Bottle deposits for certain products are used in some EU countries like Germany, and several U.S. states. If your online business sells products that come in certain types of bottles, cans, and containers in these areas, you need to know about bottle deposits.
In this article, we take you through the basics of what bottle deposits are and why you might need to use them. Next, we’ll tell you how our app, EasyGift, can help you integrate bottle deposits seamlessly into your Shopify store. If you want to learn all about bottle deposits and the easiest way to use them on your website, read on!
What Are Bottle Deposits?
Bottle deposit (or container deposit) legislation is an innovative way for governments to increase recycling, reduce waste, and reduce littering. This type of legislation is common throughout the world, but more established in some countries.
The basic principle of a bottle deposit system is that when you buy some products a deposit is paid on the bottle or other packaging. You can return empty bottles to get your deposit back. What is included and excluded from the scheme depends on the individual country. However, if we use the example of Germany, items typically included are beer bottles, soft drink bottles, aluminum cans, water bottles, yogurt containers, and multiple-use containers. Some things like milk and juice bottles, wine bottles, and things bought in other countries can’t be returned for a deposit in Germany.
Deposit amounts vary. Typically, it is a small amount of less than a Euro or Dollar per item. Returns can usually be made at places like supermarkets using specialized vending machines.
Why Add Bottle Deposits To Your Customer’sOrders?
Whether you have to include deposits on your bottles and containers varies by country. However, including bottle deposits is a great way to encourage your customers to reduce their waste and recycle.
Bottle deposit legislation has been introduced around the world to help businesses and customers do their bit for the planet. It relies on customers returning recyclable, eligible product containers to designated drop-off points to be recycled in return for a refund on their deposits.
In Germany, where the scheme has been running since the early-2000s, it has been successful. Between 97-99% of non-reusable bottles are returned by German shoppers. Around 99% of cans are also recycled. This demonstrates how integrating bottle deposits into your store can help to increase recycling and reduce waste!
How To Add Bottle Deposits To Your Shopify
So, you need to use bottle deposits but don’t know how to integrate this into your Shopify store. Luckily, EasyGift can help!
EasyGift is an extremely simple way to auto-add items to your customer’s shopping carts. It uses custom product rules to seamlessly add whatever you want to customer’s carts without compromising your store’s performance or UI. You can use the customizable rules to neatly add bottle deposits to your customer’s purchases without any extra hassle.
What Are Product Rules On EasyGift?
Product rules are conditions that automatically add rewards to a customer’s shopping cart on your Shopify website. These can take the form of products, discounts, or discounted products. They can be triggered when a customer adds certain products or combinations of products to their cart.
You can read our article on how to create a product rule with EasyGift for a simple explanation of how to set up product rules in our app.
Create A Product Rule For Bottle Deposits UsingEasyGift
Setting up a bottle deposit rule on Shopify is simple. You can set a product rule to auto-add the bottle deposit as a product to your customer’s cart when they purchase eligible items.
Because EasyGift is super customizable, you’re able to set it to trigger on any product in your store. You can also allow the rule to be triggered more than once per cart. This means that if your customer purchases multiple eligible items, EasyGift will add as many bottle deposits as needed without a problem. You can also disable the setting which allows customers to remove auto-added products, meaning compulsory bottle deposits can’t be taken off by customers.
For more detail on exactly how to set up your product rules for bottle deposits, see our article on creating product rules. If you haven’t used EasyGift before, read our article on getting started to help you set it up!
