BOGOS: OurRecommendation forGifts by CustomerGroup

In short

BOGOS is our recommendation when a store wants to control gifts, bundles and "buy X, get Y" in one place. Its biggest strength: you decide which customer group sees which gift, retailers something different from consumers, for example. The gift lands in the cart automatically, nobody has to go looking for it. In use, the app ran without outages for us.

Our verdict: Recommended

We use BOGOS for a manufacturer that supplies retailers and consumers in the same Shopify store. The goal, put simply: two target groups, two gifts. Retailers get a different gift from consumers, and VIP customers get their own one again. Shopify itself doesn't serve gifts by customer group, so you need an app for that.

Since launch the app has run without snags: no problems with setup, theme or support. For us that's the most important quality in a promotion app. A promotion that fails to trigger over a weekend costs more than any monthly fee.

What BOGOS does better

• Gifts by customer tag. You show or hide gifts depending on tags such as "retailer", "shop customer" or "VIP". Important: this only works when customers are logged in.
• Automatically in the cart. Once the condition is met, BOGOS adds the gift to the cart itself. Alternatively, the customer picks from several gifts in a pop-up.
• Several promotions in one app. Gifts, bundles, "buy X, get Y", volume discounts, a progress bar to the next gift and checkout upsells. One app instead of three.

We use BOGOS for gifts and bundles. Volume discounts run through a different solution in our projects, but BOGOS could handle those too.

What to watch out for

• Maintain your tags. The whole setup stands and falls with customer tags. So far we set them by hand. With many new customers it's worth automating that with Shopify Flow, for example tagging every approved retailer automatically.
• Pricing by orders. The free version is limited to a few orders. The paid plans include a quota of orders per month, beyond that every order with a promotion costs extra. Checkout upsells are only in the Shopify Plus plan.
• Not everything at once. Because the app can do so much, overlapping promotions happen quickly. Plan beforehand which promotion applies when and to whom.

When you don't need BOGOS

Shopify can do "buy X, get Y" as a discount itself. The catch: the customer has to add the free product to the cart themselves, and you can't target it by customer group. If that's enough for you, you don't need an app. We don't know of a theme with built-in free gifts. As soon as gifts should land in the cart automatically or apply only to certain customers, there's no way around an app. More on how many apps a store can take is in our App Diet.

FAQ

Does BOGOS work in a store with B2B and B2C? Yes, via customer tags. Retailers and consumers see different gifts as long as they're logged in. How to separate both target groups in one store is explained in B2B and B2C in One Store.

Does BOGOS replace a bundle app? For sets and bundles in the cart, yes. If stock between set and individual product has to be synced exactly, we recommend Simple Bundles & Kits.

Is there a free version? Yes, but only for a few orders. For a running promotion you need a paid plan.

Will you set up BOGOS for us? Yes, usually as part of a project, including customer tags and adapting it to the theme. If you first want to know which apps your store really needs, our Audit is the fastest route.