Free gifts and draft orders

Two things your team can do from a customer's cart in Cart Helper: put a free gift in it, and turn it into a draft order to take payment or send an invoice.

Free gifts

A free gift is a product your team adds to one customer's cart at no charge: a sample, a sorry-for-the-delay, a thank-you for a big order. It goes into their cart as its own line and is free at checkout. Only that customer gets it.

Give a gift

1. In Cart Helper, select the customer.
2. In Step 2: Select Products, pick the product and set the quantity.
3. Tick Free gift on its line.
4. Optionally click the pencil (Edit gift message) and type a Gift message, up to 60 characters, such as "Thanks for your patience". Left blank, the line says Free gift. Under the line, Cart Helper shows how it will read, for example: Shows as "Free gift" in the cart.
5. Click Save Cart to followed by the customer's email.

The gift shows in Current Cart with a Free gift badge, and as Pending until it's in the customer's browser cart. Out of stock, draft and archived products can't be gifts.

You can give a paid line and a gift of the same variant. They stay as separate lines, and saving a gift never asks whether to merge quantities.

What the customer sees

On their next visit, signed in, the gift is added to their cart as its own line. At checkout it's discounted to 0, labelled with your gift message (or Free gift, translated into French, German, Italian, Japanese or Spanish for shoppers browsing in those languages). Whether the label also shows in the cart depends on your theme showing line discounts, as Dawn does.

• Only the quantity you gave is free. If the customer raises the quantity on the gift line, the extra units are charged at the normal price.
• The customer has to be signed in at checkout. The discount checks the gift against their customer record.
• Nobody else can claim it. A gift is tied to one customer and one product variant. A shopper can't make a line free from the storefront.

The CartSync Pro free gifts discount

The first time anyone saves a gift, CartSync Pro creates an automatic discount called CartSync Pro free gifts in Discounts. It applies only to gift lines your team gave, and it combines with your product, order and shipping discounts.

Leave it active. If you delete it, CartSync Pro creates it again the next time a gift is saved, but gifts already in carts aren't free until then.

Where a gift goes from there

CartSync Pro follows each gift through these stages. Cart Helper shows the gift as Pending until it's in the cart, and the home page counts how many were redeemed, are still open (pending or in cart) and were declined.

A gift the customer hasn't ordered stays in their saved cart after they place an order, for next time.

The home page's Free gifts and draft orders insights count gifts given, redeemed (with their cost at the price when given), still open, and declined. See Insights and attribution.

Change or take back a gift

• To take a gift back, remove its line in Current Cart and click Save Changes. It's no longer free, even if the customer still has the line in a browser cart.
• To change the message or quantity, remove the gift and give it again with the new message or quantity.
• To offer a declined gift again, give it again from Step 2.

Draft orders

Turn the customer's saved cart into a draft order in Shopify, then take payment the way you usually do for drafts: send an invoice, enter a card, or mark it as paid.

Create a draft order

1. In Cart Helper, select the customer. Their saved cart needs at least one item.
2. In the Draft order card, tick Email the invoice to the customer if you want Shopify to send the invoice now.
3. Click Create draft order.

Cart Helper confirms with the draft's number, for example "#D12 created." or "#D12 created and the invoice was emailed.", and an Open draft order button. If the draft was made but the invoice couldn't be sent, it says why. Open the draft and send the invoice from Shopify.

What's in the draft

• Every line in the saved cart, with its quantity, including Pending lines that aren't in the customer's browser cart yet. Stock isn't checked again.
• Free gifts that are still active, with a 100% line discount titled Free gift. The gift message isn't used on drafts.
• The customer, with their default address.
• The tag CartSync Pro and the note "Created from saved cart by" followed by the staff member's name, "in CartSync Pro".

The draft is made from the saved cart. Products picked in Step 2 but not saved yet, and quantity changes you haven't saved with Save Changes, aren't in it. Save first.

Earlier draft orders

The Draft order card lists the last 10 drafts your team created for this customer from Cart Helper, with the date, who created it, the total and a status: Open, Invoice sent, Paid or Deleted. Click a number to open it in Shopify.

Statuses are brought up to date when someone opens the CartSync Pro home page. A draft that was paid a minute ago can still say Open in Cart Helper until then.

After the draft is paid

When the customer pays, Shopify turns the draft into an order. Like any order from that customer, it empties their saved cart, except gifts that weren't in it.

The customer's browser may still hold the same items. If they open your store there, those items can be saved back to their cart. If you'd rather they leave the online cart as soon as you've made the draft, click Clear Cart in Cart Helper after creating it. You can bring the items back from Cart history if the invoice isn't paid.

Troubleshooting

The gift was charged at checkout. Check that the customer was signed in at checkout, that the CartSync Pro free gifts discount is active in Discounts, and that the gift's line still shows in Current Cart. A gift that was removed by the customer or by your team is no longer free.

The gift isn't in the customer's cart. It shows as Pending until their next signed-in visit. If the product is out of stock by then, it can't be added.

Create draft order is greyed out. The customer's saved cart is empty. Add products in Step 2 and save first.

The draft is missing a gift. Only gifts that are still active go in. A gift that was redeemed, declined or revoked is left out.