Customers who bought PRODUCT X also bought these products

[wcw]

This recommendation engine lets customers see what others, presumably like themselves, are buying. On the product page you can have the typical "Customers who bought <product name inserted automatically> also bought these products" with a list (name, price, thumbnail, etc) below that.

The beauty of this system is it uses the built in custom product fields so you don't have any 3rd party database overhead, as most stores are already using the custom product fields. It keeps the list fresh by removing product codes which have been in the list the longest. Since the custom product field only holds 254 characters, your list will begin to turn over after it fills up. The shorter your product codes, the more you can have. That said, nobody is going to want to see more than 5 or 6 products listed. Hence, the module lets you trim that 254 usable characters down to 60 or 70 or whatever you choose.

As orders are placed, the token on the invoice page automatically tells the module to insert the product codes into the alsobought custom field of each of the products in the order.

The beauty of this is it is not some big expensive module. In fact, most of the people here already have the module and just need a newer version. Yep, you guessed it, see function #59 on the Emporium Plus Tool Kit description page at
http://www.emporiumplus.com/go/wcw/PROD/1AA/1AA00223

You can see a sample display just below the product rating at
http://www.pinemporium.com/mm5/merch..._Code=1S_00022

[titlehere]

Re: Customers who bought PRODUCT X also bought these products

Perhaps this is a silly question, but is there a way to limit the number of products shown from the template coding itself, or is it all based on the number in the item that is placed on the invoice screen? How can you be sure to restrict it to only 5 products if there are more alsobought products in the array?

[wcw]

Re: Customers who bought PRODUCT X also bought these products

Since it is an array (quicklist), you can simply put a conditional around the actual display of the product name, etc inside the foreach loop.
<mvt:if expr="pos1 LT 6">
show the product
</mvt:if>

[titlehere]

Re: Customers who bought PRODUCT X also bought these products

Figured it would be a simple thing like that I overlooked. Thanks so much!

[wcw]

Re: Customers who bought PRODUCT X also bought these products

It's been almost three years since I enhanced this feature. The original concept was to show the shopping patterns of other customers related to a specific product and companion purchases, i.e. things customers have bought together. This was generally done on the product page.

I added the alsobought_list_load function, #130 at http://www.emporiumplus.com/1AA00223.html You can take all the products in the basket or in the order, gather up all their companion purchases, then show all or a smaller random selection from the list.

You can easily see how it works without buying anything by putting products in the basket at http://www.emporiumplus.com/SFNT.html Then view the basket page. At the bottom you will see it building a list of suggested/recommended products based on other customers' purchase patterns. If the number of suggestions far exceeds the maximum I chose to display, it will display random selections from the list.

Today, I took that feature a bit farther. As you know, you can send customers an email a few days/weeks/months after a purchase to see how they liked the item(s), like your store, offer them a return discount, or for whatever reason you want. The Follow-on Contact module is used for that. http://www.emporiumplus.com/1AA00085.html The email can display a random selection (or all) of the recommended products based on other customers' purchases to improve your marketing campaign. They are already your customer so they are familiar with your store. If they feel good about the visit they will be more likely to give those suggested products a second look. This new feature also includes using a store morph email rather than the legacy template used in the past. I'll should have a "how to" on that tomorrow I hope. I've been a bit busy getting ready for the Miva Conference in San Diego but may have time to squeeze that in. I hope to see many of you there.

[kitdang]

Re: Customers who bought PRODUCT X also bought these products

Bill,

Many of my product code are not with the same length. Because of this, I can not use this function due to the logic on how the product code is being saved to the custom field. This is still an issue for me today correct?

Rick, I have always afraid to comment on the 'news and announcements' section of the forum as I am not sure if it meant to have comments or just purely news and announcements. If so, feel free to delete my post and I can ask the question again on the general post section.

[wcw]

Re: Customers who bought PRODUCT X also bought these products

Not really. Just use the whole allowed length (250). You might get more products in the list than you need. But on the display you can easily limit the number the customer sees by using a conditional inside the foreach loop. You could even do some other things like show 10 but then have a link at the bottom that shows all. Take a look at the http://www.emporiumplus.com/BASK.html after you put a couple of things in it, e.g. tool kit and coupon module. It will show 10 in the basket. But at the very bottom I have a link that shows all.