How can a Shopify awning shop offer fabric samples before a customer orders?

An awning cover is chosen from a small square of colour on a screen, and then it hangs over someone's patio every summer. In the UK, goods made to the customer's specifications are not covered by the usual 14-day right to cancel, so once an awning has been made to their size, a colour they do not like is not something they can simply send back. A fabric sample settles that question before the order, not after it.

How can a Shopify awning shop offer fabric samples before a customer orders?

Put a sample button under the cover choices, named after the cover the shopper has picked, and let one click put the sample in the basket. Nobody should have to find a separate samples page or email you. Cut samples to fit a large letter so they are cheap to post, label them with the names the product page uses, and keep the measuring advice next to the size fields so the shopper can measure while the sample is on its way. Inchy, a Shopify app for awnings and outdoor shade, has the sample button built into the cover step.

The cover step in the demo with Navy stripe picked. One click on the sample button puts the sample in the basket.

Why do awning buyers want a sample?

Because the cover is the part they look at every day, and a screen is a poor judge of cloth. The same stripe looks different on a phone in the garden and on a laptop indoors, and nobody can feel the weight of a fabric through glass.

The price does not help them choose either. In the demo, all four covers cost the same, so a 420 × 300 cm awning is £1,612.95 with a white frame and a hand crank whichever cover the shopper picks. When the price is equal, the choice is purely about how it looks, and that is exactly when people want the cloth in their hand.

There is also the law. Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations, goods made to the consumer's specifications or clearly personalised are outside the 14-day cancellation right. That protects you from change of mind returns, but it also means an unhappy customer has nowhere easy to go. A sample costs you a little cloth and a stamp. A remade cover costs a great deal more, and so does a bad review.

Where should the sample button go?

Right under the swatches, where the decision is made. The button should name the cover that is picked, so the shopper knows exactly what is coming. In the demo it changes as they choose: pick Terracotta and the button offers a sample of Terracotta.

• One click, straight into the basket. The demo answers with "Navy stripe added to your basket (demo)."

• No double orders. Click the same sample twice and the demo says "Ivory is already in your basket."

• No separate samples page to find, and no form to fill in for a piece of cloth.

On a phone the button sits under the swatches, sized for a thumb, while the total and the Add to cart button stay at the bottom of the screen.

How should the samples be sent?

Small, flat and labelled. Royal Mail's Large Letter size is up to 353 mm long, 250 mm wide and 25 mm thick, and up to 750 g. A cut of awning cloth folded once fits that easily, so it goes in an envelope rather than a parcel.

Label each sample with the cover name exactly as the shopper saw it on the page. If the swatch says Navy stripe, the label says Navy stripe. When the customer comes back to order, they should be able to match the cloth in their hand to the picture on the screen without guessing.

Because the sample goes in the basket, it reaches you through your normal checkout as a Shopify order, like any other, and you post it the way you send everything else.

What should the shopper do while the sample is on its way?

Measure. A sample buys you a few days of attention, and the best use of them is a correct size. Put the measuring advice right under the size fields, not on a page they have to find. The demo awning has a "How to measure" link that opens a short note: "Width is the space on the wall you want covered. Leave 15 cm clear at each side for the brackets. Projection is how far the awning comes out from the wall when fully open."

When the cloth arrives and they are happy, they come back to the product page, pick the same cover, type their size and see the exact price. How that price is worked out from your own grid is in how to sell made to measure awnings and charge the exact price for each size. If the job is big, or the wall needs a look first, the same page can take them to a quote form instead, as how to handle quote requests for big jobs explains.

Questions and answers

Which fabric can the shopper order a sample of?

The cover they have picked. The button names it and changes when they pick another one.

Can someone order the same sample twice?

Not by accident. In the demo, a second click on the same sample shows "Ivory is already in your basket."

Does it work on phones?

Yes. The button sits under the swatches, and the total and the Add to cart button stay at the bottom of the screen as the shopper scrolls.

Are fabric samples an extra on the plan?

No. Fabric samples and quote requests are part of the Made to measure plan at $99 a month, with unlimited products, billed by Shopify and no fee per order.

Can add-ons like a winter cover follow the size too?

Yes. A winter cover cut to the width is priced for the width the shopper typed. See how to price add-ons like a motor or a winter cover.

Who makes Inchy?

InterioApp. We have priced and sold made to measure products since 2011, in our own shop first, and our quoting software and calculators are used by made to measure businesses in the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Set up your own covers and order a sample from your product page the way a customer would. See Inchy and try the live builder. Start the 7-day free trial on the Shopify App Store.

Sources

• The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, Part 3: regulation 28(1)(b), goods made to the consumer's specifications or clearly personalised, and regulation 30, the 14-day cancellation period.

• Royal Mail, Large Letter: up to 353 mm long, 250 mm wide and 25 mm thick, and up to 750 g.

• Inchy live demo: covers, sample button messages, measuring note and sample UK prices, read on 21 October 2026.

Written with AI. Every figure is checked against the sources listed above.