How do customers see orders that contain bundles?

This guide walks through exactly what customers see at each stage of ordering a bundle, from cart through to their order status page, and what options you have to change that experience.

At cart and checkout

When a customer adds a bundle to their cart, Simple Bundles 2.0 uses Shopify's Cart Transform API to break the bundle down into its individual components before the order is created. At checkout, the parent bundle product itself isn't added as a separate line item, but the bundle's name still displays to the customer with its components listed underneath it, so the customer can clearly see what they're purchasing as part of that bundle.

In the cart page or cart drawer: the bundle usually shows as a single line, because the components are listed at checkout, not in the cart. For Infinite Options and BYOB bundles, the customer's selections show under the bundle in the cart. If you'd like a Simple Bundle's component names listed in your cart drawer too, that needs a small theme customization (Shopify makes the components available to themes as line_item.item_components ). Your theme developer can add it, or contact our support team and we'll point you in the right direction.

Simple Bundles in cart showing the specific variant chosen

Simple Bundles at checkout showing the bundle components listed below the parent bundle

In the order confirmation email

Customers receive an order confirmation email after placing their order. Since Cart Transform has already broken the bundle into its components before the order was created, the confirmation email shows the bundle name along with its component items, with the appropriate bundle discount applied across them.

The order confirmation email will show the bundle along with its bundle components

On the order status page

When customers click "View your order" in their confirmation email, they're taken to their order status page. Here, they'll see the individual bundle components listed (grouped under the bundle name), each with the appropriate discount applied, since Shopify's order summary reflects the actual line items that make up the order.

The order status will also display the bundle along with it's components

What shows up in orders in Shopify Admin

Since Cart Transform runs before the order is created, only the bundle's components appear as line items on the order in Shopify Admin, not the parent bundle product. Each component line carries hidden properties (like _sb_bundle_title and _sb_bundle_group ) identifying which bundle it belongs to. This is what lets Simple Bundles (and your packing slip templates, if configured) group related components back together for reference.

Order with bundle showing only the bundle components referencing to the parent bundle

Seeing $0.00 or 100%-discounted component lines on a receipt or order? This happens when Shopify's Cart Transform can't run on an order, for example subscription orders and renewals, marketplace orders, or bundles added after checkout by a post-purchase app. In these cases, the parent bundle line keeps the full price and each component is added next to it at a 100% discount ($0.00), so the order total stays correct. If you'd rather customers see only the bundle line on orders where Cart Transform can't run (like subscriptions), go to Simple Bundles > Settings > Advanced settings > Cart transform and order editing fallbacks and choose Single-SKU as the fallback. Your regular online store checkouts aren't affected. For post-purchase upsells, see How Simple Bundles handles orders with post-purchase products. More details are in When the order can't be edited below.

When the order can't be edited (associated orders)

For some sales channels or order types, Shopify doesn't allow Cart Transform to run at all. For example, orders placed through certain marketplaces (like TikTok Shop or Amazon), orders with subscriptions/selling plans, or other apps that create orders directly via Shopify's API. In these cases, Simple Bundles falls back to the Order Editing method instead. With Order Editing:

The parent bundle line stays on the order at its full price, and its components are added alongside it at a 100% discount.
If the original order itself can't be edited (common for marketplace-synced orders), Simple Bundles creates a separate associated order to hold the components, identifiable by an "A" suffix on the order number, linked back to the original order.

Customers may see slightly different information in this scenario depending on your setup, since the original order and the associated order are treated as two separate records in Shopify. See: Associated Orders being created with an "A"

Changing what customers see

If you'd like to change the default customer experience described above, you can:

Hide the bundle contents entirely (show only the bundle name, not its components): see How can I hide bundle contents on customer orders?
Create a mystery box, where contents are never revealed to the customer at any stage: see How to create a mystery box in Simple Bundles 2.0

The approaches above that involve hiding or preventing components from appearing rely on Single-SKU, which keeps the bundle as a single line item throughout the customer's order experience rather than breaking it down into components. See How to enable Single-SKU bundle content inventory sync for setup steps.

If you still want your fulfillment team to see itemized components for picking and packing (even if customers don't see them), you can display them on your packing slips instead: see Show itemized bundles on Shopify packing slips.

If you have any more questions or feedback regarding the customer experience with your bundles, please reach out to our support team.