Product recommendations
Pave offers two kinds of cross-sell, and both come from one section: Product recommendations, with its Recommendation type setting switched between them.
| Recommendation type | Who chooses | Setup |
|---|---|---|
| Related products | Shopify, from order history and product data | None |
| Complementary products | You, per product | Search & Discovery app |
The default product template already runs both: one instance set to complementary products, then one set to related products. To add them to another template, add the section twice and set each instance to a different type.
Related products
Shopify generates the list from purchase history, product metadata and store-wide browsing patterns. Nothing needs configuring, and the results improve as your store accumulates orders.
New stores get thin results, because there is little to learn from yet. That resolves with volume rather than with settings.
To influence them:
- Let orders accumulate. This is the main input, and there is no shortcut.
- Pin products manually in
Shopify admin > Apps > Search & Discovery > Product recommendations, where you can override the algorithm for a specific product. - Keep product types and tags consistent. They are part of what Shopify matches on.
Complementary products
Pairings you set yourself: the belt with the trousers, the refill with the bottle.
- Install Shopify’s free Search & Discovery app.
- Open Product recommendations in the app.
- Pick a product and add the products that complement it, in the order you want them shown.
- Repeat for each product with a natural pairing.
A product with no pairings shows nothing at all: no heading and no empty row. The section is safe to add before you have finished pairing your catalog.
See Complementary products for the full walkthrough.
Where to put them
Below the product description, not above it. A shopper still reading about this product is not ready to be offered another one.
The conventional order is complementary first, as “goes with this”, then related, as “you might also like”. That is the order the default product template uses.
Other ways to cross-sell
- Complete the look shows a set of products you pick, which the shopper can tick and add to the cart in one go. It suits an outfit or a room rather than a single product.
- Cart suggestions show up to four products in the cart drawer and on the cart page. They are on by default. Choose the products under Cart settings, or leave the list empty to use Shopify’s recommendations for the first product in the cart.
Tips
- Leave the heading blank unless you have a better line. Each type has a default heading written for it.
- Four to eight products. Ten is the maximum and it does fill a wide row, but a long list stops looking like a suggestion and starts looking like a catalog.
- Pair your best sellers first. Complementary pairings are manual work, so start with the products that already sell.