If a particular product does not meet a customer's needs, that does not mean they should leave your store.
The reason can be anything: the price, manufacturer, characteristics, configuration, or simply the fact that the required product is out of stock. At this point, it is important to immediately offer suitable alternatives or products that logically complement the customer's choice.
Similar and Related Products for JoomShopping 5+ automates the creation of these catalog relationships and allows you to generate linked product lists in bulk according to defined rules.
Do not force customers to return to the catalog and search for an alternative on their own.
Show relevant products directly on the product page they are already viewing.
Offer an alternative when a product is not suitable
Customers rarely make a decision based on a single parameter. They compare price, manufacturer, characteristics, appearance, and other product properties.
If the current option is not suitable, a similar products block can immediately show other items from your catalog that may better match the customer's requirements.
The customer can continue choosing within your store instead of starting their search for alternatives again.
Similar products
Offer alternative products with comparable parameters when the current option does not meet the customer's needs.
Related products
Build lists of products that complement the main purchase and may be useful together with the selected item.
Automatic generation
Avoid assigning product relationships manually one by one — generate them in bulk using predefined rules.
Internal linking
Linked products create additional navigation paths between product pages and help customers explore the catalog more deeply.
Automation instead of manual assignment
In a small store, assigning several similar or related products manually may still be manageable.
But when a catalog contains hundreds or thousands of items, manual work quickly becomes inefficient: you have to constantly open product pages, search for suitable items, and keep existing relationships up to date.
The extension allows linked product lists to be generated automatically for the whole catalog or only for selected products.
One set of rules — applied to a large number of products at once.
This is especially useful for catalogs with many similar products and multiple manufacturers.
How products can be matched
You define the logic used to generate lists of similar or related products.
Products can be linked by:
- price;
- specified text;
- product ID;
- product code;
- manufacturer;
- one or several characteristics;
- product labels;
- random selection.
This makes it possible to build different scenarios — from simply showing products from the same manufacturer to selecting alternatives based on specific characteristics.
Work only with the relevant part of the catalog
Related products do not always need to be selected from the entire catalog.
You can restrict the pool of donor products and use only items from the required segment.
Products can be filtered by:
- category;
- manufacturer;
- vendor.
For example, alternatives can be selected only from the same category or only from products made by a specific manufacturer.
Control the quality of recommended products
Automatic generation of linked products does not mean that every item matching a rule should automatically appear in the recommendation list.
The extension allows product status and completeness to be taken into account so that only suitable items are added.
You can require products to have:
- an image;
- a price;
- stock availability;
- published status.
This helps prevent unpublished, unavailable, or incomplete products from appearing as recommendations.
Define how many linked products to add
You can define the number of products that should be added to each list.
This helps avoid overloading the product page with dozens of recommendations and lets you create a compact set of the most relevant items.
Bulk processing or selected products only
The extension can be used for the entire catalog or for a specific selection of products.
This is useful when you want to configure relationships only for a certain category or product group, or test a new rule on a smaller part of the catalog first.
Created relationship lists can also be cleared in bulk.
Undo the latest assignment
Bulk updates to a large catalog always require a way to control and reverse the result.
If you decide to change the matching rules after processing, the latest assignments can be undone and the previous product state restored.
This makes it safer to experiment with different matching rules.
Related products as an addition to the purchase
Similar products help customers choose something instead of the current item, while related products help them find what may be useful together with it.
Depending on your store assortment, these may include:
- accessories;
- consumables;
- components;
- spare parts;
- additional equipment;
- other products connected with the main purchase.
The exact scenario depends on your catalog structure and the rules used to create product relationships.
Internal linking between product pages
Similar and related product lists create logical navigation paths between catalog pages.
This is useful first of all for the customer: they can continue browsing relevant products without returning to the category page or configuring filters again.
At the same time, this structure creates additional internal links between product pages.
Internal linking is one element of website structure, but using related products by itself does not guarantee improved search engine rankings.
Especially useful for large catalogs
Automatic generation of linked products provides the greatest benefit in stores where customers regularly need to compare many products with similar parameters.
For example:
- auto parts and components;
- tires and wheels;
- tools;
- electronics and accessories;
- construction materials;
- children's products;
- office supplies;
- any catalog containing many products with similar parameters.
Main extension features
- automatic generation of similar products;
- automatic generation of related products;
- bulk catalog processing;
- processing of selected products only;
- product matching by price;
- matching by specified text;
- matching by ID;
- matching by product code;
- matching by manufacturer;
- matching by one or several characteristics;
- matching by product labels;
- random product selection;
- restriction of donor products by category;
- restriction by manufacturer;
- restriction by vendor;
- configuration of the number of products in each list;
- image availability control;
- price availability control;
- stock availability control;
- publication status control;
- bulk clearing of created relationships;
- undoing the latest assignments with restoration of the previous state;
- creation of internal links between product pages.
Similar and Related Products for JoomShopping 5+ helps automate product relationships across a large catalog. Customers get convenient access to alternatives and complementary products, while administrators no longer need to manually assign linked products to hundreds or thousands of items.