Upselling and cross-selling, specifically
Upselling means offering a better version of the product the customer is looking at: more capacity, better material, a larger pack. Cross-selling means offering products used together with the one they are about to buy: the phone case, the cleaner for the sneakers, a second color of the same T-shirt.
Both work when they help customers buy better and fail when they feel like an attempt to empty their wallet. The practical rule is that every recommendation should have a reason the customer understands without being told.
Shopify's native recommendations
Shopify generates automatic product recommendations from store data and shows them in themes that include the recommended products section. It distinguishes two types: related products, which are similar to the one being viewed and can replace it, and complementary products, which are often bought together with it.
With the free Search & Discovery app you can customize those recommendations product by product: under Product recommendations you choose up to 10 complementary and up to 10 related products, and decide whether to show only yours or the automatic ones too. If you have many products, you can do it in bulk by editing the standard recommendation metafields with the bulk editor or with Shopify Flow.
- Up to 10 complementary products per product
- Up to 10 related products per product
- Manual, automatic or combined recommendations
- Bulk editing through metafields or Shopify Flow
Which products are shown and which are not
Shopify only recommends products that are active, published to the online store, priced above zero and not already in the visitor's cart. Complementary products must also have inventory. Gift cards and unlisted products never appear.
This avoids recommending sold-out products, but it has a consequence: if you set complementary products by hand and they run out of stock, the block can end up empty. Define more than one per product and review the setup of your hero products when the season changes.
Product page and cart
On the product page, complementary products work best near the buy button, as a compact block with one-click add. Related products fit further down, as an alternative for those still undecided. In compatible themes, the complementary products block sits inside the product information section and lets you choose how many to show.
The cart, especially the cart drawer, is the natural place for low-ticket cross-selling: accessories, refills or consumables. Themes do not always include cart recommendations by default, but Shopify's recommendations API lets the theme request complementary products, so they can be added without an app if the theme is custom-built.
On the information, shipping and payment steps of the checkout, extensions are only available on Shopify Plus. On other plans, upselling work is concentrated on the product page and the cart.
Bundles, discounts and thresholds
Recommendations work better with a reason to accept them. Shopify Bundles, free on all plans, lets you create fixed bundles of several products with their own price. Native discounts allow buy X get Y offers, amount-off discounts on specific products or free shipping above a set amount.
A well-placed free shipping threshold is one of the simplest ways to raise average order value: a bar in the cart showing how much is left and recommendations of low-priced products to reach it. For more complex discounts, such as volume tiers with custom logic, apps built on Shopify Functions are used.
When an app makes sense
Upsell apps add add-to-cart pop-ups, post-purchase offers, A/B tests of offers or recommendations with very specific rules. They can be useful in large catalogs or high-traffic stores, but each one adds scripts and another monthly fee.
Before installing one, exhaust the native options: well-configured Search & Discovery recommendations, a complementary products block on the product page, cart recommendations and Bundles. If you then need rules Shopify does not cover, choose an app that works with app blocks and extensions, and measure whether the extra revenue offsets its cost and its impact on speed.
Mistakes that cost sales
Pop-ups that interrupt add to cart, recommendations unrelated to the product, offers that raise the price far above what the customer planned to spend and repeated recommendation blocks on the same page. All of them create the feeling of pressure that makes customers abandon.
Measure the effect on average order value and conversion rate at the same time. If order value goes up but conversion goes down, the strategy is scaring off part of your buyers.
Do not forget selling after the purchase either. A customer who has just received a product is the best candidate for its consumables or accessories. With the Shopify Messaging app you can set up email automations, and with Shopify Flow you can tag customers by what they bought to send them relevant recommendations later. It is cross-selling just like in the cart, only at the moment the customer has already confirmed they like the product.
And review the setup from time to time. Manual recommendations that made sense a year ago may now point to discontinued products or last season's collections.
Frequently asked questions
Does Shopify have native product recommendations?
Yes. It generates automatic recommendations for related and complementary products, and with the Search & Discovery app you can choose up to 10 of each type per product.
Can I show recommendations in the cart without an app?
It depends on the theme. Shopify's recommendations API lets the cart request complementary products, so a custom theme can show them without installing anything.
Can I upsell inside the checkout?
Extensions on the information, shipping and payment steps of the checkout are only available on Shopify Plus. On other plans, upselling happens on the product page and in the cart.
How do I create product bundles in Shopify?
With the Shopify Bundles app, free on all plans, which lets you create fixed bundles with their own price. For bundles with more complex logic there are apps built on Shopify Functions.