The product cart holds an important place in the purchasing experience of an e-commerce site. Successful e-commerce sites pay close attention to how the cart is presented, and some make upsell offers right in the product cart. The Shopify app "UpCart" is recommended for this kind of cart customization.
"Tell me about an app that can customize the Shopify cart"
"What kind of app is UpCart? What can it do?"
"I want to know how to use UpCart"
Reading this article will resolve questions and needs like the ones above.
Upsell strategies and design improvements in the cart lead to increased shop sales. If you have concerns about your cart, please use this content as a reference.
What Is UpCart, Shopify's Cart Customization App?
Image source: UpCart｜Shopify App Store
UpCart is a cart customization app for Shopify stores. It comes with a variety of features designed to improve the purchasing experience in the cart and increase average order value (AOV).
Specifically, it offers cart designs customizable to match your brand, AI-powered personalized product recommendations, related product display, and a rewards bar. UpCart lets you take advantage of these various features without needing any programming knowledge.
A Note on UpCart｜Settings Are English Only
UpCart is a convenient cart customization app, but its settings screen is English only and does not support Japanese. UpCart settings are configured within the Shopify admin, but the app's settings screen also does not support browser translation features (such as Google Translate).
Therefore, please note that those who are not comfortable with English will need to translate the English text one piece at a time using a translation app.
Key Features and Capabilities of the Shopify App UpCart
Here are UpCart's main features. All of these features work within the product cart.
Recommendations and Related Product Display
When a customer adds a product to the cart, you can display recommendations such as "Recommended based on items you recently viewed." You can also make suggestions for products related to the item added to the cart, such as "Recommended to go with your outfit."
Which products are shown in recommendations and related product displays can be configured either manually or via AI. When using AI, it automatically suggests products based on the customer's purchase history and browsing behavior.
Since customers can naturally be introduced to products they think "oh, I wanted that too," this can be expected to increase the purchase amount per order.
Rewards Bar
The rewards bar is a feature that displays goal-oriented messages in the cart, such as "Just 1,000 yen more for free shipping!" or "10% off with 2,000 yen more in your cart." By showing customers a concrete purchase goal and incentive, you can naturally encourage the feeling of "let me buy a bit more."
You can set three types of incentives: free shipping, discount offers, and gifts. It's a simple but effective feature for boosting sales.
Cart Design
You can easily create a cart screen on UpCart that matches your e-commerce site's design and brand image. By unifying your logo, colors, and fonts, you give customers a sense of assurance and help them move smoothly toward purchase.
With minimal web knowledge, you can customize it intuitively. Since it automatically adjusts for optimal display on both computers and smartphones, you can provide an easy-to-view, easy-to-use cart experience on any device.
Switch Add-ons
You can easily offer customers who have added a product to the cart additional options, such as "+500 yen for express shipping," "+300 yen for gift wrapping," or "+200 yen for shipping insurance."
Since these are displayed as simple switches on the cart screen, customers can casually add them. If you can offer low-priced, high-margin services, you can improve both customer satisfaction and sales at the same time.
Sticky Cart Button and Express Checkout
The sticky cart button is a cart button that's always displayed on screen, allowing customers to check their product cart at any time. Additionally, by displaying an express checkout button that enables one-click payment with Shop Pay, PayPal, Apple Pay, and others, customers don't need to fill out a long form and can complete their purchase right away.
Eliminating tedious procedures can significantly reduce cart abandonment (mid-process drop-off) and can be expected to improve conversion rates.
Benefits of Adopting UpCart on Shopify
Here are 3 representative benefits of adopting UpCart on Shopify.
Increased Average Order Value (AOV)
By using UpCart's related product suggestion feature and cart upsell feature, you can expect an increase in the amount customers spend per order (order value). For example, imagine suggesting a hat or accessories that go with an outfit to a customer who is about to purchase a T-shirt.
Increasing average order value directly leads to increased sales.
Reducing Cart Abandonment
The "cart abandonment" problem is a headache for online shop operators. Cart abandonment refers to when a customer adds a product to the cart but then leaves the site.
UpCart provides an express checkout feature that simplifies the purchase process. This significantly improves the purchasing experience, especially on smartphones, freeing users from the hassle of filling out forms.
Fewer steps to complete a purchase tends to lead to a higher conversion rate.
Providing a Consistent Brand Image
Shopping with a consistent design from your shop's top page through to the cart and checkout builds trust with customers.
With UpCart, you can easily customize the cart's colors and fonts to match your brand without any specialized knowledge. For example, if you want to convey a sense of luxury, you can choose calm colors and refined fonts; for a playful image, you can choose bright colors and a friendly design.
This consistency gives customers the impression of a "well-run shop" and leads to a sense of trust.
Shopify App UpCart Pricing
UpCart's pricing varies based on order volume. There is no difference in available features regardless of the order volume or fee paid.
The pricing structure is as follows.
| Order Volume | Monthly Fee |
|---|---|
| 0-200 orders | $29.99 |
| 201-500 orders | $34.99 |
| 501-1,000 orders | $54.99 |
| 1,001-2,000 orders | $99.99 |
| 2,001-4,000 orders | $149.99 |
| 4,000+ orders | $149.99 + $0.03 per additional order ※ up to $799.99 maximum |
As of March 2025
UpCart has a 14-day free trial. If you're interested, it may be worth trying out.
How to Set Up and Configure the Shopify App UpCart
Here's how to set up and configure UpCart.
First, install "UpCart" from the Shopify App Store.
Image source: UpCart｜Shopify App Store
An installation confirmation will appear again in your Shopify store, so click "Install."
Image source: Shopify admin
Once installed, the pricing plan selection screen will appear. Since most stores other than large-scale ones will use the Growth Plan, click "Start 14-day free trial" for the Growth Plan.
Next, approve the subscription. No charge will occur at this point.
After answering a few simple questions, UpCart's settings screen will be displayed within the Shopify admin.
Next, let's do the initial setup. From the Shopify admin, click "Online Store" > "Themes" > "Customize" in that order.
Click the button to embed apps, turn on the "UpCart Bridge" switch, and click "Save."
This completes the initial setup.
Specific Usage of the Shopify App UpCart
In this section, we explain how to set up and enable the cart upsell feature that suggests related products, as a specific example of how to use UpCart.
Select "Cart Editor" on the main screen. On this screen, you can set the cart's design and various features.
Select the feature you want to configure from the menu on the left. The feature items and brief descriptions are as follows.
- Announcements: displays an announcement bar
- Rewards: displays a rewards bar
- Recommendations: recommendations within the cart
- Subscription Upgrades: suggests subscription upgrades
- Upsells: upsell suggestions within the cart
- Additional Notes: displays a memo input field at customer checkout
- Add-ons: displays switch add-ons
- Discount Codes: displays a discount code input field
- Express Payments: displays express payments
- Trust Badges: displays trust badges
Since we're setting up cart upsells in this explanation, select "Upsells."
The settings screen is displayed. Under "Select Product," you configure the product suggestion method and related product settings. There are two setting methods:
- Use AI Recommended upsells
- Configure Manual Upsells
To enable AI-based related product suggestions, check "Use AI Recommended upsells." Then choose one of the following two AI algorithms.
- Related: suggests similar products (products classified in the same collection)
- Complementary: suggests complementary products
If you select "Related," you can check "Use Smart Variant Matching."
"Smart Variant Matching" is a convenient feature that automatically selects a color or size that matches the products already in the customer's cart. For example, if a black shirt is added to the cart, the recommended pants will also be displayed with black already selected.
If you select "Configure Manual Upsells," you select products for each of "Trigger Product" and "Upsell Product." Setting up many combinations manually takes more effort, but it ensures the exact product combinations you want to suggest are reliably displayed.
In this article, we configured a manual upsell suggestion of "recommend jeans when a T-shirt is added to the cart."
Next, configure the upsell settings under "Upsell Settings." Check the following checkboxes as needed.
- "Show upsell offer if item already in cart?"
- "Limit the number of upsells in the cart?"
- Also configure the following appearance-related items.
- Upsell Title
- Add Text (the text for the add-to-cart button)
- Upsell Position
- Upsell Direction
Once the settings are complete, click "Save" at the top of the screen. Change "Cart Status" from "Disabled" to "Active."
At this point, you'll be asked to check a preview. Click "Open preview mode" to verify the behavior. If there are no issues with the other 7 checklist items, check them and click "Next."
Click "Active UpCart" to enable it.
Let's also check the actual screen.
When a product is added to the cart, the related product we configured is displayed.
That's the end of the usage explanation.
Adopt UpCart to Customize Your Cart
In this article, we explained the features, benefits, and usage of the cart customization app UpCart.
By taking advantage of UpCart's various features, you can expect to increase order value and reduce cart abandonment. On the other hand, since the settings screen is English only, setting it up may feel difficult for those who aren't comfortable with English. If that's you, please refer to the specific usage instructions introduced in this article.
Customize your cart with UpCart and aim for increased sales.
Finally, the blog article below introduces cart abandonment measures that can be implemented in Shopify. Please use it as a reference.
