Matrix Bundles guide

How to let customers build their own bundle on Shopify

A build-your-own bundle lets the shopper choose the products — any three from your aftercare range, say — and pay less for taking them together. This is how to set one up, from install to a bundle a customer can buy, using the names the app uses on screen.

Shopify’s own free Bundles app makes fixed bundles and multipacks: you choose the products, and the shopper chooses options such as size or colour. For the shopper to choose the products themselves you need an app that does that, and this guide uses ours, Matrix Bundles. How the two compare.

The steps

  1. Put the products in a collection. Decide what a shopper can choose from, and keep those products in a collection. If you want “one cleanser, one serum, one cream”, use a collection for each. Anything you add to a collection later joins the bundle by itself, with nothing to change in the app. Use collections rather than product tags: a step can point at a tag, but the builder on your shop cannot draw a tag step, so the bundle would not show. More in the manual
  2. Install Matrix Bundles. Install it from its Shopify App Store listing. Free for one live bundle. $19 a month for Core, or $29 a month for Core + Discounts, each with a 14-day free trial. Once it is installed you will find it under Apps in your Shopify admin. More in the manual
  3. Make the bundle. Open Your bundles and create one. In the card headed The offer, give it a Bundle name — this is the name on the single line in the cart. Add a step for each choice, point it at a collection, and set At least: the fewest a shopper must take from it. Set it to 0 and the step is optional. Then set Items in all, the number of products that make the finished bundle. More in the manual
  4. Choose the saving. Under How they save, choose Percentage off and set the percentage. If your shop is on the new builder you can choose More items, bigger saving instead, and give each tier a number of items and a bigger percentage. The saving comes off the qualifying items as one price adjustment, so it uses none of your store’s discount slots. More in the manual
  5. Check what checkout will do. Press Save, then look at the panel headed What checkout will do on the bundle’s screen. It builds a cart from your own products, runs it against the rules you saved, and shows what checkout would do with it — including why a cart would not qualify. More in the manual
  6. Put the builder on your shop. Open Setup and status. The step called Add the builder to your theme opens your theme editor with the builder already placed; check where it sits and press Save there. On the new builder the step is called Create your bundle page, and it walks you through making a page for the builder. Make sure the block’s Bundle id is your bundle’s ID, copied from the bundle in the app. The builder draws only a live bundle, so it stays empty until you set the bundle live in the next step. Your theme needs to accept app blocks, which Online Store 2.0 themes do. More in the manual
  7. Set it live. Turn the bundle’s Status on. Until you do, it is a draft and nobody can buy it. More in the manual
  8. Make it look like your shop. How it looks sets the builder’s colours, corners and spacing. On the new builder it also has seven ready-made looks, a live preview and a switch between exact prices and estimates, and What customers read lets you change and translate every word the builder shows. More in the manual

What the shopper gets

The shopper picks from your collections on the bundle page, and once they have enough the builder says the bundle is ready. In the cart and at checkout the products they chose arrive as one line, with the bundle’s name and the lower price. The price and that single line are worked out by Shopify, so they hold even on routes that never run your theme.

On the order, each product is still recorded separately, grouped to the bundle it came from. Stock, picking, refunds and sales reports work on the real products, as they do for any other order.

Before you promise anything

  • A step has a minimum, never a maximum, and nothing stops a shopper taking the same product more than once.
  • The saving is a percentage, and a bundle can come with free gifts. A set bundle price, money off, buy-one-get-one and free shipping are not things it does, and a free gift comes only with a complete bundle, not for spending over an amount.
  • An item bought on a subscription never joins a bundle. That is Shopify’s rule, not ours.
  • A discount code can still apply on top of the bundle price, so check a real basket before you run a promotion.

The manual has every setting and what to do when something does not show. The support page answers the questions that come up most.

Install Matrix Bundles from the Shopify App Store