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This article provides a detailed guide on how to set up WooCommerce related products in just a few steps to increase the average cart subtotal. It covers WooCommerce related product settings, including upsells, cross-sells, and category-based product recommendations. Additionally, we will explore how to remove related products in WooCommerce.
Related product recommendations help your customers seamlessly find and buy the products they need. You can implement this by adding WooCommerce related products. This helps improve customer satisfaction and saves the time they waste searching for similar products.
Key Takeaways
- WooCommerce related products allow you to recommend WooCommerce linked products in the form of upsells & cross-sells.
- The Related Products for WooCommerce plugin by WebToffee lets you create custom-related product recommendations besides WooCommerce upsells and cross-sells.
- Display WooCommerce related products on single product pages using the free related products plugin.
Ready to set up WooCommerce related product recommendations in your store? Let’s jump in!
Related products in WooCommerce are products that are recommended to the customers in addition to the products that they are currently viewing. Usually, these similar product recommendations are from the same category or subcategories of the currently viewed product. This also ensures that the products displayed as related are relevant to the customers.
You can configure WooCommerce cross-sells and upsells using the default options. However, if you want to recommend custom-related products, you can use the free WooCommerce related products plugin from WebToffee.
Why should you show related products by category or tags?
Displaying WooCommerce related products based on categories or tags is a simple and powerful way to improve sales, enhance user experience, and increase engagement in your WooCommerce store. Here’s why showing related products matters:
🛍️ Encourages additional purchases: When shoppers see items that complement what they’re already viewing, they’re more likely to add extra products to their cart.
👀 Improves product discoverability: Customers might not browse every category, but related product suggestions help show products without them searching.
📈 Increases average order value (AOV): Recommending relevant related products leads to upsells and cross-sells, maximizing each WooCommerce purchase.
🤩 Enhances user experience: Instead of forcing shoppers to navigate multiple pages, showing WooCommerce related products makes the shopping journey more intuitive.
🚀 Keeps customers engaged longer: The more relevant suggestions you provide, the longer customers stay in your store, increasing WooCommerce conversions.
First, let’s look at how to display related products in WooCommerce for upsells and cross-sells.
To add related products in WooCommerce using the default options, follow these steps:
- Go to Products > All Products on your WooCommerce dashboard.
- Edit the product to which you want to add recommendations and navigate to WooCommerce ‘Linked Products.’
- In the WooCommerce Linked Products section of the ‘Product data‘ widget, select the desired Upsells and Cross-sells before updating the product.
This is how the upsell recommendations would be displayed to the customers.
Cross-sells are usually displayed on the WooCommerce cart page. Showing related products on the cart page increases the average cart value, enhances customer loyalty, and boosts brand engagement. Here is how it would look in your store.
The Downside of using WooCommerce Related Products
Before going further, it’s important to understand why a third-party WooCommerce related product plugin might be necessary for more effective recommendations.
Common issues with the default display of related products in WooCommerce include:
- Displaying related products depends largely on the theme or child theme used by your WooCommerce store.
- Lack of customization options for presenting WooCommerce related product listings.
- No ability to custom-create related product recommendations.
The solution? As previously mentioned, choosing the right recommendation plugins can make a significant difference. Let’s explore this in more detail.
If you want to set up related products in your WooCommerce store in addition to the standard upsells and cross-sells, the Related Products for WooCommerce plugin by WebToffee is an excellent option. This free plugin allows you to integrate custom-related product recommendations into your WooCommerce store.
In addition to adding custom-related products for individual products, you can automatically relate all your products globally based on their tags and categories. For example, you can automatically relate all products under ‘Clothing’ with this plugin.
To install the plugin,
- Go to your WordPress admin console and click on Plugins > Add New in the navigation bar.
- Search for the plugin ‘Related products for WooCommerce’ in the search bar.
- Once you locate the plugin, click on Install Now and then on Activate to activate the plugin.
Create WooCommerce Related Products Based on the Same Category
You can relate products by categories or subcategories. Moreover, you can set up related products globally (that is, a single product relation for all products), or you can set up local and customized product relations for each product in your store.
Case 1: Show Related Products in the Same Category on All Product Pages
To set products related by the same category to the related products widgets globally, follow these steps:
- Go to WooCommerce > Related Products.
- Select the working mode as ‘Custom related products.’
- Under the option ‘Display products from,’ select ‘Category‘.
- Sort the related products by criteria like Popularity or Price.
- You can select whether to display the products in ascending or descending order.
- Check the ‘Slider‘ option if you want to display the WooCommerce products related by categories in a slider.
- Set the number of products to be displayed on the page.
- Make all the other necessary changes and click on Save Changes.
This will add a new section named ‘Related Products’ to all product pages in your store. Each section will recommend products belonging to the same category as the main product.
Case 2: Show WooCommerce Related Products in the Same Category on Individual Product Pages
If you want to add the product relations on the individual products page instead of setting up a global configuration:
- Go to Products > All Products and select the product to which the Related Products field has to be added.
- Tap on the WooCommerce ‘Linked Products‘ in the ‘Product data‘ widget.
- Add the categories that you want to relate to the product within the ‘Categories‘ section. Only the products belonging to the specified category will be allowed to be displayed as the related product recommendations.
Here, only the products belonging to the ‘clothing’ category will be displayed as the related products of this product.
If both global and location product relations are set up, the local configuration will take precedence over the global one.
Create WooCommerce Related Products Based on the Same Subcategory
The ‘Related Products for WooCommerce’ plugin allows you to relate a product with other products within the same or different subcategories. You can add product relations individually for specific subcategories or use WooCommerce related product shortcodes to relate products with selected subcategories globally.
Case 1: Add Related Products on Same Subcategories to All Product Pages (With a Custom Code Snippet)
You can use a custom code snippet to relate WooCommerce products by their respective subcategories.
To do this, you will have to insert the code snippet given below into the functions.php of the active theme file.
Case 2: Add Related Products on Same Subcategories to Individual Product Pages
To locally add product relations with specific subcategories,
- Go to Products > All Products and click on the product that you want to relate with WooCommerce product subcategories.
- Click on ‘Linked Products‘ and add the product subcategories that you want to relate to this product within the ‘Categories‘ field.
Only the products belonging to the specified subcategory will be added to the related products widget.
This is how a related products widget with products belonging to a specific category or subcategory will look like.
Similarly, this plugin helps you to recommend related products based on the same attributes.
What are some of the best practices for displaying WooCommerce related products?
Some of the best related product practices in WooCommerce are:
- Ensure relevance and personalization
- Highlight offers and discounted Items
- Responsive design and clear CTAs
- High-quality images and descriptions
- Regularly update related product recommendations
While WooCommerce related products can help boost sales and improve product discovery, there may be cases where you want to disable them – whether to create a better shopping experience, prevent distractions, or highlight specific upsells instead.
If you’re using the Related Products for WooCommerce plugin, disabling related product suggestions is simple:
- Go to WooCommerce > Related Products in your WordPress dashboard.
- In the WooCommerce related product settings page, locate the option Disable recommendation and toggle it on.
- Click Save changes, and WooCommerce related product suggestions will no longer appear on product pages.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Upselling means recommending a superior product to the customers while browsing a product in your store. The recommended product is usually better in quality and price to improve the net profit, cart value, and customer satisfaction rates. For example, recommending the iPad Pro (with higher specs) while browsing for iPad – the standard variant.
Cross-selling is the process of recommending products that can be purchased along with a primary product. It is a tool to remind users of the products they require but might have forgotten. A good example of cross-selling is recommending the iPad charger while purchasing an iPad from your store.
Down-selling is the exact opposite of up-selling. This entails recommending lower-cost products to customers who cannot afford a product—for example, recommending a lower-spec or older-generation tablet to a customer about to abandon the cart with a brand-new iPad. This encourages them to purchase a product that matches their budget.
There is no limit to setting up WooCommerce related products. You can add product relations to any number of products you want. Also, there is no limit to the number of products that can be related to an individual item.
You can disable related products in WooCommerce by selecting the ‘Disable recommendations’ option in the general settings of the related products for the WooCommerce plugin. You can stop WooCommerce from showing related products in this manner or use an alternate method to remove related product suggestions using a code snippet.
WooCommerce related products are automatically or manually suggested items that appear on a product page based on shared categories, tags, or custom rules. These recommendations help customers discover related items or similar products, encouraging additional purchases.
Wrap Up
Utilize WooCommerce product recommendations to grow your business. They can improve sales, promote products, and offer upsells and cross-sells. Moreover, you can set this up in no time with the simple and free related products plugin. It is a highly rewarding tool that will help you boost your revenue seamlessly. If you want to learn how to highlight best-selling products in WooCommerce, check out this article.
That brings us to the end of this guide on WooCommerce related products. Do let us know your thoughts about this article in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!
Comments (6)
Marek
January 30, 2024
Hello,
how can I tune the slider settings so that it doesn’t move automatically or moves continuously in a loop?
Is it possible?
Regards,
Marek
Arjun
February 2, 2024
Hi Marek,
Thank you for reaching out. As of now, if you enable the slider option, it will work in a way that you can view all the listed products using the arrow icon in the slider. It is not a loop, or the products won’t move automatically in the loop.
Lisa
June 8, 2023
Hi,
This plugin is very useful ! Is it possible to add another section with other settings ? I have a section of related products based on an attribute, but i would like to have another one below only based on the category. Is it possible ?
Thanks !
Arjun
June 12, 2023
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for getting in touch with us. We understand your requirement. However, at the moment, our plugin does not include the specific features you have mentioned. However, we have another solution that might meet your needs. You can try our product recommendations plugin, which allows you to add multiple recommendation sections on the same page.
Loris
January 25, 2023
Hello,
I am looking for a plug-in that would allow me to suggest related products based on attributes like size and product categories. Based on tags is not sufficient as these ones are most of the time not structured.
Thanks in advance for your return.
Kind regards,
Loris
Mike
January 27, 2023
Hi Loris,
Thanks for reaching out.
Presently the plugin doesn’t offer any options to relate products globally based on the product attribute. However, you can set related attributes for individual products by going to the WooCommerce product edit page and adding “Realated attributes” located on the Linked Products section.