Complementary products
Akira's product page can show two different kinds of recommendations: related products and complementary products. They look similar but serve different purposes, and it's worth understanding the difference before you start curating either one.
Related vs. complementary
Related products are similar items from the same category: other jackets if the customer is viewing a jacket, other mugs if they're viewing a mug. They're useful when a customer wants to compare options.
Complementary products are items that pair well with what the customer is already looking at, even though they're not in the same category: a belt shown with trousers, a phone case shown with a phone, a matching scarf shown with a coat. The goal is to increase order value by surfacing a natural add-on, not to offer an alternative.
Akira's product page includes a dedicated Complementary block for this second case, powered by Shopify's product recommendation API with complementary intent.
Curating complementary products
You have two options for controlling what shows in the Complementary block:
| Method | How it works |
|---|---|
| Manual curation | Use the Search & Discovery app (or the product recommendations settings on a product) to hand-pick which products pair with a given item. |
| Automatic | If nothing is curated for a product, Shopify's algorithm suggests complementary items automatically based on order history and catalog data. |
Manual curation is worth doing for your best-selling products, since it lets you control the exact pairing rather than leaving it to the algorithm. For the rest of your catalog, the automatic suggestions are a reasonable default.
Tip: Start by manually curating complementary products for your top 10 to 20 sellers, then let Shopify's algorithm handle the long tail. This gets you most of the upsell benefit without curating your entire catalog by hand.