Countdown Timer: Create urgency to drive faster purchases

Why we built the Countdown timer feature

Hesitating shoppers may be lost sales. Showing limited time is a proven way to reduce hesitation. Countdown timers, a high-converting ecommerce staple for years, previously required separate apps or custom code.

We wanted to bring this capability into Boost natively, with the precision and flexibility that Boost merchants expect. That means targeting specific products or collections, not just your entire store. It means three distinct timer logics to cover different promotional scenarios. And it means full control over how the timer looks, so it fits your brand rather than clashing with it.

This first release focuses on the Inline type, embedded directly into your page content, where it has the most contextual impact.

How the Countdown timer works

You'll find the Countdown Timer under Merchandising > Sell More > Countdown Timer in your Boost admin. Click Add new timer to start the setup, which walks you through four steps.

Step 1: Select your timer type.

For this release, choose Inline. The widget embeds naturally within your page layout rather than floating above it or being pinned to the top or bottom of the screen.

Step 2: Configure your timer settings.

This is where you define:

• Countdown name: An internal label only you'll see. Useful for managing multiple campaigns.
• Placement: By default, the timer shows on all product pages, the cart page, and the cart drawer. You can narrow this down to specific products (up to 20) or specific collections (up to 3), which is ideal for running targeted flash sales or highlighting deals on particular items.
• Timer type: Three modes are available:
• Countdown to a date counts down to a fixed end date of your choice. When the timer expires, you can choose to unpublish and disable it automatically, or do nothing. This is the classic approach for sales events, limited-time offers, and product launches.
• Fixed minutes runs a session-based countdown from when the shopper first lands on your store. The clock ticks for each individual visitor, creating a personalized sense of urgency. The default is 120 minutes. This mode works well for "limited time offer" messaging that feels personal rather than site-wide. When the session ends, the timer can repeat, disable, or do nothing.
• Daily recurring timer shows the countdown during a set daily time window, such as from 9PM to 10PM in the shopper's local timezone. This is perfect for flash deals, daily sales windows, or time-sensitive offers that run at the same time each day.
• Timer status: Set to Active to publish immediately, or save as Draft if you're not ready to go live.

Step 3: Design your timer.

You have full control over the widget's appearance, including header text (default: "Hurry up!"), upsell title (default: "Sale ends in:"), timer labels, font, size, and colors for the title, subheading, timer digits, background, and button. You can add a custom call-to-action button with a link, or make the entire bar clickable. A live preview updates as you adjust settings, with options to check placement on the product page, cart page, and cart drawer before saving.

Step 4: Add the timer to your live theme.

Once your settings are saved, follow the guided steps to enable Boost Core and add the Countdown Timer app block to your product page and cart page via the Shopify theme editor. For the cart drawer, navigate to your Boost Visual Editor and enable the countdown timer widget from the Ajax cart advanced features.

One smart detail worth noting: when the countdown reaches under 24 hours and the Days column hits zero, it hides automatically. This tightens the visual focus on hours, minutes, and seconds, which creates a stronger final push for shoppers in that last stretch.

Managing multiple timer campaigns

If you run more than one timer campaign, the most recently created or updated campaign takes priority for any overlapping placements. There is no need to manually resolve conflicts. Boost handles it intelligently: if a newer campaign covers only some of the placements from an older one, the older campaign continues to show on the placements the newer one does not cover. This means you can stack campaigns confidently without worrying about unintended overrides.

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