How to offer “You May Also Like” upsells in WooCommerce

The WooCommerce “You may also like” section is one of the primary ways to offer product upsells and cross-sells on your online store using the platform’s default functionality.

While WooCommerce’s default functionality for displaying product recommendations is a good starting point, it has its limitations. For you to get the most out of this feature, you’ll need a supplementary plugin.

In this post, we’ll show you how to set up the “You may also like” product recommendations section in WooCommerce and then demonstrate how you can get more out of your product upsells and cross-sells with the help of the WooCommerce Order Bump plugin.

Introduction to product recommendations in WooCommerce

The default product recommendation feature in WooCommerce works by offering your customers similar or related products when they visit a product page or add products to their shopping cart. This is a great way to boost sales and increase the average order value of your online store.

In a nutshell, the role of the “You may also like” section in WooCommerce is to showcase recommended products, upsells, and cross-sells to shoppers, and encourage them to add more products to their carts.

Different types of product recommendations

There are three main types of product recommendations available by default in WooCommerce:

Upsells

An upsell is when customers are offered an upgrade to the product they are already interested in.

For instance, if a customer is interested in purchasing a normal hoodie, you can show them a more premium hoodie with a logo that costs more as an upgrade option.

An upsell can also be a more advanced model of the same product or an add-on upgrade to the product itself.

Cross-sells

Cross-sells are supplementary products that you can offer to shoppers based on the product they’re already interested in. They’re products that go along well with the primary product your customer wants to purchase.

For example, customers who are interested in purchasing dress shoes might be inclined to add a shoe cream or a polishing brush to their order. Similarly, for a laptop product, you can offer a laptop bag as a cross-sell product.

Related products

Related products can be upsells or cross-sells but are not necessarily either. Sometimes these products might even be down-sells or lower-priced products than the primary product the buyer is interested in.

For example, you can show customers similar products or products that share the same category or tags as the ones they’re viewing.

Benefits of product recommendations

Let’s talk about some of the major benefits of offering product recommendations on your WooCommerce site:

• Increased average order value. Recommended products work wonders when it comes to encouraging your customers to spend more money either on more expensive product options, add-ons, or supplementary products.
• Improved customer experience. Since product recommendations are displayed based on the product your customer is already interested in, it helps them find the products they are looking for more easily without having to scroll through your entire product catalog.
• Easier product discovery. You can improve product visibility on your WooCommerce site by showing product recommendations, particularly for newer or underperforming product lines. You can give such products a boost by showcasing them on the product pages of your most popular lines.

Setting up “You may also like” recommendations in WooCommerce

WooCommerce will show one type of product recommendation – related products – by default. These appear on your product pages, and the specific products shown are taken from the same category as the primary product.

The problem with this is that WooCommerce automatically selects the related products, so you don’t have any control over which products are recommended to your shoppers. If you want to highlight specific products, such as underperforming ones as we mentioned above, you can’t do this. Additionally, there may be the risk that the recommended product is not an exact match to the product it’s being paired with.

Nonetheless, it’s important that you know how to step up “You may also like” recommendations as a WooCommerce store owner, so let’s show you how to do this.

To get started, navigate to Products → All Products from the WordPress admin panel and select the product you want to set up “You may also like” recommendations for.

Click on the Linked Products tab under the Product data metabox to view the Upsells and Cross-sells fields. Click on the Update button once you’re done.

The products you add to the Upsells field will appear on the single product page under the “You may also like…” heading.

Products added to the Cross-sells field will appear on the WooCommerce cart page under the “You may be interested in” heading if customers have the primary product in their shopping cart.

Using plugins to enhance WooCommerce product recommendations

We’ve seen how to set up product recommendations manually in your store, so now let’s look at how you can enhance this functionality with plugins, and why it’s so important to do so.

We’ve already looked at one major limitation with product recommendations in WooCommerce, which is that you can’t select which specific products to recommend on product pages. Additionally, you can’t prioritize specific products to be displayed in the “You may also like” section, by which we mean that there’s no way for you to select the frequency at which certain products are recommended. It’s all automated and randomized, based on which products are from the same category.

Another limitation is that you have to navigate to each product’s edit page to set up product recommendations. This makes it a very time-consuming process, especially if you have a large product catalog.

To maximize the impact of your “You may also like” recommendations, you’ll want to use a plugin like WooCommerce Order Bump. It’s the perfect option for customizing and displaying the “You may also like” recommendations on your WooCommerce site. You can display any product from your entire store’s catalog in an automatic modal pop-up to encourage upsells and cross-sells.

The modal pop-up with product recommendations can be configured to appear on your single product pages, cart pages, or checkout page. This gives store owners more chances to encourage customers to add more items to their cart before checking out and helps boost the average order value.

Additionally, the automatic modal popup is fully customizable which means you can create a layout that resonates well with your brand’s unique aesthetics. On top of encouraging more sales, you also improve the customer experience of your online store by displaying relevant product recommendations in strategic locations.

The WooCommerce Order Bump plugin also comes pre-built with discount functionality. This way, you can offer discounts on recommended products to encourage more shoppers to add them to their cart and shift underperforming products on your WooCommerce site.

Getting started with WooCommerce Order Bump

Here, we’ll show you how you can get started with WooCommerce Order Bump and use the plugin to set up “You may also like” recommendations on your online store.

For this, you’ll need the WooCommerce plugin installed and activated on your WordPress site along with some products. You’ll also need the WooCommerce Order Bump plugin to set up the modal pop-up with product recommendations.

Step #1: Download and install the WooCommerce Order Bump plugin

Once you get the WooCommerce Order Bump plugin, navigate to Plugins → Add New and upload the plugin’s ZIP file.

Click on the Install Now button and then Activate this plugin to continue. Once the plugin is installed and activated, navigate to WooCommerce → Settings → Order Bump and click on the Licence link from the top.

Enter the license key given to you at the time of purchase and click on the Activate this license button to continue.

Step #2: Create a new order bump

Now that the WooCommerce Order Bump is fully integrated with your WooCommerce site, we can start creating an order bump for “You may also like” product recommendations. For this, navigate to WooCommerce → Order Bumps and then click on the Add New button.

Select products

After giving your order bump a title like “You may also like”, select the primary product you want to display product recommendations for using the Bump Applies To metabox.

The Applies to dropdown menu lets you specify whether you want to display the modal popup for all products, specific categories, specific attributes, or specific products on your WooCommerce site. You can even choose to exclude specific products from the product recommendation order bump using the Excluded Product field. The Roles field lets you specify user roles that will see the order bump on the front-end of your WooCommerce site.

Once you’ve chosen the primary products that will trigger the “You may also like” product recommendations popup, it’s time to start selecting the products you want to promote or showcase in the order bump using the Bump Content metabox

Set headings and choose a layout

The Heading field lets you display a custom message or a call to action (CTA) that may encourage shoppers to add more products to their cart before checking out.

You can add the products that will appear on the order bump using the Bump Products field. In addition to this, you can also select the Use Upsell Products or the Use Cross Sell Products checkboxes if you want to use the upsell or cross-sell products attached to products in the customer’s cart.

The plugin also lets you choose a layout for how promotional products will be displayed in the order bump using the Layout dropdown field. The Product option lets you showcase product images along with product price and title while the Checkbox option will showcase select boxes with product titles and prices. You can also choose whether to display a quantity field, a cart button, as well as a checkout button directly on the order bump itself. This can help add to the overall user experience on your online store and makes it easier for shoppers to take quick action.

Apply discounts (optional)

Lastly, the Discounts metabox lets you add a pricing discount promotion to the products that appear in the order bump.

Offering fixed or percentage-based discounts to shoppers can encourage more sales and boost the AOV of your online store. You can also change the Heading field in the Bump Content section to better suit your discount offering and make it easier to inform your customers about ongoing deals.

Once you’re done, click on the Publish button to continue.

Step #3: Choose where the “You may also like” pop-up appears

With the “You may also like” product recommendation pop-up published, navigate to WooCommerce → Settings → Order Bump to choose where the order bump will appear on your WooCommerce site for customers when they add the primary product to their shopping cart.

The Bump Location dropdown menu lets you either display the order bump on the cart page, single product pages, or the checkout page.

You can also decide what happens after your shoppers successfully add products to their cart using the “You may also like” pop-up using the After Add to Cart dropdown menu. Once you’re ready, make sure to click on the Save changes button to continue.

Step #4: Preview

Once customers add the primary product or the products specified in the Bump Applies To section, the “You may also like” product recommendation pop-up will automatically be displayed to them.

Boost your sales with WooCommerce Order Bump

Offering product recommendations on your online store encourages shoppers to spend more money on product upgrades, product add-ons, or supplementary products that go alongside their orders. It also helps promote your store’s underperforming products and improves the user experience by making it easier for your customers to find products that are relevant to them quickly, without having to search for them through your store’s entire product catalog.

While WooCommerce by default has functionality for displaying product recommendations, it doesn’t quite cut it. You have to manually add upsells and cross-sells to each product which can be time-consuming. On top of this, there’s no option to choose specific products to be displayed as recommended products on your single product pages.

To get the most out of product recommendations, you’ll need a dedicated plugin like the WooCommerce Order Bump plugin.

WooCommerce Order Bump lets you create a customizable modal popup that’s automatically shown to customers when they add products to their cart. This way, you have full control over which products appear in the “You may also like” section of your WooCommerce site.

Ready to start offering “You may also like” upsells on your online store? Get started with WooCommerce Order Bump today!