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To show “frequently bought together” products, add a clearly labeled complementary-products section to each product page. Populate it with manually selected add-ons or with co-purchase data from completed orders. Shopify uses manually configured complementary products in Search & Discovery, while WooCommerce’s Product Recommendations extension can calculate pairings from order history. Use bundles or required-product tools instead when items must be sold as one package.
What “frequently bought together” means
A frequently-bought-together recommendation identifies products that appear in the same order as a selected product. It is not the same as:
- Related products: similar or substitute items.
- Also purchased later: products a customer buys in a separate order or at another time.
- A bundle: a package sold at one price or treated as one configured product.
Shopify describes complementary products as items bought in addition to the selected product, while WooCommerce distinguishes purchased-together items from products bought at another time. See Shopify’s recommendation guidance and the WooCommerce recommendation-engine documentation.
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Choose the right selling pattern first
| Customer experience | Best implementation | How it behaves |
|---|---|---|
| Optional add-ons shown beside a main product | Complementary or frequently-bought-together recommendations | Each item remains a separate product with its own price and inventory. |
| A package sold as one offer | Fixed bundle | The merchant defines the package and its pricing. |
| A product assembled from customer-selected components | Configurable kit or composite product | The shopper chooses permitted components before adding the kit. |
| Items that must be purchased together | Required-product or force-sell flow | The additional item is not presented as optional. |
| Several similar products added from one page | Grouped products | The page is a convenient multi-product selection, not a co-purchase algorithm. |
WooCommerce’s comparison of these approaches is documented in How to bundle products with WooCommerce. Do not call substitutes or mandatory components “frequently bought together”; the label should match the buying decision.
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Shopify: add a “Pairs well with” section
Configure complementary products in Search & Discovery
- In Shopify admin, open Apps > Search & Discovery > Product recommendations.
- Select the product whose page you are editing.
- Add the complementary products. Shopify permits up to 10 manually selected complementary products per product.
- Confirm that every suggested item is active and has inventory above zero; Shopify says unavailable products do not display as complementary products.
- Save the changes.
Shopify’s exact workflow and distinction between complementary and related recommendations are in Customize product recommendations with Shopify Search & Discovery.
Display the recommendations in a compatible theme
- Open Online Store > Themes and choose Customize.
- Navigate to a product template.
- In the product-information section, add the theme’s Complementary products block.
- Set a clear heading such as Pairs well with and choose a compact card or row layout.
- Preview several products, including one with no eligible add-ons, then publish when the block behaves correctly.
The block is theme-dependent. If your theme does not provide it, use a custom implementation based on Shopify’s recommendations object and Product Recommendations API, described in Show complementary products on product pages.
Build a custom Shopify theme block
Shopify’s API does not necessarily return populated recommendation markup during the first page render. A theme should request the populated section asynchronously, show a loading state only when useful, and remove or omit the block when no products qualify. Place the section near the main product information, initially show two or three products, and paginate when more are available. The API supports up to 10 complementary products per product.
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Manual versus automatic Shopify recommendations
Manually selected complementary products are the most predictable option for merchandising. Shopify’s automatic recommendation strategy belongs to the related-products path and can use purchase history, product descriptions, or related collections. Purchase-history results need prior sales, and automatically generated recommendations may change over time. Details are available in Shopify Search & Discovery documentation and Shopify’s product-recommendations developer guide.
WooCommerce: calculate co-purchases from order history
Create and deploy a Bought Together engine
- Install and activate the WooCommerce Product Recommendations extension.
- Open its Product Recommendations area and create a new Product Engine.
- Add the Bought Together amplifier.
- Save the engine.
- Deploy it to the required location, such as Product > Before Tabs.
- Set the display heading, row or column layout, and any visibility conditions. Conditions can restrict the engine to selected products.
- View representative product pages and confirm that the heading, products, prices, and add-to-cart behavior are clear.
WooCommerce documents this setup and deployment process at Add “Frequently Bought Together” Recommendations in Product Pages.
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Understand the documented data thresholds
The extension’s documented defaults can produce no recommendations when a store has too little order history. The reference product must appear in at least 10 orders. A candidate must appear alongside it in at least 10 orders, in at least 5% of the reference product’s orders, and in at least 10 orders across the store. A relevance score then compares co-purchases with the candidate’s overall purchase frequency.
| Setting | Documented default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Reference-product order minimum | 10 orders | The source product needs this many orders before the engine can recommend items. |
| Co-purchase order minimum | 10 orders | The candidate must have appeared with the source product at least this often. |
| Co-occurrence minimum | 5% | The candidate must occur in at least this share of source-product orders. |
| Store-wide candidate minimum | 10 orders | The candidate must have enough purchases overall to be considered. |
| JLH threshold | 0.2 | The documented default for a broader recommendation set. |
| GND threshold | 0.8 | The documented default for a stronger correlation. |
These are extension defaults documented by WooCommerce, not universal ecommerce benchmarks. Verify the values in your installed version and adjust selectivity for your order volume. A new or low-volume store may need curated pairings instead of waiting for statistically eligible results.
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Choose more than one placement when it helps the journey
WooCommerce Product Recommendations can place suggestions on product, cart, checkout, category, and order-received pages. Use the product page for discovery, the cart for a last optional add-on, and post-purchase placements only when they do not interfere with order confirmation. The extension decides which products to show and where; it does not convert them into a bundle.
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Use an explicit optional label
Headings such as Pairs well with, Often bought with, or Complete your setup tell shoppers that the products are optional. Keep each item’s individual price, variant choices, and selection state visible.
Filter for relevance and availability
- Recommend accessories that work with the selected product, not merely high-margin items.
- Remove discontinued, inactive, or unavailable products.
- Check compatibility, size, color, region, and voltage where those attributes matter.
- Do not suggest a product that is already in the cart.
- Provide a graceful empty state: hide the section rather than showing an empty carousel.
Keep the interaction lightweight
Start with two or three cards on a product page. Use a short row on desktop and a swipeable layout on narrow screens. A shopper should be able to open an add-on, choose a variant, and return without losing the main product configuration. If several items can be selected at once, make the add-to-cart result explicit so the customer knows which products were added.
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Troubleshoot missing recommendations
Shopify shows no complementary products
- Confirm the product is active and has inventory above zero.
- Check that the complementary-products block is present in the product template actually used by the item.
- Verify that the theme supports the block, or that the custom section request completes asynchronously.
- Remove gift cards, zero-priced products, out-of-stock items, and products already in the cart from test expectations.
WooCommerce returns an empty Bought Together row
- Check whether the reference product and candidates meet the documented order and percentage thresholds.
- Review the JLH and GND settings; stricter thresholds can eliminate otherwise plausible candidates.
- Confirm the engine is deployed to the intended location and its visibility rules include the current product.
- For a new catalog, manually curate pairings until sufficient order history accumulates.
The recommendations are actually substitutes
Move similar products to a related-products section and reserve the frequently-bought-together label for complementary items purchased in the same order. Substitutes answer “Which comparable product should I choose?”; add-ons answer “What else do I need with this product?”
Quick Recap
Implementation checklist
- Define whether the goal is optional recommendations, a fixed bundle, a configurable kit, or required add-ons.
- Choose merchant-selected pairings when control or catalog compatibility matters most.
- Use purchase-history recommendations only when the store has enough qualifying orders.
- Verify active status, inventory, prices, variants, and compatibility.
- Place the section close to the main product information and label it as optional.
- Test desktop, mobile, empty-result, out-of-stock, and already-in-cart states.
- Recheck platform and extension documentation after upgrades because labels, defaults, and eligibility rules can change.
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
