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How to Add and Customize WooCommerce Related Products

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WooCommerce related products help shoppers discover more items and can increase your average order value. When the wrong products appear or the layout looks messy, you need a simple way to add, edit, or customize what shows on the page.

Here is what you will learn in this guide:

Let’s begin by understanding how WooCommerce decides which items appear as related products and how you can take full control of them.

Related products in WooCommerce are suggestions shown on a product page to help customers discover more items they may like. According to WooCommerce, products can be related to each other in three ways: Upsells, Cross-sells, or by sharing the same tags or categories. You can also show related products in a WooCommerce store to increase product visibility and encourage additional purchases.

woocommerce related products

Upsells and Cross-sells give you full control over which items appear because you choose them manually. Category and tag based relationships are automatic and help WooCommerce group similar products together without extra setup.

This feature brings several benefits for your store:

  • Helps customers find similar or complementary items
  • Encourages deeper product exploration
  • Creates a smoother shopping experience
  • Increases average order value through strategic recommendations
  • Strengthens merchandising for stores with many products

Both manual and automatic methods work together to improve product discovery and guide customers toward items that fit their interests.

You can add WooCommerce related products manually inside each product, and this method gives you direct control over what appears on the product page.

Here are the steps to add related products from the WooCommerce dashboard:

  • Step 1: Go to WordPress → Products → All Products
go to product section
  • Step 2: Open the product you want to add related products 
all products
  • Step 3: In Product Data, select Linked Products
linked product for woocommerce upsells and cross sells
  • Step 4: Add your product suggestions in the Upsells and Cross-sells fields
  • Step 5: Click Update to save your changes

WooCommerce also generates related items automatically. Any products that share the same categories or tags may appear together by default. This gives you an easy way to influence the automatic suggestions simply by organizing your products well.

By combining both methods, you can guide what customers see, improve product discovery, and show more relevant recommendations on your product pages.

If you want more control over related products than WooCommerce offers by default, the Related Products for WooCommerce plugin is one of the simplest ways to adjust how recommendations appear.

The WooCommerce related products plugin lets you define relationship rules, choose display positions, change the number of products shown, and include or exclude specific items.

Step 1. Install and activate the plugin

First, let’s install and activate Related Products for WooCommerce plugin. 

woocommerce related products plugin

Then, go to WooCommerce → Related Products to open the main settings panel.

go to related product settings

This page contains all global recommendation settings.

Step 2. Choose the working mode

You can pick one of three modes depending on how you want WooCommerce to generate recommendations.

working mode
  • Custom Related Products: Full control using plugin settings. Recommended for most stores.
  • Default: Uses WooCommerce’s native related product logic. Only the title can be customized.
  • Disable Recommendation: Turns off the related products section completely across the store.

Step 3. Configure General settings

The General Settings panel controls how related products appear across your entire store. These options define layout, product sources, exclusions, and cart display behavior.

1. Cart display option:

  • Show related products in the cart to encourage quick add-ons. The plugin displays recommendations based on the last product added.
working mode

2. Slider configuration

  • Enable the slider to turn the widget into a scrollable carousel
  • Set how many items appear per device type
  • Choose the total number of products shown
  • Adjust slider width as a percentage of the container
  • Add custom arrow icons if your theme hides default arrows
slider config

3 – Widget layout

  • Choose to display recommendations as a grid or as a slider
related product layout

4 – Widget settings

  • Set a custom title, such as You May Also Like
  • Decide to show related products from the same category or the same tag
  • Hide related product widgets for specific categories
  • Hide recommendations for specific individual products
widget-settings

These settings define how your related product section looks and which items appear by default. Changes made here apply storewide, unless you override them at the individual product level.

Step 4. Set sorting and exclusion rules

These settings help you control which products appear in the recommendation widget and in what order they are displayed.

1 – Sorting options

Now, let’s choose how the related products should be arranged in the widget. You can sort by:

  • Title
  • Created date
  • Slug
  • Updated date
  • Average rating
  • Popularity
  • Price
  • Relevance
  • Random
advanced settings

2 – Relevance sorting

Relevance is designed to show the most closely related items first. It pulls products from the same subcategory before showing items from the parent category. 

For relevance to work correctly, the Same category option must be enabled under Display related products from.

3 – Exclusion rules 

You can prevent certain products from appearing in the widget:

  • Exclude out of stock products
  • Exclude backorder products
  • Exclude specific products or entire categories
Sort and exclude products

These options help ensure customers only see available and suitable recommendations.

Step 5. Use Advanced settings

The Advanced Settings panel helps you handle theme compatibility and multilingual stores. These options are useful when your related product section is not displaying correctly or when you want consistent recommendations across translated product versions.

1 – WPML Compatibility: Use the original product ID instead of the translated product ID to ensure the same set of related items appears across all languages.

2 – Theme Template Override: Enable template override if your theme hides or blocks the related product section. This forces the widget to appear even on themes that do not support the default output.

After adjusting these options, click Save Changes. The updated settings apply instantly across your store.

Step 6. Set custom recommendations for individual products

Individual product settings let you override the global recommendation rules for a specific product. This is useful when you want to promote certain items, highlight alternatives, or improve recommendations for products with limited category options.

To set custom suggestions: Go to Products → Edit product → Product Data → Linked Products

new linked products field via plugin

You can set:

  • Upsells
  • Cross-sells
  • Category-based recommendations
  • Tag-based recommendations
  • Attribute-based recommendations
  • Exclude products for this product

This is useful when promoting specific products or when a category has limited items.

You can manually insert related products on any page or post using:

[wt-related-products product_id="XX"]

Replace XX with the product ID.

custom related products on specific page with shortcode

This is perfect for custom landing pages or blog posts that need embedded product recommendations.

You can also customize related products in WooCommerce using code snippets. These snippets work through standard WooCommerce hooks and filters and let you control how many products appear, how they are selected, or remove the entire section. All code should be added to a child theme or a site-specific plugin.

Let’s use this snippet to change how many related items appear on the product page. You can adjust both the total count and the number of columns.

add_filter( 'woocommerce_output_related_products_args', 'custom_related_products_count' );

function custom_related_products_count( $args ) {

    $args['posts_per_page'] = 4;

    $args['columns'] = 4;

    return $args;

}

Note: Update the numbers to match your layout.

If you want to hide related products on all single product pages, you can use this snippet.

remove_action( 'woocommerce_after_single_product_summary', 'woocommerce_output_related_products', 20 );

This removes the entire related products block from its default position.

These filters control how WooCommerce selects related products. You can disable tag matching or use category matching only.

add_filter( 'woocommerce_product_related_posts_relate_by_tag', '__return_false' );

add_filter( 'woocommerce_product_related_posts_relate_by_category', '__return_true' );

This setup tells WooCommerce to generate related items based on category only.

If you want to show specific products instead of WooCommerce’s automatic selection, return your own list of product IDs.

add_filter( 'woocommerce_related_products', 'custom_related_products_list' );

function custom_related_products_list( $related_products ) {

    return array( 25, 32, 48 );

}

Note: Replace the IDs with the products you want to recommend.

You can also add a fully custom related product section by hooking into a display location and outputting your own HTML or code.

add_action( 'woocommerce_after_single_product_summary', 'custom_related_block' );

function custom_related_block() {

    echo '<div class="custom-related-box">Your custom related products here</div>';

}

This gives you complete freedom to design your own layout or embed a custom query.

Related products can significantly influence how customers explore your catalog and how much they spend. When the recommendations are intentional and well presented, they can guide shoppers to better choices and increase your average order value. Below are seven fully developed tips to help you use related products more effectively.

1. Match your recommendations to real customer buying behavior

Your store performs better when your related products reflect what customers actually purchase together. You can review order data or analytics to identify common product combinations, then use those insights to assign more accurate Upsells and Cross-sells.

2. Combine manual linking with WooCommerce’s automatic suggestions

Manual Upsells and Cross-sells allow you to highlight specific products, while automatic recommendations based on categories and tags ensure broad coverage across your catalog.

woocommerce product tags and categories

When you use both methods together, your store displays suggestions that are both precise and consistent.

3. Highlight products that offer strong conversion potential

Your related product section becomes more effective when it features items that convert well or deliver higher margins. You can prioritize best sellers, upgraded models, popular accessories, or items that create natural bundles.

Your store can increase engagement by making the related product block visually appealing. You can use uniform image sizes, clear product titles, and concise pricing information to create a section that looks professional and easy to scan.

5. Experiment with different display formats and positions

Your related product performance may improve when you adjust how and where the section appears. You can test a slider, try a grid layout, move the block higher on the product page, or enable related items in the cart to reach customers at the right moment.

6. Remove products that do not support a strong customer experience

Your store benefits when you exclude low performing items from the recommendation list. You can hide out of stock products, items with low ratings, or products that do not make sense as suggestions. Cleaner recommendations often lead to better engagement and trust.

7. Monitor your results and refine your recommendations regularly

Your related products will perform better over time when you track their impact. You can review click through rates, cart additions, and completed orders to see which suggestions resonate with customers. These insights help you adjust your product groupings and improve future recommendations.

You can turn off related products by removing the function that displays them. Go to your child theme’s functions.php file and add a small code snippet that removes the related products action from the product page. This immediately hides the entire section across your store.

Can WooCommerce handle 50,000 products?

WooCommerce can handle 50,000 products as long as your hosting environment is optimized. A strong server, efficient caching, and a well structured database help WooCommerce manage large catalogs with stable performance.

WooCommerce selects related products based on shared categories and tags. It also allows you to assign manual Upsells and Cross-sells inside each product. These two methods work together to create a mix of automatic and custom recommendations on the product page.

WooCommerce related products may not show if the product has no matching categories or tags, if the theme removes the default output, or if a custom function disables the section. You can fix this by checking your product taxonomy, switching to a default theme, or reviewing any code that alters related products.

By default, related products are shown at the bottom of the single product page, usually placed after the product description and customer reviews.

Final Words

WooCommerce related products can help customers discover more items, explore your catalog with confidence, and increase your store’s overall sales. With a bit of tuning, the related product area becomes more than a default WooCommerce feature. It becomes a useful part of your product pages that improves discovery, supports conversions, and enhances your store’s overall shopping experience.

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