How To Build An Effective Sales Funnel In Shopify

Last updated on February 14th, 2025 at 05:45 am

Do you know why so many eCommerce businesses are struggling to stay afloat despite having great products?

It’s because these eCommerce stores aren’t designed to sell – they are designed to serve as catalogs that people can order from.

This can work well with existing customers but it’s a terrible way to acquire new customers. So what should you do instead?

Build a sales funnel!

Here’s how…

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a system for converting potential customers into leads, leads into paying customers, and paying customers into repeat customers.

All businesses have a sales funnel that follows this general structure:

• Top of the funnel: Target audience
• Middle of the funnel: Potential customers
• Bottom of the funnel: Existing customers

(One exception is VC-funded startups that focus on growth as opposed to profit but then they use the same structure to acquire users instead of customers.)

However, when we use the term “sales funnel”, we aren’t talking about this core structure that every sales funnel follows as it’s too generic to be helpful.

We are talking about specific sales funnel models and templates that you can use to grow an online business.

What is the Value Ladder Sales Funnel?

We believe that the most effective sales funnel model out there is the Value Ladder sales funnel.

It was created by our co-founder Russell Brunson who then used it to take ClickFunnels from zero to $10M+ in annual revenue in just one year (it’s at $100M+ now!).

This sales funnel has four stages:

• Bait – You offer the potential customer your lead magnet in exchange for their email address.
• Frontend – You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product or service.
• Middle – You offer the customer a more expensive and valuable product or service.
• Backend – You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product or service.

Ideally, you also offer a continuity program of some sort, meaning, a subscription product that generates recurring revenue.

We also recommend adding downsells, upsells, and cross sells to these core offers in order to maximize your revenue.

The reason why this sales funnel works so well is that it allows you to:

1. Start the relationship with that person by offering free value
2. Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value via email
3. Build trust by providing more paid value progressively at each stage

Here’s how Russell explains it:

The Value Ladder sales funnel provides an overall structure that we recommend using if you want to grow your online business as fast as possible.

However, within that structure, you can have various smaller sales funnels for specific use cases.

For example:

• Squeeze page funnel
• Reverse squeeze page funnel
• Product launch funnel
• Survey funnel
• Cart funnel
• Book funnel
• Webinar funnel

…etc.

It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

Russell wrote a best-selling book about using sales funnels to grow your online business, so if you want to learn more we recommend checking it out.

You can get it for FREE – all we ask is that you cover the shipping!

Get Your FREE Copy of “DotCom Secrets”!

Which Sales Funnel Should You Use for Your Shopify Store?

You should build a cart funnel for your ecommerce business.

It has four pages:

1. Sales page
2. Upsell
3. Cross sell
4. Thank you page

How to Build a Cart Funnel for Your Shopify Store

You can use our software to build your cart funnel. We offer a template for it + a Shopify integration.

Now let’s take a closer look at each of the four pages:

Page #1: Sales Page

Okay, so the first page of the cart funnel, the one that you will be driving traffic to with paid ads, is the sales page.

Promote Your Best-Selling Product

Look at your sales data and identify your best-selling product. That’s the product that you want to promote on your sales page.

Not your latest product, not your favorite product, not your most expensive product, etc.

Your best-selling product.

Take Your Best-Selling Product, Turn It Into an Offer

But you don’t want to sell that product by itself. You want to turn it into an offer. What’s the difference between the two?

• A product is an item
• An offer is the bundle of value that you present to the potential customer

One of the most common business mistakes that we see in the eCommerce industry is entrepreneurs selling products instead of creating offers.

The problem with this is that you are presenting your product as a commodity which means that the potential customer will be inclined to price shop.

This is especially true if you are selling the exact same product that other businesses in your niche are selling. Dropshippers are especially vulnerable when it comes to price shopping.

That’s why you need to take that product and turn it into an offer that is exclusive to your online store and that the potential customer can’t get anywhere else.

When Russell had a supplement company, there were people selling the exact same product on Amazon.

He was selling it for $67 per bottle.

They were selling it for $19.95 per bottle.

So why was Russell able to command a price that was more than 3x higher?

It was because he didn’t just sell the product.

He added additional items to it to create a bundle of value aka an offer that potential customers couldn’t get anywhere else.

You need to find a way to bundle your best-selling product with something else to create an exclusive offer.

We recommend bundling it with digital products.

Say, if you are selling supplements, you could bundle your best-selling product with a weight loss guide, a meal plan, a calorie tracker, whatever. 

Here’s the formula for creating an irresistible offer:

High Value + Low Price = Irresistible Offer

2-Step Order Form

Use a 2-step order form on your sales page:

• Step #1: Shipping information
• Step #2: Payment details

The psychology behind splitting the order form is that the potential customer makes a micro-commitment by providing their shipping information.

This makes them more likely to provide their payment details and finalize the purchase.

Order Form Bump

Finally, you want to add an order form bump to your 2-step order form.

You know how grocery stores have all these small items next to the checkout area (chewing gum, candy bars, etc.)?

They do that because they know that people will be tempted to grab a Kit Kat and throw it in their shopping cart.

An order form bump is the eCommerce equivalent of that Kit Kat – something inexpensive that the potential customer might add to their cart on an impulse because why not.

The key here is to keep it simple because an order bump should be something that doesn’t need an explanation (e.g. rushed shipping).

Our software has a cart funnel template that includes a 2-step order form and an order form bump.

Page #2: Upsell

An upsell is an offer that you make to the potential customer after they have accepted your main offer – it’s supposed to be an upgrade on it.

The classic example is the infamous “Would you like to supersize that?” McDonald’s upsell.

You want to use this exact approach on your upsell page – simply offer the potential customer more of the same thing.

Say, if they added a bottle of supplements to their cart, offer them a bigger bottle for a better price. Or several bottles for a better price. Or a regular supplement delivery for a better price. You get the idea.

Of course, that’s not always possible, as the “supersize” approach doesn’t work with some products.

Say, if your main offer is a travel backpack, then upselling a bigger travel backpack may not make sense as the potential customer probably has already chosen the size that they need.

In that case, instead of offering an upsell, you should offer a cross sell.

Page #3: Cross Sell

A cross sell is also an offer that you make to the potential customer after they have accepted your main offer but instead of being an upgrade on it, it’s supposed to be complementary to it.

Say, if your main offer is a travel backpack, then you could cross sell:

• Packing cubes
• Travel belt
• Travel wallet

…etc.

There should only be one cross sell per page, so pick a product that complements your main offer the best.

Bonus: Create a Digital Cross Sell!

You can drastically increase your profits by creating a digital cross sell because the profit margins of digital products are insanely high compared to those of physical products.

Here are some ideas:

• A video lesson or a video course that explains how to make the most out of your best-selling product.
  Say, if your main offer is a travel backpack, you could cross sell packing cubes on page 2, then cross sell a video that teaches various packing tricks on page 3.
• A video course or an email course that teaches the potential customer a skill that they want to learn.
  Say, if your main offer is a makeup kit, you could upsell a larger makeup kit on page 2, then cross sell a video course with makeup tutorials for that specific kit on page 3.
• An eBook that offers information that the potential customer needs.
  Say, if your main offer is a wool sweater, you could cross sell an eBook guide on taking care of wool items on page 2, then cross sell a kit for washing wool clothes on page 3.

It’s best to keep these digital upsells in the impulse buy range. We believe that $7 is a great price here. Why?

Because it’s a price point that isn’t low enough to make the potential customer skeptical of the value of that product but also isn’t high enough to make them stop and think twice before purchasing it.

Keep in mind that we are talking about digital products –  $7 might not seem like much, but consider that this revenue will be almost entirely profit.

This might help you get ahead of the competition because it would allow you to spend more money on acquiring customers.

And as the famous Dan Kennedy quote goes:

“Ultimately, the business that can spend the most to acquire a customer wins.”

Page #4: Thank You Page

Finally, you should create a thank you page, where you:

• Thank the customer
• Provide shipping information
• Provide customer service information

We also recommend displaying an offer wall – a catalog that showcases your other products.

Can You Have More Than Four Pages in Your Cart Funnel?

This four-page cart funnel structure is the classic version of it.

You can add more upsells and cross sells to your funnel but 2-3 is the ideal number because it allows you to maximize your revenue without overwhelming the potential customer.

That means that adding one extra page to your cart funnel is okay but we wouldn’t advise going beyond that unless you know what you’re doing.

Watch Russell Build a Cart Funnel in Real Time

Russell did a livestream together with copywriting expert Jim Edwards where they built a cart funnel in real time using ClickFunnels software.

Check it out if you want to learn more about the reasoning behind the cart funnel structure and see what building one with our app looks like:

Case Study: How Colin Wayne Built a $40 Million eCommerce Store

Colin Wayne used to be one of the most successful fitness models on the planet – he had been featured on more than 50 fitness magazine covers.

And the money was great, too. At the peak of his career, he was bringing in $30k-$40k per month.

But eventually, he started asking himself “What’s next?”.

Today, he’s the CEO of Redline Steel – an eCommerce business that has generated over $40 million in revenue so far.

So how did he go from a fitness model to a wildly successful eCommerce entrepreneur?

Build Your Shopify Sales Funnel With ClickFunnels (Free 14-Day Trial!)

We are biased here…

But we believe our software is the best way to build a Shopify sales funnel and boost sales.

After all, it offers:

• A cart funnel template.
• A step-by-step process for building your cart funnel.
• A Shopify integration that allows you to connect ClickFunnels to your Shopify store in just a few clicks.

There’s also a free 14-day trial – you can try our software and see if it works for you.

So what are you waiting for?

Start Your Free 14-Day Trial