tick to make the rule live. Untick to stop the promotion without losing the settings.
Schedule Start Date	When the promotion begins. Leave empty to start immediately.
Schedule End Date	When the promotion ends. Leave empty to never end.

Min. Cart Amount / Cart Qty Requirement

This section sets the threshold the cart must reach.

Field	Description
Minimum Cart Amount	The cart value needed to qualify.
Minimum Cart Qty	The number of items needed to qualify.
Only products from following categories/collections will be included in calculation…	Limits which products count towards the threshold. Leave empty to count everything.
Products from following categories/collections will not be included…	Leaves the selected products out of the calculation.
Exclude Backorder from calculation of minimum cart amount	Leaves backordered items out of the threshold.

Use one threshold or the other, not both. Fill in either Minimum Cart Amount or Minimum Cart Qty. If you fill in both, saving fails with Please input only either minimum amount or minimum quantity to qualify for the free gift.

Gift certificates never count towards either threshold.

Required Products

This section asks a separate question: does the cart contain particular items at all? It is described in full under Requiring Items from a Category.

Field	Description
Cart must contain items from these categories/collections	The categories or collections the cart must include. Leave empty for no requirement.
Minimum Qty from Required Categories	How many units are needed from those categories. Counts units, so two of the same product count as two.

The Gift and the Messages

Field	Description
Free Product	The product given free. Start typing to search, then select it. Each rule needs its own product.
Add Message at Review Page	Shown when the gift is added. Defaults to “Your free item has been added to your bag.”
Remove Message at Review Page	Shown when the gift is taken away again. Defaults to “Your free item has been removed from your bag.”

Set the gift product’s price to 0 so the shopper is not charged for it, and keep it in stock like any other product.

POS Settings

Stores with Shopcada POS also get:

Field	Description
Enable Auto Add To Cart At POS Terminal	Applies the rule at your outlets as well as online.
Display a message to POS Terminal upon order completed	Shows your cashier a note once the sale is completed.
Message on POS Terminal	The wording of that note.

A rule that uses Required Products cannot also auto-add at POS. See Important Notes.

Requiring Items from a Category

Required Products lets a rule insist that certain items are in the bag, on top of the spend or quantity threshold. Both conditions must be met before the gift is given.

This is the difference between the two category settings, and it is worth being clear about:

Setting	Question it answers
Only products from following categories/collections… (Min. Cart Amount section)	Which products count towards the $ or quantity threshold?
Cart must contain items from these categories/collections (Required Products section)	Which products must be in the bag, whatever the cart is worth?

Example: spend $150 and buy at least 2 items from NEW IN

Set Minimum Cart Amount to 150. Leave the include and exclude category fields empty, so the whole cart counts towards the $150.
In Required Products, set Cart must contain items from these categories/collections to NEW IN.
Set Minimum Qty from Required Categories to 2.
Choose the Free Product and click Save.

A $500 cart containing one NEW IN item does not qualify. A $150 cart containing two NEW IN items does.

Example: buy any 2 items from NEW IN, any cart value

Leave Minimum Cart Amount empty and set Minimum Cart Qty to 2.
Set the include categories field to NEW IN, so only NEW IN items count towards that quantity.

You do not need the Required Products section for this one.

Using More Than One Rule

Use several rules to give a better gift for a bigger basket. Because the first qualifying rule wins, order them from the highest threshold down.

Rule	Minimum Cart Amount	Free Product
Rule 1	$300	Weekend bag
Rule 2	$200	Cosmetic pouch
Rule 3	$100	Tote bag

A $250 cart passes Rule 1 (too low), then qualifies on Rule 2 and receives the cosmetic pouch. Put the smallest threshold in Rule 1 and every cart would win the smallest gift, so the order matters.

Each rule needs a different Free Product. Saving fails with Free Product SKU should not be repeated. if two rules share one.

Important Notes

Required Products does not work with POS auto-add. If you tick both, saving fails with Required categories are not supported by POS. Disable POS for this rule. The POS terminal cannot check the condition, so it is safer to award nothing than to award the gift wrongly. The completed-order POS message is not affected and does respect the condition.
Quantities count units, not different products. Two of the same item satisfy a required quantity of 2. There is no setting for “two different styles”.
Free gifts never help a cart qualify. A gift added by one rule is left out of the calculation for every rule, including its own.
Gift certificates are never counted towards the minimum cart amount or quantity.
Exclude Backorder applies to the threshold only. A backordered item still counts towards Minimum Qty from Required Categories.
Leaving Required Products empty changes nothing. Rules set up before this feature existed behave exactly as they always did.

Tips

Setting Up a Promotion

Set the gift product’s price to 0 and keep stock on it. The gift is a real product and will run out.
Use Schedule Start Date and Schedule End Date rather than remembering to switch the rule on and off.
Test with a real cart before you announce the promotion. Add the qualifying items, check the gift appears, then remove one and check it disappears.

Choosing the Right Setting

To reward spending on particular products, use the include categories field in the threshold section.
To reward spending anywhere while insisting on a particular product, use Required Products.
To do both, set a Minimum Cart Amount with no include categories, and add your Required Products condition on top.