Smart Checkout Widgets

Smart Checkout Widgets customizes Shopify checkout and the pages after it. It hides, renames and reorders shipping and payment methods, adds blocks such as trust badges, upsells and custom fields, and gives away free gifts. It is built on Shopify's checkout extensibility and Shopify Functions, so nothing here depends on checkout.liquid.

Overview

The app's menu has these sections:

"Every Shopify plan" here means Basic and up. Shopify's Starter plan can't run the Thank you and Order status page blocks, so widgets and order editing don't work on it.

Widgets add something to the page as soon as you place them. Shipping and payment rules work the other way: they change options Shopify has already produced, and only when their conditions are met.

Quickstart

1. Install the app from the Shopify App Store.
2. For a rule, open Payment Customizations or Shipping Customizations, or start from one of the templates on the app's home page. Rules apply as soon as you save.
3. For a widget, create it under Widgets, then open Settings > Checkout > Customize in your Shopify admin.
4. Pick the page (Checkout, Thank you or Order status), add the Smart Checkout Widgets app block where you want it, choose your widget in the block's settings, and save.

Nothing appears in front of shoppers until a block is placed. Once it is, changes you save to the widget show up without publishing the checkout again.

Rule templates

The home page has eight ready-made rules. Each opens the rule editor already filled in and unsaved, so you can adjust it before anything changes at checkout.

• Payment: hide cash on delivery on large orders, offer it only in your own country, hide it for guest checkouts, or rename it.
• Shipping: add delivery times to a rate's name, hide a rate on heavy orders, hide a rate when the cart has oversized (tagged) products, or hide express shipping at weekends.

Widgets

Eleven widget types are on every plan, and the Pro plan adds a twelfth, Stock urgency.

Shopify only lets Plus stores add apps to the checkout page itself. The Thank you and Order status pages are open to every plan, so the widgets marked "All" work on any store. The others write to the cart or the checkout and only do their job before the order is placed, which is why they need Plus. The editor marks them "Plus checkout only" when your store is not on Plus.

Upsell, Custom fields, Line item fields, Line item options and Progress bar can have display conditions: show the widget only when the cart contains a product or a tagged product, or when the cart value is above or below an amount. In the checkout editor, each block can also be hidden on desktop, tablet or mobile.

Stock urgency (Pro)

Shows a badge such as Only 4 left - selling fast! under each checkout item whose stock is at or below a number you choose. Set the threshold, the message ({{count}} becomes the number left), the colour and the icon, then add the app block to the item list in Shopify's checkout editor. It needs Shopify Plus, because it runs on the checkout page.

The count is always your real inventory. Items that don't track stock, or that keep selling when out of stock, never show a badge, and neither do free gifts.

Creating and disabling a widget

Each widget is created, named and configured on its own, and can be disabled without deleting it. Disabling takes it off the page at once and keeps its settings, which is the safer way to pause something mid-campaign.

Checkout gifts

Gifts are Shopify discounts that make a product free. Create them under Checkout Gifts, then add the Smart Gift app block to the Order summary section of the checkout page in Shopify's checkout editor. On Shopify Plus the block adds and removes the gift for the shopper. On other plans there is no checkout block, but the discount still makes the gift free when the shopper adds the gift product to the cart themselves.

Automatic gifts

The gift is added when the cart meets the minimum you set. Automatic gifts must have a minimum, either a purchase amount or a number of items. You can also stop shoppers using discount codes while the gift is in the cart, with your own message of up to 100 characters.

Coupon gifts

The gift is tied to a discount code. When the buyer applies the code, the gift is added. If they remove the code, the gift is removed with it. A coupon gift can have a minimum or none at all.

Rules every gift follows

• Only one gift coupon works at a time. A second gift code entered on top of the first is rejected, so two campaigns can't stack their gifts.
• Gift discounts always combine with product, order and shipping discounts. There is no setting to change this.
• A minimum is a purchase amount or a number of items, counted across the whole cart, specific products, or specific collections.
• On paid plans a gift can be limited to specific customers. On Starter every gift is open to all customers.
• You can duplicate a gift from its list page, which is the quickest way to start a variation of a working campaign.
• After you change the gift products on a discount, save it again so checkout picks up the new setup.

Customer choice

Instead of one fixed gift, you can offer several and let the buyer pick. You can cap how many they may choose, so a "pick 2 of 6" promotion stays within its margin. The message above the options is editable, and you can show or hide each gift's price.

Upsells

The upsell widget offers more products. In checkout, buyers add them without leaving the page. On the Thank you and Order status pages, which every plan can use, each offer links to a new cart with that product, as a "buy again" offer.

Products can come from a list you pick, from collections or from product tags. You can cap how many show in total and per collection, hide items that are out of stock, on sale, tagged or below a minimum price, and choose whether variants show separately, combined or not at all. Display conditions let you show an accessory only when the matching product is in the cart.

Shipping method rules

A shipping method rule changes the delivery options Shopify has already calculated. It can rename an option ("Standard Shipping" becomes "Arrives in 3 to 5 days"), hide it, or move it to a set position in the list.

Apply to

Every rule has an Apply to scope that limits which kind of delivery option it can touch: all options, shipping rates, local delivery, carrier pickup points, local pickup locations, or retail.

Scope matters when names collide. A store with a "Warsaw" pickup location and a "Warsaw Warehouse" shipping rate can only target one without touching the other by scoping the rule.

Pickup locations

Local pickup locations can be renamed and hidden one by one, the same as shipping rates. Scope the rule to Local pickup locations only and match the location's name.

How matching works

Rules match on the option's displayed name, ignoring case, anywhere in the name. So Express matches "Express Shipping" and "Express Saver", and every option that matches is affected. * matches every option in the rule's scope.

When several entries in a rename rule match the same option, an entry equal to the option's full name wins. Otherwise the longest match wins.

Payment method rules

Payment method rules rename, hide and reorder payment methods the same way. The most common use is hiding cash on delivery above a cart value or in certain countries. Payment and shipping rules share one set of conditions, so a condition means the same thing in either place.

Order editing

Order editing is part of the Pro plan. It runs on the Thank you and Order status pages rather than in checkout, so it works on every Shopify plan except Shopify's Starter plan. Customers can change their own order there for a time you choose after they buy. Development stores can use it for free while testing.

Setting it up

1. Open Order Editing in the app, tick Let customers edit their orders, choose the edit window and the changes to allow, and save.
2. Click Allow access to grant two optional permissions: edit orders (needed for variant swaps) and manage fulfillment orders (needed for holds). Address changes, lower quantities and cancellations work without them.
3. Click Add to Thank you page to open Shopify's checkout editor on that page.
4. In the left sidebar, under Main, click Add block and pick Order editing from the Apps list.
5. Drag the block below Order details (and its Customer information) and above Action, then click Save.
6. Click Add to Order status page, put the block in the same place, and save again.

There the editing panel sits right under the order the customer just reviewed, above the buttons at the bottom of the page. Customers only see the block while their order can still be edited, so you can leave it in place.

What customers can change

Editing stops when the window ends, when any item is fulfilled, or when the order is cancelled or closed. Gift cards, subscription items and free gifts from Smart Checkout Widgets can't be edited, and POS and draft orders are never offered editing.

Fulfillment hold

With Hold new orders until the edit window ends on, every new order gets a fulfillment hold that says when it will be released. The app releases it when the window ends. You can release it yourself at any time from the order page in Shopify without affecting anything else.

Seeing what changed

Edited orders are tagged Customer edited. Shopify emails the customer about variant swaps, refunds and cancellations. The Order Editing page lists the last 50 edits, refusals, holds and releases.

Removal requests are not tagged, because nothing on the order has changed yet. Shopify marks the order as having a requested edit, and you accept or decline it there.

Checkout branding (Pro)

Checkout Branding edits the look of your live checkout. Shopify only lets apps do this on Plus stores, so it needs the Pro plan and Shopify Plus. Development stores can try it on any plan. Below Plus, the page links to Shopify's own checkout editor instead. The first time you open it, the app asks for permission to read and edit your checkout configuration.

The editor covers six areas:

• Colours: accent, buttons, errors, page background and text, the Pay now button and its hover colour, and the header and order summary backgrounds.
• Typography: base size from 12 to 18px, the heading scale, size, weight and case for the first three heading levels, and letter spacing.
• Buttons: corner radius, padding, border, case and weight for primary and secondary buttons, and the corner radius of express checkout buttons.
• Corners and form fields: corner radii, field borders, labels inside or above fields, and checkbox and product thumbnail corners.
• Header and footer: logo alignment and width, dividers, padding, breadcrumbs, the cart link, footer alignment and policy links.
• Sections: background, border, corner radius and shadow for the main area and the order summary, and the order summary divider.

The page loads your current settings, including anything set earlier in Checkout Blocks. Saving publishes straight to your live checkout. A blank field means Shopify's default, and Undo last save puts back exactly what your last save changed.

Results

The Results page shows what the app did for your orders over the last 7, 30 or 90 days, on every plan. It counts from the first order the app recorded after install.

• Totals: orders, revenue and average order value.
• Gifts: orders with a gift, gifts given and their value, and the average value of orders with a gift next to orders without one. That comparison is not the same as proof the gift caused the difference.
• Upsells: orders with an upsell, items sold and revenue. Only items added with the checkout Upsell block count. Clicks on Thank you page offers are not counted yet.
• Block views for each widget type on checkout, Thank you and Order status.

Sidekick

If your store uses Shopify Sidekick, you can ask it about your Smart Checkout Widgets setup. It can explain which payment or shipping rule hides, renames or reorders a method and when (for example, why cash on delivery is missing), list your gift campaigns with their status and dates, list your widgets and the pages they show on, and suggest a rule template. Sidekick only reads. To change something it gives you a link to the app, and nothing changes until you save there.

Conditions reference

Conditions decide whether a rule applies. Combine them with Always, Any, All, None, or Any not.

Things worth knowing

• Address conditions accept comma-separated values and match any of them, so PL, DE, FR is one condition rather than three.
• A customer tag condition checks one tag. Add another condition for a second tag. Product tag and collection can each appear once per rule.
• A date condition takes one date, written YYYY-MM-DD.
• Tag, order count and total spent need a signed-in customer. They never match a guest checkout, because there is no customer record to read.
• Missing data never matches. If checkout hasn't collected a value yet, conditions on it are false, including negative ones: "City is not Warsaw" is false when no city has been entered.
• Weight is in grams, whatever unit your variants use.

Plans and order limits

Starter, Growth and Advanced differ by how many orders a month they cover, and paid plans also let you limit a gift to specific customers. Pro adds order editing on every Shopify plan, and the stock urgency widget and checkout branding on Shopify Plus.

Yearly billing costs 20% less than twelve monthly charges. Starter needs no subscription. Each store gets one 7-day free trial of a paid plan. Switching between paid plans does not start a new trial, and a store that has paid before gets none. Development stores are not billed.

Troubleshooting

A widget is not appearing

1. Check the app block is placed on that page in Settings > Checkout > Customize, and that the block's settings point to your widget.
2. Check the widget is enabled, not just saved.
3. If the store is not on Plus, check the widget type works outside the checkout page. See Widgets.
4. Check the widget's display conditions, and whether the block is hidden on that device.
5. Check your order volume against your plan. See Plans and order limits.

A shipping or payment rule is not doing anything

1. Check the Apply to scope. A rule scoped to pickup locations never matches a shipping rate, however the name is spelled.
2. Check the conditions. Customer conditions don't match guest checkouts, and a condition on data checkout hasn't collected yet is false.
3. Check that the name you typed appears in the option's name at checkout. Matching is on the displayed name.

A gift stayed in the order after the coupon was removed

This is why gift variants should have a normal catalogue price. See the note under Coupon gifts. If it happens, email support with the order number.

FAQ

Does this require Shopify Plus?

No. Shipping and payment rules, gift discounts, the Thank you and Order status page widgets, order editing and Results work on every Shopify plan. Plus is needed for widgets on the checkout page itself, for adding gifts to the cart at checkout, and for checkout branding, because Shopify only allows those on Plus.

Does it work with checkout.liquid?

No, and it doesn't need to. The app uses Shopify's checkout extensibility, which replaces checkout.liquid.

Can I hide the "Pick up" option entirely?

No. Shopify lets apps hide individual pickup locations but not the delivery method itself. See Pickup locations.

Will my rules survive a Shopify checkout update?

Yes. Rules are stored against your shop and applied by Shopify Functions at checkout, so theme or checkout template changes don't affect them.

What happens to my configuration if I uninstall?

Widgets and rules stop applying straight away. Shopify requires us to erase the shop's data 48 hours after an uninstall, so reinstalling within that window and reactivating your plan restores your widgets. After 48 hours the configuration is gone and has to be set up again.

Something missing or wrong here? Email admin@thoughtbulb.dev and we will fix it.