Shopify Gift Picker Popup

Let shoppers choose their variant at the cart. Size, color, flavor, scent, sample pack.

The gift picker is the feature merchants mention first when they review Promo Party Pro. From Hoonigan: "The variant selection popup for gifts with purchase is great, and the app UI feels very Shopify-coded and super easy." The reason it gets called out is simple: almost no other tool on Shopify, native or app, lets the shopper pick their gift variant cleanly.

What the Gift Picker Does

A shopper qualifies for a free gift. Instead of the merchant choosing one variant for everyone, a popup appears at the cart showing all available gift variants. The shopper picks one. It adds to the cart. Checkout proceeds normally. No code entered. No discount applied visibly. The gift is free.

The popup lives at the cart layer, not at checkout, which means it runs on every Shopify storefront including stores that have custom checkout flows. It respects inventory in real time, so a variant that just sold out disappears from the picker without anyone needing to update the campaign.

When It Matters

The gift picker pays off when your gift product has meaningful variety. Three common cases:

• Beauty and skincare. A free travel-size sample means different things to different shoppers. A dry-skin cleanser is worthless to someone with oily skin. The picker lets each shopper land on a variant they will actually use, which is the difference between the gift building loyalty versus going straight into a drawer.
• Food and beverage. Four flavors of a free sample pack. Customers who like the brand have a favorite. Customers new to the brand want to try something they haven't. Both groups choose differently. One auto-added variant serves neither well.
• Apparel and accessories. Size matters more than almost anything. A free T-shirt in one pre-selected size gets returned or thrown out. A picker that asks S/M/L/XL gets the size right the first time.

Why It Outperforms Auto-Add

There is a category of gift-with-purchase apps that only offers auto-add-to-cart. A shopper qualifies and the gift lands in their cart without asking. That works for a single-variant gift. It does not work when you are handing out a variant the shopper didn't want.

Auto-add feels generous on the merchant side ("I am giving them something free") and indifferent on the shopper side ("I got the wrong one"). The variant popup changes that. The three seconds a shopper spends clicking their preferred flavor turn the gift from a token into a thing they actually picked. That small moment of choice is what shows up in loyalty-metric data months later.

How to Set It Up

1. Install Promo Party Pro from the Shopify App Store and enable the theme embed once.
2. Create a new campaign. Choose your trigger (cart value, product, or quantity).
3. For the gift, select the product and all of the variants you want shoppers to choose from.
4. Leave the "show gift picker" toggle on (default). Save and preview.
5. Launch. The popup appears at the cart the moment the shopper qualifies.

That is the full setup. If you list only one variant, the picker is skipped and the gift auto-adds. If you list multiple, the picker appears.

Common Questions

What is a gift picker on a Shopify store?

A gift picker is a popup that appears at the cart when a shopper qualifies for a free gift that has multiple variants. Instead of the merchant picking one variant for everyone, the shopper chooses which one they want before checkout: flavor, color, size, scent, or sample pack. It preserves the feeling that the gift was tailored to them.

What if a shopper picks a variant that is out of stock?

The gift picker only shows variants with available inventory. If a variant sells out mid-campaign, it disappears from the picker. If every variant in the gift pool sells out, the campaign pauses automatically and you see a warning in the app dashboard.

Can I skip the picker and auto-add a single variant?

Yes. If you list only one variant as the gift, Promo Party Pro adds it silently and the popup never appears. The popup only shows when there is an actual choice for the shopper to make.

How is the gift picker different from Shopify's native Buy X Get Y?

Shopify's native Buy X Get Y has no UI for variant choice. You either pick one variant for every shopper or create multiple parallel BXGY discounts, which is a maintenance mess. Promo Party Pro's gift picker is the reason most merchants move off native BXGY to a GWP app. See the full comparison on Shopify's Built-in BXGY vs Promo Party.

Does the gift picker work on mobile?

Yes. The popup is responsive and renders cleanly on mobile screens. Since the majority of Shopify traffic is mobile, the variant popup being mobile-first is a hard requirement, not a nice-to-have.

Related Features

• Spend thresholds — trigger the gift picker on cart value instead of quantity.
• Scheduled promotions — set start and end dates on picker campaigns.
• All GWP app features — the full feature list in one place.