Sample Order Product Samples | Free samples or a sample price per product
Description
Highlights
About the Extension
Your customer is about to order 40 square metres of oak flooring. First, they want to touch the surface and see the shade in daylight. If your shop offers no way to get a sample, they email you. Or they buy where the sample is one click away.
The problem
Sample requests by email or phone are manual work. You copy addresses, note down products, arrange dispatch and chase up. None of it shows up in your shop: no basket, no order, no reporting. And free samples without a limit invite people to order half your range.
The solution
Sample order adds an Add sample to basket button to the product page, and to the listing if you want. The sample lands in the normal basket as its own line item and goes through your usual checkout. You decide per product whether there is a sample and what it costs.
What's in it for you
- Less admin. Customers order samples themselves, with address, shipping and payment from the checkout. You pack and ship instead of retyping emails.
- Samples that pay their way. You set how many samples per basket are free and what each further one costs. Individual products, say cut-to-size pieces, get a fixed sample price.
- Postage and packing covered. The sample surcharge applies either only to sample-only orders or to every basket with a sample. With the first option, customers who buy something anyway don't pay it.
- Predictable sample dispatch. A maximum per basket and one sample per product keep the effort in check. The cart calculation enforces the maximum, not just the button.
- Samples with real stock. Assign a sample article to a product, and exactly that article goes into the basket as the sample, with its own number, price and stock. You always see what's left.
- Each sales channel on its own terms. Samples only in your B2B shop, different prices in your B2C shop, or none at all. Every setting works per sales channel, including switching the plugin off.
How the plugin works
On the product, open the Sample tab in the custom fields and switch on has Sample. From then on, the product page shows the sample price and the button. The sample price sits below the base price, so the base price never seems to refer to the sample. In the listing, the Sample possible badge, sample price and button are optional.
In the basket, every sample is a separate line item with quantity 1. Name and product number get your prefix or suffix, for example “Sample: Oak plank natural” and “SAMPLE-10045”. Nobody confuses samples with goods. Per product you can add a sample name and a separate delivery time, since a sample often ships faster.
There are two ways to create a sample. By default, the plugin adds its own sample line item, without stock and with your sample price. If you enter a real product in the Sample article field, the button puts exactly that product into the basket. Price, name, number, delivery time and stock then come from that product, and Shopware, the Rule Builder included, treats it as a regular product line item. If the assigned product is unsuitable (a parent product with variants, or a minimum purchase above 1) or not available in the sales channel, the plugin falls back to the normal sample line item automatically.
For discounts, you decide whether basket-wide promotions and vouchers also apply to samples. The switch is off by default: sample line items then stay out of those discounts, because Shopware only discounts product line items on its own. Switch it on, and sample prices count towards the discount base. Samples based on a sample article always count.
For many products at once, enter the sample settings on the category and push them to all its products and subcategories with Mirror settings to articles. In the Rule Builder, the Item of type condition picks out sample line items and the sample surcharge. Edit an order later in the Administration, and sample line items and surcharge keep their ordered price, even after you change the settings.
Typical use cases
- Flooring retailer: Two wood samples are free, each further one costs £2.50, for example. Sample-only orders carry a £3.95 surcharge for postage and the padded envelope. Anyone ordering planks as well doesn't pay it.
- Fabrics and curtains: Fabric swatches go out within 1 to 3 days while the fabric by the metre is still being cut. A Rule Builder rule gives baskets with samples their own shipping method, say Royal Mail Large Letter instead of a DPD parcel.
- Wholesaler with B2B and B2C channels: In the B2B channel, samples are free and limited to five per basket. In the B2C channel, the plugin is off and nobody sees a sample button.
- Tiles with counted sample stock: The sample tile is a product of its own, assigned to the retail product as the sample article. Every sample order takes one tile off stock, so you see in good time when to restock.
Technical facts for your IT team
- Shopware 6.7, PHP 8.2 or higher.
- No custom database tables. The plugin adds two custom field sets: “Sample” for products and categories, “Sample: sample article” for products. Shopware's core tables stay unchanged.
- The plugin sends no data to external servers and stores no additional personal data. Samples are regular line items of the order.
- The cart calculation itself enforces quantity 1 per sample and the maximum per basket. Tampered requests can neither order a larger quantity at the sample price nor turn an arbitrary product into a sample.
- Sample data in the basket loads with one bundled query, not one per line item.
- Sample line items use a valid UUID as basket key, so extensions that convert keys to binary, such as the Shopware B2B Suite, don't break on them.
- Sample amounts apply as entered: including VAT for customer groups with the “Gross” tax display, excluding VAT for “Net”. Other currencies are converted with their exchange rate factor.
- Storefront and Administration texts in German, English and Dutch.
- Uninstalling without keeping data removes the plugin's custom field sets. If you keep the data, everything stays.
To be honest
Sample order is built for samples, not for trial subscriptions or test purchases in any quantity. Each product has at most one sample per basket, always with quantity 1. The plugin sends no follow-up emails and does not track whether a sample turns into a sale. “Request a sample” instead of ordering only exists together with our “Price on request” plugin and its paid in-app purchase “Request a sample”. There you choose per product between ordering, requesting or both. For products set to Request sample only, Sample order hides its own button. Without that purchase your shop offers price requests or sample orders, but no sample requests. Give it a try: one product, one switch, and the sample button is live in your shop.
Legal notice
We accept no liability for legal requirements. Please check the use of this plugin with a qualified legal advisor.
Details
- Available: English, German
- Latest update: 18 September 2026
- Publication date: 24 August 2020
- Version: 6.7.7
- Category: Special features
Resources
Reviews (6)
Praktisches Tool & schneller Support
Super Erweiterung
Super PlugIn und Super Support!
Mir wurde sehr schnell geholfen auch wurden mir Probleme genannt die sich kreuzen! Dementsprechend konnte ich handeln und das ganze an Vordermann bringen!
Benutzt umbedingt den Probemonat …
Die Erweiterung ist sehr eigen und für uns ist es leider unbrauchbar.
Wir haben dies ohne einer Erweiterung viel besser lösen können. Einfach ein zweites Artikel mit gewünschtem TAG anlegen. Dann kann man auch individuell die Versandregeln erstellen.
Und ich muss sagen wir hatten sonnst keinen anderen Entwickler für Shopware-Erweiterungen kennen gelernt, welche so unflexibel mit deren Kunden umgehen.
Gutes Plugin mit top Support!
Plugin fehlerhaft
About the Extension Partner
BuI Hinsche GmbH
Partner Status
-
Shopware
Bronze Partner -
Shopware
Premium Extension Partner
Details
- Ø-Rating: 4.3
- Partner since: 2014
- Extensions: 94
- Certifications: 2
Support
- Based in: Germany
- Speaks: German, English
- Response time: Very quickly