Set Up The Recent Sales Notifications app
One of the best ways to increase your visitors' trust is by using the Recent Sales Notifications app. Social proof is one of the main drivers of trust in a product or brand, and you can easily increase that by displaying notifications that show how other customers have already bought products from your store!
With a variety of layouts to choose from, as well as plenty of fine-tuning options, the Recent Sales Notifications app is fully customizable, and it will catch your visitors' attention and increase trust!
If your store is brand new and does not have any orders, the Recent Sales Notifications will not show orders by default, but will instead show Add-to-Cart events instead. Zero-value orders (with 100% discount) are also not considered to prevent creating confusion for your visitors!
Here's how to set up Recent Sales Notifications on your store:
Setting up the Recent Sales Notifications app is not at all problematic. However, it comes with a broad set of options, so you can fine-tune the way it works to fit your needs.
First, you need to start by going to the Timing Settings section and configure the notifications' timings.
You will then need to configure the Add to Cart Events section by choosing if you want to show add to cart events and grouped add to cart events. Then configure the minimum number of add to carts for group notifications and the add to cart group notification template.
You can then customize it more according to how far you would like the app to show your store's orders.
By default, the app takes the orders starting with the most recent and then creates recent sales notifications for each order line item, moving towards orders older than one day. This can then be customized inside the Other Settings section:
With the setting above, order events that are older than the number of days you enter above will still appear, but will not show the date in the notification.
You can also hide orders before a set number of days. This can be done in the setting below:
Any orders that were made before the number of days entered above will not be shown by the app. This is very helpful as very old orders may not provide your visitors with your current popular products.
Finally, you can fine-tune other details, like choosing to show customer names or show the visitor's location, inside the Other Settings section.
The app takes the orders starting with the most recent and then creates recent sales notifications for each order line item, moving towards the very first order ever made in your store. Of course, the app will not show notifications of products with certain order IDs or product IDs excluded through the Hide for some products and orders setting in the app.
Frequently Asked Questions
Some of my orders are not yet fulfilled. Is the Recent Sales Notifications app going to show unfulfilled orders?
Yes, that is correct. All orders count and will show as long as they are made recently. By default, orders made within the last 30 days are seen, but this can be changed according to the number of days set in the "Don't show events older than" setting.
My store has recent orders, but I also set the app to also show Add-to-Cart events. Are orders going to show up first?
Yes, that is correct. The order events have priority over the Add to Cart events (if enabled), so all the order events from the selected period will be displayed, and the Add to Cart events will follow afterward.
If my store is fairly new and therefore has no orders, can I still use this app?
Absolutely! If a store is detected as new, our Recent Sales Notifications app has the "Add to Cart events" enabled by default. This way, visitors that are adding products to the cart (without needing to complete the order) will be shown by the app instead. This can be disabled in the app's settings if you like.
I enabled the Recent Sales Notifications app, but I do not see any sale notifications on my phone.
By default, the Recent Sales Notifications app is not displayed on mobile devices, as the screens of mobile devices are smaller, and the app might impact the visual experience of your visitors. However, you can still disable this restriction in the settings of the app.
Recent Sales Notifications App Settings
Layout
- Square
- Big Picture
- Rounded Big Picture
- Rounded Picture
- Space Between
Theme
- Custom - By selecting this option, you can customize the colors used by the Recent Sales Notifications app
- Theme - By selecting this option, you can choose
Custom Settings
- Where should the widget slide in from?
- Bottom
- Left
- Link Font Size (in pixels)
- Text font Size (in pixels)
- Box border radius (in pixels)
Timing Settings
- Seconds before the first notification is shown
- Time on screen (seconds)
- Delay between notifications (seconds)
- Notifications per session - This is the maximum number of notifications shown to the same visitor during a browsing session.
Add to Cart Settings
- Show Add to Cart events - if this is enabled, add to cart events will be shown as notifications as well. This is especially useful if the store does not have orders yet but would still want the store to show activity.
- Show grouped Add to cart events - If this is enabled, the Add to Cart Events will only be shown as a group (ex. "13 people added this product to cart today").
- Minimum number of add to carts for group notifications - Set this value to the number of add to carts you would like to show as a group notification.
- Add to Cart Group Notification Template - You can customize the text shown in that group notification here. Use the variable ##count## as the placeholder for the minimum number of Add to cart Events. We highly discourage placing fake data here, as it is against Shopify's Acceptable Use Policy.
Other Settings
- Show Customer Names - If enabled, it will show the customer names of the orders showing in the Recent Sales Notification app. If you are based in the EU or if you have customers from the EU, we highly recommend disabling this option for GDPR purposes.
- Show the Customer's Location - If enabled, the notification will also show where the customer ordered from (General location only)
- Open links in new tab - If this is enabled, when the visitor clicks on the Recent Sales Notification, the product will be opened in the notification in a new tab.
- Hide on Mobile - Will not show the Recent Sales Notifications app on mobile if this is enabled. Because the mobile screen is much smaller, this can be enabled to avoid it taking space in your store on mobile devices.
- Show "Verified by Vitals" badge - If enabled, it will show a "Verified by Vitals" badge in the popup. This will create an extra sense of trust for your visitors.
- Show when the order was placed - If enabled, it will show relative time from the time the order was placed (ex. "2 hours ago").
- Hide the date for events older than (days) - Events older than the specified days here will not show the order date.
- Don't show events older than (days) - If no events are found in this specified period, the Recent Sales Notifications app will not be displayed.
Hide for some products and orders
- Hide certain products - Product IDs entered here will not be used and displayed by the Recent Sales Notifications app.
- Hide Certain Orders - Order IDs entered here will not be used and displayed by the Recent Sales Notifications app.
Translations - If you are looking to translate specific words used by the Recent Sales Notifications app into either another language/string, you can do so in this section.