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How to Limit Sample Products to One Per Customer on Shopify

Offering free or low-cost samples is a great way to introduce new customers to your brand—but you don’t want shoppers ordering your samples in bulk. By enforcing a product-level cap, you can ensure each checkout contains at most one sample item. You can do this on any Shopify plan with the Nex Minimum Order Quantity app. Here’s how:

Why Limit Samples to One Per Order?

  • Prevent abuse: Stops customers from grabbing multiple free/discounted samples in a single checkout.
  • Control costs: Keeps your sampling budget manageable.
  • Maintain fairness: Ensures more shoppers get a chance to try your product.

Step-by-Step Setup

Step 1: Install the Nex Minimum Order Quantity App

  1. In Shopify admin, go to Apps → Shopify App Store.
  2. Search for “Nex Minimum Order Quantity”.
  3. Click Add app and complete the installation.

Step 2: Create a New Product Limit Rule

  1. From Shopify admin, select Apps → Nex Minimum Order Quantity.
  2. Click Configure under the Product Limit section.
  3. In the Title field, enter something like “Sample Limit – 1 Per Order”.
  4. Make sure Enable/Disable Limit is toggled to Enabled.

Step 3: Configure Your Max-1 Rule

  1. In the left sidebar, select Product Max Quantity.
  2. On the right, under Maximum Quantity, enter 1.
  3. Click Select Products, then search for and select your sample product(s).
  4. Click Apply (or Done) to confirm.

Step 4: Customize the Error Message

  • If the default auto-message (“You can only purchase up to 1 of this item per order.”) works for you, leave Use custom message toggled off.
  • To add your own copy, toggle Use custom message on and enter: “Limit reached—only one sample per customer, please!”

Step 5: Save and Activate

  • Click the Save button at the top.
  • Your rule is now live. Customers who try to add more than one sample will see your message and be prevented from checking out until they remove extras.

Advanced: Enforcing One Sample Across Multiple Orders

If you need to ensure each customer can only ever order one sample (across all their visits), pair this with a simple Shopify Flow automation:

  1. Create a Flow that triggers when an order is created containing your sample product.
  2. Add an action to tag the customer (e.g., sample-claimed).
  3. Create a second Nex rule under Customer Tag conditions that blocks any cart containing the sample product if the customer has the sample-claimed tag.

This two-step approach lets you enforce a lifetime sample limit.

Ready to control your sample program?
Install the Nex Minimum Order Quantity app now and make sure every customer enjoys only one sample per checkout (or, with Flow, per lifetime):
👉 Install the Nex Minimum Order Quantity app

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