Downsells: when a customer says no, should you offer something cheaper?
A downsell is the offer that comes after a refusal. The customer declines the $40 upgrade, and a second screen suggests the $15 version instead. Funnel builders chain them — upsell, downsell, another upsell — and some Shopify apps let you build the same sequences after payment. The question is whether the second offer recovers a sale, or just adds a screen between your customer and their receipt.
When a downsell makes sense
- The first offer was refused on price, not on relevance. The customer wanted a case, just not the leather one.
- The cheaper version is genuinely useful on its own, not a stripped-down copy that exists to look cheap.
- It is a single step. One offer, one alternative, done.
When it backfires
- The two offers are for unrelated products. A refusal of a phone case says nothing about an interest in socks.
- The downsell is the same product at a lower price. Customers learn that saying no pays, and the first price loses its meaning.
- The chain is long. Each extra screen after payment delays the thank-you page, and some customers close the tab thinking something went wrong.
That last point matters more than it looks. After payment, the customer expects a confirmation. Shopify’s own guidance for post-purchase offers caps a sequence at three consecutive offers, and asks for a decline button that is always easy to see. Three is a ceiling, not a target.
A better first offer beats a downsell
A downsell is often a sign that the first offer was priced or chosen badly. Before adding a second screen, try improving the first one: a cheaper product, a smaller discount on a better-matched item, a clearer headline. An A/B test on the first offer usually recovers more than a downsell does, without asking the customer to say no twice.
If you test a downsell anyway
- Measure revenue per customer who saw the first offer, across both screens, not the downsell’s own acceptance rate. A downsell that converts well but pulls people away from the first offer can lose money.
- Watch the first offer’s acceptance before and after. If it drops, customers may have learned to wait.
- Keep an eye on support messages. Confusion about several charges is the first sign that a chain is too long.
How FlatUpsell handles it
FlatUpsell deliberately shows one offer per moment: one at the checkout click, one after payment, never a chain. To find the right price point, it lets you A/B test up to three products on the same post-purchase offer and compares them on revenue per view. In practice that answers the question a downsell asks — which version sells best? — without making anyone refuse twice.