Part 2. Raise the cart
6 What to show after a yes, and after a no
A refusal is not the end of the funnel. It is where the second offer belongs, and usually where the downsell earns its money.
Your funnel is a tree, not a list. Every offer has two children: one shown if the buyer accepts, one shown if the buyer declines. They should almost never be the same product.
Shopify allows up to three offers per order, so the tree is at most three levels deep.
After a yes, go adjacent
Someone who just accepted is warm. Do not push the same thing again, and do not jump to something unrelated. Go sideways.
They took the wax, so offer the tuning kit. They took the second bottle, so offer the travel size. The logic is the same as the companion offer in chapter 5, applied one step further along.
After a no, change the reason
This is the branch most merchants leave empty, and it is the one that pays.
A refusal usually means one of two things: wrong product, or wrong price. So the decline branch should change one of them, not repeat both.
Change the price. The same offer, cheaper. This is the classic downsell and it works because the buyer already looked at the product and said no to a number, not to the item.
Change the product. Something cheaper and different, when you suspect the first offer simply missed.
Nothing is excluded automatically. The app will happily show a buyer the product they just declined, at a better price, if that is what you configured. That is deliberate: re-offering at a lower price is a legitimate tactic and we do not override your choice. It does mean you should look at what your decline branch actually contains.
Know when to stop
Three offers is the ceiling, and it is a ceiling, not a target. Every extra screen between the payment and the confirmation costs a little goodwill. Two is a good place to settle. Go to three when your numbers show the second one still converting.
What you should have now
A funnel two levels deep, with something in the decline branch. Place another test order and decline the first offer on purpose, so you see the second screen with your own eyes.
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