# How to Add Suggested Items in WooCommerce: Boost Sales with Smart Recommendations
Want to effortlessly increase your WooCommerce sales? Suggested items (also known as related products, upsells, or cross-sells) are your secret weapon. They subtly nudge customers towards purchasing more by showcasing relevant items they might love based on their current cart or browsing history. This guide will show you how to easily add suggested items to your WooCommerce store, even if you’re a complete beginner.
Why Use Suggested Items?
Imagine you’re buying a new coffee maker. Wouldn’t you appreciate seeing suggestions for matching coffee mugs or flavored syrups? That’s the power of suggested items! They improve the customer experience by:
- Increasing average order value: Customers often add impulse buys when presented with relevant suggestions.
- Boosting sales: More items in the cart mean more sales for you.
- Improving customer satisfaction: By offering helpful recommendations, you demonstrate care and understanding of your customer’s needs.
- Reducing cart abandonment: Suggested items can tempt customers who are on the fence about completing their purchase.
- AI-powered suggestions: Based on customer purchasing behavior and browsing patterns.
- Personalized recommendations: Tailored to individual customer preferences.
- Automated suggestions: The plugin automatically suggests related products based on various factors.
- YITH WooCommerce Related Products: Offers extensive customization options for related, upsell, and cross-sell products.
- WooCommerce Smart Recommendations: Provides AI-powered product recommendations.
- Product Recommendations for WooCommerce: Another strong option offering various recommendation types.
Methods for Adding Suggested Items in WooCommerce
There are several ways to add suggested products in WooCommerce, ranging from simple built-in features to more powerful plugins:
1. WooCommerce’s Built-in Functionality: Related Products
WooCommerce offers a basic “Related Products” feature. This allows you to manually select products related to a specific product.
* How it works: When viewing a product page, related items appear below the main product description.
* How to add them: Go to the product edit page. Under the “Product data” tab, find the “Linked Products” section. Select “Related Products” and add the products you want to link.
* Example: If you sell hiking boots, you might suggest hiking socks, backpacks, or trekking poles as related products.
This method is great for simple setups, but it becomes time-consuming as your product catalog grows.
2. Upsells and Cross-sells
WooCommerce also allows you to add Upsells and Cross-sells to your product pages. These are strategically different:
* Upsells: Higher-priced alternatives to the current product. (e.g., selling a premium coffee maker instead of a basic one).
* Cross-sells: Complementary products that enhance the primary product. (e.g., selling a grinder with a coffee maker).
* How to add them: Similar to related products, you add these in the “Linked Products” section of the product edit page. Choose “Upsells” or “Cross-sells” from the dropdown menu.
3. Using Plugins for Advanced Recommendations
For more sophisticated recommendations, consider using a WooCommerce plugin. Many plugins offer advanced features like:
Popular Plugins:
Example using YITH WooCommerce Related Products (Conceptual)
While the exact implementation varies by plugin, the general idea is similar. Most plugins will allow you to set up rules or select products manually. For example, with YITH, you might add a rule like:
“If a customer views product X (a specific hiking boot), suggest products Y and Z (hiking socks and a backpack).”
This might be implemented visually within the plugin’s interface rather than using PHP code directly. However, some plugins might offer more advanced functionality through PHP code hooks.
Conclusion
Adding suggested items in WooCommerce is a simple yet effective strategy to boost sales and improve the customer experience. Start with WooCommerce’s built-in features, and then consider a plugin as your needs grow. Experiment with different approaches to find what works best for your specific store and products. Remember, the key is to offer relevant and enticing suggestions that your customers will actually want!
