Add to Cart behaviour [Shopify]

Premise: How personalized products are added to the cart

Shopify does not allow third-party apps to modify certain product information after an item has been added to the cart. In particular, apps cannot:

• Replace the product thumbnail shown in the cart and checkout with the customer's personalized version.
• Change the price of the original product in the cart.

To support product personalization while respecting these constraints, Zakeke provides two different Add to Cart behaviors. You can choose the one that best fits your store setup.

Option 1: Create an unlisted product copy (default)

To work around these Shopify limitations, Zakeke's default behavior is Create an unlisted product copy.

When the customer clicks Add to Cart, Zakeke automatically creates a duplicate of the original product containing the customer's personalization. This duplicated product is then added to the cart instead of the original one.

This approach allows Zakeke to:

• Display the personalized product thumbnail in the cart and checkout.
• Apply any price changes generated by the personalization via Pricing Rules.

The duplicated products are created as unlisted. This means they are not visible in the storefront, cannot be searched or browsed by customers, and can only be accessed through their direct URL.

Option 2: Never create a new product

If creating a new product (Option 1) is not desired, it is possible to avoid product duplication by enabling the Never create a new product option. In this case, Zakeke adds the original Shopify product directly to the cart instead of creating a duplicated personalized product. However, this approach introduces some limitations and changes in behavior:

• Product thumbnail
  The cart and checkout will display the original product thumbnail instead of the personalized version. A link to access the personalized product is still available in the cart (see image below).
  
  
  
  Displaying the personalized thumbnail is also possible, but it requires custom theme development.
   
• Pricing rules
  Because the original Shopify product is added to the cart, pricing rules configured in Zakeke apply with some limitations:
  • Pricing rules that decrease the product price are not supported.
  • Pricing rules that increase the product price are supported. In this case, Zakeke adds an additional product to the cart to apply the upcharge, creating a product bundle consisting of:
    • the original product with its original price;
    • an additional product used only to apply the pricing rule amount. 

The image used for the additional upcharge product can be configured directly in Shopify by the merchant.

Legacy version of Option 2

Some stores may still use the legacy version of the Never create a new product option.

This legacy version works the same way as Option 2, except for the following differences:

• For pricing rules that increase the product price (upcharges), the cart item does not include the additional amount. Instead, a note is shown indicating that the upcharge will be applied at checkout. At checkout, the product price is updated to include the final amount (original price + upcharges).
• Most important, this version requires theme modifications in order to work correctly. A dedicated guide is available here. However, custom code may still be required depending on the specific themes.

Warning

If you enable any version of the Never create a new product option, third-party accelerated checkout buttons (such as Amazon Pay, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc.) will be hidden on the cart page. Customers will still be able to use these payment methods during the standard Shopify checkout.

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Edit design

The Edit design feature allows customers to modify a personalized product after it has been added to the cart. It is not available by default in either option and requires custom development .

Option 1: A Duplicate & Edit flow can be implemented. The product is duplicated and the customer is redirected to the customizer to create a new personalization starting from the duplicated product.

Option 2: An Edit button can be added in the cart. This allows the customer to reopen the product in the customizer with the existing personalization, update it, and replace the previous item in the cart.

Both approaches require custom code. Please write us at [e-mail]