Personalised Cart Offers for New and Returning Shopify Customers

New customers need a reason to trust you and finish a first order; returning customers need a reason to add something they have not tried; your highest spenders need recognition more than a discount. Showing each group a different cart offer is worth doing once one offer for everybody has stopped improving. This guide suggests offers for each audience, explains when a personalised price needs a notice shown to the shopper, and sets out how to target without making customers feel watched.

Which audiences are worth separating?

Start with three, based on purchase history, and add a fourth only if you have the order volume to fill it.

• New customers: no previous order.
• Returning customers: at least one previous order.
• VIPs: your most frequent or highest-spending customers, by whatever definition you already use.
• Spend tiers: bands of lifetime spend, if three groups prove too coarse.

Each audience you add is another offer to design, stock, explain and measure. On a small store, two groups, new and returning, are usually enough. Splitting further divides the same number of orders into thinner slices, and it takes longer to learn whether any one offer works.

Keep a default offer for everyone. Many visitors are not logged in, and a returning customer browsing on a new device looks new. The default is what they see, so it should be good in its own right. Judge each audience offer against that default, on profit per order, and retire any that does no better.

What should a new customer see?

Something that lowers the risk of a first order. A new customer does not yet know how your product fits, how fast you ship, or what a return involves. Offers that suit them:

• A reachable free-shipping threshold. Delivery cost is the easiest objection to remove.
• A sample or trial size as a gift. It introduces a second product at little cost to you. See how to offer a free gift with purchase.
• A starter add-on. The item that makes the main product work on day one: the case, the brush, the refill.

Avoid opening with a deep discount. It sets the price the customer expects next time, and it draws in buyers who will come back only for another one.

What should a returning customer see?

Something they have not bought before. A returning customer already trusts you, so the offer can ask a little more of them.

• A complement to their earlier orders. If they bought the cleanser, offer the moisturiser. Past orders are the best guide to what is relevant.
• A replenishment prompt. For consumables, a refill of what they bought, timed roughly to when it would run out.
• A higher reward tier. A second or third tier above free shipping gives a customer who already knows your range something to reach for.
• A cart-only deal on a product outside their usual category. Our guide to cart-only deals covers limits and margins.

Do not show a returning customer the welcome offer. It tells them you have not noticed they came back.

What do VIPs and higher spend tiers get?

Access and recognition first, money off second. Your best customers already buy without a discount, and giving them one costs the most margin for the least change in behaviour.

• Early or exclusive products: a new launch offered in the cart before it reaches the catalogue.
• A better gift: a full-size item where others get a sample.
• A plain acknowledgement: a line of text recognising a long-standing customer, attached to something real.

When does a personalised offer need a notice?

When it changes the price for some shoppers and not others based on data about them. Two disclosure rules are relevant:

• The EU Omnibus Directive requires telling the shopper that a price was personalised by automated decision-making.
• New York's Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act requires a prominent notice next to a price set by an algorithm using personal data.

The line to keep in mind: targeting by what is in the cart is not personalised pricing. An offer that anyone would see with the same basket treats everyone alike. Targeting by who the customer is, such as their order history or spend tier, can be personalised pricing when it changes what they pay.

So a returning-customer discount on a product is in scope, while a 'goes well with' suggestion at the normal price is not a price change at all. Other markets may have rules of their own, so check the position where you sell.

Marka Cart Drawer lets you decide which offers each audience sees, including new, returning and VIP customers and spend tiers, on its paid plans. When an offer targeted at an audience changes a price, the drawer adds the required notice automatically: New York's disclosure for visitors in the United States and the EU personalised-price notice for visitors in the European Union.

How do you personalise without being creepy?

Use what the customer knows you know, and say why they are seeing the offer. People accept that a shop remembers what they bought. They are unsettled by a shop that seems to know things they never told it.

Practical rules:

• Explain the offer. 'Because you bought the starter kit' or 'A thank-you for your third order' turns targeting into service.
• Stick to purchase history. Avoid offers built on inferences about health, family circumstances, finances or anything else sensitive, even when the data would allow it.
• Never make a loyal customer worse off. If a new visitor gets a better price than a returning one for the same item, the returning customer will find out.

A short checklist

1. Define new, returning and VIP in terms of data you already hold.
2. Keep a strong default offer for visitors you cannot identify.
3. Give new customers lower risk, returning customers something new, and VIPs access.
4. List every targeted offer that changes a price and confirm the notice appears beside it.
5. Add a short reason to each personalised offer.
6. Compare each audience offer with the default and drop the ones that do not earn their place.

Audience offers build on the basics in our guide to what a Shopify cart drawer should contain; get those right first. When you are ready to show different groups different offers, the audience options are listed on the Marka Cart Drawer page.