Complementary products

Complementary products are the ones you pair up yourself: the belt that goes with the trousers, the refill that goes with the bottle.

In Pave they are not a separate section. They are a mode of Product recommendations: add that section and set Recommendation type to Complementary products. Everything else about it works the same way in both modes: heading, maximum products, color scheme and spacing. Left blank, the heading reads Pairs well with in this mode.

The default product template already carries two Product recommendations sections, one in each mode, with complementary products first.

Setting them up

  1. Install Shopify’s free Search & Discovery app.
  2. In the app, open Product recommendations.
  3. Choose a product and add the products that complement it, in the order you want them shown.
  4. Repeat for every product that has a natural pairing.

Complementary products are set per product. A product with no pairings has nothing to show.

What happens when nothing is set

The section renders nothing at all: no heading, no empty row, no placeholder. A recommendations row with no recommendations looks like a broken page, so the theme leaves it out.

This also means the section is safe to add to the product template before you have finished pairing everything up. It appears on the products you have done and stays invisible on the rest.

  • Complementary answers “what goes with this?”. You decide, and the answer is usually a different kind of product.
  • Related answers “what else is like this?”. Shopify decides from order history and product data, and the answer is usually a similar product.

They serve different moments and most stores want both. See the comparison table in Product recommendations.

Tips

  • Pair across categories, not within them. Complementary works when the second product is something the shopper wouldn’t have searched for.
  • Three or four pairings per product is plenty. The list is a suggestion, not a catalog.
  • Start with your best sellers. Pairing is manual work, and those are the products where it shows up in the order value first.

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