Recommended for you can get its products from two places: rules you write, or Shopify's own recommendation engine. The setting is called Recommendation source, and it decides which of the other controls on the page matter.
My rules (the default)
With My rules, you decide exactly what each customer is offered:
Order-total rules recommend products in a price range when the order total falls in a range.
Product rules recommend specific products when the order contains a product.
Collection rules recommend products from a collection when the order contains a product.
Your default recommendation is shown when no rule matches.
Choose My rules when you know your catalog's pairings, want to push a specific product, or run a small catalog where Shopify has little sales history to learn from. If you have no rules at all, every customer sees your default recommendation, and the settings page says so.
Shopify recommends
With Shopify recommends, Tacey asks Shopify for products that go with what the customer bought. It looks at up to three products on the order, takes the best match from each in turn, removes duplicates and anything already on the order (when Hide items already in this order is on), and stops at your Maximum products shown.
Your rules are not used in this mode. The page marks them "Not used while Shopify recommends" so you are not left wondering why a rule is not firing. Your default recommendation still matters: whenever Shopify has nothing for an order, or cannot be reached, the customer sees the default instead.
Related vs Complementary
When the source is Shopify recommends, Kind of Shopify recommendation picks which Shopify list to use:
Related products | Complementary products | |
What it shows | Similar products, based on your store's sales | Products that go well together |
Setup needed | None | Pairings you set in Shopify's Search & Discovery app |
When it comes up empty | A new store, or a product that has never sold | Any product you have not paired yet |
In both cases an empty result falls back to your default recommendation, so the customer is never shown an empty row.
How to switch
In Tacey, open Editing Tools, click Set up tools on the Thank you page card, and click Set up next to Recommended for you.
Under Where recommendations come from, choose My rules or Shopify recommends.
If you chose Shopify recommends, choose Related products or Complementary products.
Make sure If no rule matches, show this has a product or collection.
Click Save.
Your saved rules are kept when you switch to Shopify recommends. Switch back to My rules and they apply again.
Which should I pick?
New store or little sales history: My rules. Related products needs sales to learn from.
Large catalog, steady sales: Shopify recommends with Related products is a good zero-effort start.
You already curate bundles in Search & Discovery: Shopify recommends with Complementary products.
You want a specific upsell on specific products: My rules with product rules.
What this does NOT do
It does not mix the two sources. In Shopify recommends mode your rules are set aside, not combined.
It does not skip the market and stock checks. Whatever the source, a product must be active, published to the customer's market and available for sale before it is shown.
It does not let Shopify pick your discount or shipping. Those settings apply the same way in both modes.
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