An ecommerce sales funnel is the path one buyer takes from a product page to a paid order, plus the offers around it: a pack choice on the product page, a cart add-on, order bumps at checkout, one-click upsells after payment and a last offer on the thank-you page.
The example below is a complete one you can click through, page by page.
If your store stops at "thank you for your order", I'd build the checkout and upsell steps before buying more traffic.
Most guides on this term stop at awareness and consideration. This one follows a single buyer through the six steps of Kinsole, a fictional insole store built as an ElasticFunnels template kit, and every page is live: the product page with its cart drawer, the checkout, first upsell, second upsell and thank-you page.
Each section shows the page, lists what it sells and ends with what the kit has already set up for you. You can start your own store from the same kit and change it from there.
Click through the whole funnel as a buyer would. Every page of the kit is live, and checkout runs in test mode: pay with card 4242 4242 4242 4242, any future expiry date and any CVC. No real charge.
| Page | What it sells | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Product page | 1, 2, 3 or 5 pairs, free PDF guide with every pack | $27.00 to $83.70 |
| Cart drawer | Arch massage roller, then 2 extra pairs | $29.00, $32.40 |
| Checkout | Pack switch and three order bumps | $3.99 to $29.00 |
| Upsell 1 | Buy one, get one: 2 pairs | $27.00 |
| Upsell 2 | Relief kit: roller plus one pair | $39.99 |
| Thank-you page | Four add-ons, a partner slot, a survey | $9.75 to $29.25 |
1. The product page: content that sells, then the pack ladder
In this funnel the landing page is the product page itself.
- Above the fold: star rating, title, $27.00 against $42.00 with a Flash sale tag, and three one-line benefits.
- The choice: five colours, eleven sizes and a size chart.
- Urgency: "Sale price held for" with a countdown, right above the packs.
- Trust: tracked shipping, a 90-day money-back guarantee and support seven days a week.
- Below the fold: a before-and-after block, use cases, customer photos, reviews by job, an expert note, a comparison table, a card for the free guide, reviews and an FAQ.
The pack ladder
Instead of a quantity stepper, the buyer picks a pack, and each one shows its price per pair.
| Pack | Price | Per pair | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 pair | $27.00 | $27.00 | |
| 2 pairs | $45.90 | $22.95 | Most popular |
| 3 pairs | $56.70 | $18.90 | |
| 5 pairs | $83.70 | $16.74 | Best value |
Each pair after the first costs well under the $27 single price. That is how a shopper reads the ladder. "Most popular" gives a careful buyer a safe step up, and "Best value" shows the committed buyer where the floor is.
Every pack also comes with the Happy Feet Handbook, a PDF bonus with a $19 list price that costs nothing to deliver.
The four packs as one product with a "Pairs" option, prices read live from your Products, the guide attached to every pack as a bonus, and the countdown, size chart and FAQ wired up.
2. The cart drawer: one add-on, then one last offer
Add to cart opens the cart as a drawer over the product page. It shows the order, a free-shipping bar and a single add-on.
- Free-shipping bar: free over $50. With two pairs in the cart it reads "Spend $4.10 more to get free shipping".
- Add-on: the arch massage roller for $29.00, with an Add button under the cart lines.
- Last offer: the first click on Checkout opens 2 extra pairs for $32.40, with a colour and size picker, then a "No thanks, go to checkout" link.
The offer works because its price is real. At $16.20 a pair it is the cheapest pair in the whole funnel, so it reads as a reward for buying.
The platform cart as a drawer on the product page, the shipping threshold as a variable you set once, the roller as its own cart product, and the extra-pairs offer with its own checkout-only price.
3. The checkout: change the pack without leaving the page
Every buy link goes to the funnel's checkout page, with the chosen pack already selected.
- Preselected pack: the link carries the pack's product code (
?p=KNS-1), so the buyer arrives with their choice ticked. - In-place switch: tapping another pack swaps it without a reload, updates the order line and the total, and a refresh keeps the choice.
- The rest: email, delivery address, shipping method and card, with the order summary and a photo of each line beside it.
The bigger pack is easiest to sell when the buyer is reaching for their card. Moving up from one pair to three is a single tap, with the per-pair price in plain view.
The pack selector with all four packs on the checkout page, the funnel's checkout set for every buy link, and the summary that follows the pack.
4. Order bumps: three small add-ons at checkout
An order bump is an optional add-on on the checkout page: the buyer ticks it before paying, and it is charged with the same order. Here, shipping protection sits under the shipping method, and the other two sit under the order summary.
| Order bump | Price | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| Shipping protection | $3.99 | A cheap yes on any order: a free reship if the parcel is lost, stolen or damaged |
| Toe spacers | $23.00 | Same problem, other end of the foot: tight work shoes |
| Arch massage roller | $29.00 | The evening after a shift, for buyers who skipped it in the cart drawer |
None of the three is pre-ticked. A charge the buyer didn't choose comes back as a refund request or a chargeback, and chargebacks count against your merchant account long after the small extra is spent.
Three bump products with their own photo, line and price: shipping protection as a box under the shipping method, the toe spacers and the roller under the order summary, each added only when the buyer ticks it or taps Add.
5. Upsell 1: buy one, get one, with one click
Right after the payment, the buyer sees one offer before the thank-you page.
- Offer: 2 pairs for $27.00, shown against $54.00.
- One click: "Accept offer" charges the card from the first order. No card form.
- Reason to decide now: a three-minute timer and "Offer only valid on this order".
- "Decline this offer": goes to upsell 2, the same page a yes leads to.
It sells more of what they just chose, so it needs no new argument. They already decided they want insoles, and a free pair for the other work shoes is the easiest yes in the funnel.
The upsell page, its product and the one-click accept link, wired in the funnel so a yes and a no both lead to upsell 2.
6. Upsell 2: the relief kit
The second offer is a different product that finishes the job.
- Offer: the Plantar Relief Kit for $39.99, shown against $75.00.
- Pitch: the roller loosens the foot in the evening, the insoles hold the arch during the shift.
- Next page: yes or no, the buyer goes on to the last page.
The order of the two upsells is deliberate. Put the kit first and the buyer has to judge a new product while still thinking about the order they just placed. After the free pair, a roller is the natural next question.
The second upsell page with its own product, the same one-click accept, and the funnel route to the thank-you page.
7. Downsells: where one would go
A downsell is a cheaper version of an offer, shown to a buyer who just declined it.
- This kit has none. Both upsells send a yes and a no to the same next page.
- Where one fits: on the decline branch of an upsell, for example one extra pair at a lower price after a no on the buy-one-get-one.
- How to add it: a new page on the upsell's "no" branch in the funnel builder. The one-click upsell and downsell tutorial shows the steps.
I'd add one only once the first upsell has enough declines to test against. Until then, a downsell has nothing to learn from.
8. The thank-you page: four more offers and a survey
The last page confirms the order, and it still sells.
| Thank-you offer | Price | Shown against |
|---|---|---|
| Plush insoles, 1 pair | $20.25 | $42.00 |
| Foot massage slippers | $29.25 | $60.00 |
| Heel cushion pads, 1 pair | $9.75 | $20.00 |
| Kids massage insoles, 1 pair | $19.50 | $40.00 |
- Order summary: built from the buyer's real order. The library preview shows an example order, PREVIEW-1048.
- Four add-ons: each Add button is a one-click offer on the same card, shipped in the size of the first pair.
- Partner offer: a slot that appears once you fill in its title, text and link.
- Survey: six questions, one per screen, starting with "Where did you first hear about Kinsole?" The answers are saved with the order they belong to.
The first survey answer is the one to read next to your ad data. Your tracking says which ad got the click. The buyer says what they remember: a friend, a TikTok video, a Google search.
The order summary, the four add-on products, the partner slot as variables, and the survey answers stored in your CRM against the order.
The images in this funnel
Every product image in the kit is a placeholder for your own product.
- Product page: the hero and three gallery infographics (anatomy, colours, trim to size).
- Offers: the cart drawer's extra-pairs image, both upsell images and the roller.
- Brand: all eight show the fictional Kinsole insole, so none can ship as they are.
The math: what each step adds to the order
The take rates below are made up for illustration. They are plausible guesses, and yours will differ.
| Step (hypothetical take rate) | Revenue per 100 buyers | Per order |
|---|---|---|
| Packs: 50 take 1 pair, 30 take 2, 12 take 3, 8 take 5 | $1,350 + $1,377 + $680.40 + $669.60 = $4,077.00 | $40.77 |
| Bumps: 10 rollers, 8 toe spacers, 25 shipping protections | $290 + $184 + $99.75 = $573.75 | $5.74 |
| Upsell 1: 15 take buy one, get one | 15 × $27 = $405.00 | $4.05 |
| Upsell 2: 8 take the relief kit | 8 × $39.99 = $319.92 | $3.20 |
| Total | $5,375.67 | $53.76 |
About double the single-pair order, before the cart offers and the thank-you add-ons. The pack ladder carries most of the lift.
Bigger packs also cost more to make and ship, and a page full of offers can lower how many visitors buy at all. That is why every step here is something to test. And it is why AOV (average order value) decides what you can pay for a buyer: a $25 CPA leaves nothing on a $27 order.
Ecommerce sales funnel optimization: what to test first
Test in the order the money moves.
- The pack ladder. Which pack is preselected, which carries "Most popular", the two-pack's price.
- Upsell 1's offer. A free pair against a two-pair add-on at another price. Same page, one change.
- The bumps. Which three, and in what order. A bump nobody takes is space a better one could use.
- The product page. Headline, first image, the review block. They matter, but they need the most traffic to read.
Judge each test on revenue per visitor as well as conversion rate. A page that sells more single pairs and fewer three-packs can win on conversions and lose money. The A/B test sample size calculator tells you how much traffic a test needs, and how to split test landing pages covers testing under one URL so your ads stay untouched.
A Shopify sales funnel or a funnel built for it?
You can assemble most of this on a store theme with apps.
- One app per step: a bundle app for the ladder, a cart drawer app, a bump app, a post-purchase app, each with its own settings and bill.
- Post-purchase offers: built on a checkout extension that Shopify's developer docs mark as beta, with one app showing offers, at most three accepted, and none for wallet or buy-now-pay-later payments (Shopify, post-purchase product offers).
For a catalogue store, that trade can be fine. For one hero product on paid traffic, the funnel is the business, and I'd want every page, the checkout and the upsells in one place with one report. More in best Shopify alternatives.
Build this funnel from the kit in ElasticFunnels
Everything above is one template kit. Here is the path in the app, which took us about a minute and a half on a local copy (allow about two minutes on a real account).
- Pick the kit. Create page, Choose Template, then the Kits tab.
Starting a new store instead? Open the project switcher, click Create a new brand, pick E-commerce, and the insole kit is under Start from a kit: store kits first, then funnel kits like this one.
- Read the review. It draws the funnel as a map with a thumbnail of each page, then lists every page and every product with its price.
- Apply it. Leave "Create the 16 products" on and press Apply kit. It runs in the background.
- Make it yours. Change prices in Products, swap the brand name, photos and copy, and replace every review, rating and customer count with your own before the page sees traffic.
Using ElasticFunnels? Follow the step-by-step tutorial: build an ecommerce funnel from a template.
- Custom checkout with the in-place pack switch and order bumps, on your own domain.
- One-click upsells charged to the card from the first order, on Stripe, NMI and PayPal.
- Funnels that send yes and no to the right next page, and split tests of up to 5 variants under one URL, for pages, components and bumps.
- Every feature on every plan, with a 14-day free trial.
Want to click through it before you start? The kit preview opens every page.
The demo checkout takes test card 4242 4242 4242 4242, so you can place a full test order.
- Build the pack ladder before you build an upsell. Every buyer sees it, and it usually moves the order value most.
- Never pre-tick a bump. The extra take rate comes back as refunds, disputes and support tickets.
- Make the cheapest per-unit price in the funnel a real one, and put it where the buyer has already committed.
- Keep a template's structure and replace its reviews before launch. Placeholder social proof on a live store is a lie with your name on it.
I spent nine years as CTO of a direct-response company, building the checkout and the funnel system. The part of a funnel I still look at first is what happens after the buyer says yes, because competitors can't see it from your ads and it decides how much you can bid.
Click through the Kinsole pages as a buyer would, then open the last page of your own store. If it says "thank you" and nothing else, start there.
The demo checkout takes test card 4242 4242 4242 4242, so you can place a full test order.
