How it works.
What is ob.session?
ob.session is a Shopify app that recommends products and reorders collection pages for each shopper, based on what they do in the current session: what they view, pause on, click and add to cart.
It needs no login and no purchase history, so it works for guests and first-time visitors too.
How does ob.session actually work?
At its core is a recommender model built from your catalog and from how shoppers behave in your store.
As a shopper browses, what happens in their session is sent to the model on each page they open. The model returns the products most relevant for that shopper, on that page, at that moment.
Where do recommendations appear?
In two places: recommendation widgets on your home, collection and product pages, and reordered product grids on the collections you allow. You control which widgets and which collections are on, and you can change that at any time.
Does it work for first-time visitors?
Yes. Recommendations come from the current session, so a visitor with no account and no history gets personal recommendations within the same visit.
Why does it lift sales when the signals are so weak?
One hover says little. A hundred signals in sequence — what was opened, skipped, returned to, and for how long — say a lot about what a shopper is after.
Most visitors are not logged in and have no history, so the session is the only data there is, and most engines do not read it. In an A/B test against an existing third-party recommender, over 73,039 sessions, ob.session brought +43.3% revenue, +30.3% orders and +10.0% average order value.
Speed and your theme.
Will this slow down my store?
No. The script downloads alongside your page and runs only after the page is built, so it never blocks your store from rendering.
Recommendations have a strict time limit. If a response is late, shoppers see your store exactly as it would look without ob.session.
You read 100+ signals. Doesn't that weigh the page down?
The signals are things the browser already knows: scroll position, cursor movement, clicks. Reading them costs next to nothing, and they are sent in small batches in the background.
Will it change my theme or its code?
Never. ob.session runs as a Shopify app embed. It does not edit your theme files, and there is nothing to clean up later. Enabling or disabling it is one toggle in the theme editor, and disabling stops everything at once.
What if my theme is not supported yet?
Recommendations start in a basic design that looks fine on most themes. A widget tailored to your theme arrives within a few days and switches over on its own. Collection reordering becomes available with the tailored widget.
Setup and everyday use.
How long does setup take?
Four steps: accept the agreement, approve billing, enable the app embed, and wait while we prepare recommendations for your store. The last step usually takes up to 15 minutes.
Can I turn a specific widget or collection on or off?
Yes, at any time, from your dashboard. Changes reach your storefront right away, with no deploy and no theme edit.
Does it work alongside my existing recommendation app?
Talk to us — it depends on your setup. We can run an A/B test against the solution you already use, so you compare like for like before deciding anything.
I am not on Shopify. Can I use ob.session?
Yes, through a custom integration: catalog sync, a small tracker, a model tuned to your store, and an A/B test before full rollout.
What happens if I uninstall?
Everything stops immediately: no more data collection, no more recommendations, and your theme is left exactly as it was. Shopify cancels the billing plan automatically, so nothing accrues afterwards.
Pricing and billing.
How much does it cost?
There is no base fee and no monthly minimum.
You pay a share of the sales that come through ob.session recommendations — the "attributed" revenue — graduated per 30-day cycle: 4% on the first $10,000, 3% from $10,000 to $100,000, and 2% above $100,000.
What does "attributed" mean?
A sale is attributed when the shopper reached the product through a recommendation. That happens in exactly two ways: the shopper adds a product to the cart directly from a recommendation, or clicks a recommendation, lands on the product page and adds the product from there.
Anything the shopper finds on their own — through your navigation, search or ads — is never attributed, even if a recommendation was visible on the page.
How do I verify what I am charged for?
Each attributed item on an order carries an _ob_attributed line-item property in your own Shopify admin. You can audit charges order by order and item by item.
Proof on your own traffic.
Can I run an A/B test?
Yes, on request. Contact us and we will split your shoppers 50/50: one group sees recommendations, the other sees your store as it is. Each shopper stays in their group, and the results appear in Analytics.
Can my shoppers tell they are in a test?
No. Widgets are fitted to your theme so they look like part of your store, and collection pages keep your theme's own product cards. Nobody flips between versions mid-visit.
Privacy and data.
What data do you collect about my shoppers?
Pseudonymous data about how shoppers use your store: interaction signals, the products and collections viewed, cart contents, page types and paths, store search terms, and basic device characteristics such as screen size and language.
Shoppers are identified only by randomly generated identifiers, never linked to a name, email, customer account or payment information. ob.session never sees any of those.
How does shopper consent work?
ob.session follows the consent state that Shopify reports for each shopper, under your store's own privacy settings. Where explicit consent is required, we act only after the shopper grants it: no data is collected and no recommendations are shown before that.
Is my store's data used for anyone else?
No other merchant ever sees it. Your catalog, orders and shopper data are never shared with, or made visible to, another merchant, and a model trained specifically for your store is never applied to another.
The models behind ob.session in general may be trained on data from more than one store. None of them reproduces or exposes your catalog, products or shoppers.
Do you recognize the same shopper across different stores?
No. There are no cross-store identifiers. If the same person visits another merchant using ob.session, they look like a completely unrelated shopper.
Can I limit ob.session to shoppers from specific countries?
Yes. Email us and we will set it up for your store.