Recommendations Merchandising

How it works

LimeSpot's AI engine analyzes billions of data points across its entire merchant network to understand each customer from the moment they land on your site. Related Items, Frequently Bought Together, Upsell, Cross-sell, and "You May Like" boxes can all reference the current product, items in cart, previously purchased, or previously visited products. These recommendations persist across sessions—returning visitors see relevant suggestions from the start, not just after they begin browsing again.

How to set it up

In the Designer, set a reference product type: recently purchased, recently viewed, in-cart products, or the current product page. Choose your layout style (Carousel, Grid, Rows, or Slider) and configure a fallback type so the box always shows relevant products. For more on setting up recommendations for returning shoppers, check out our returning shoppers guide.

Best practices

Take personalization further with audience segmentation. Serve specific products, brands, and price points based on multiple factors of a returning shopper's history. Use the audience show/hide controls to display different recommendation boxes to different segments from the same page template.

How it works

LimeSpot offers three levels of recommendation intelligence: individual behavior (You May Like, Recent Views), product-level (Frequently Bought Together, Related Items), and store-level (New Arrivals, Most Popular, Trending). A strong strategy incorporates all three. Trending items reflect what's going viral based on recent traffic (3 to 24 hours depending on volume). Most Popular items are all-time bestsellers weighted toward recent performance over the last few weeks.

How to set it up

Select the Trending or Most Popular box type in the Designer and place it on your desired pages. Both can be styled as Carousel, Grid, Rows, or Slider. Set a fallback type (e.g., New Arrivals) for when traffic data is still building up.

Best practices

Place Trending and Most Popular boxes on your homepage for strong first impressions. Add "Most Popular in this Collection" boxes at the top of collection pages to surface the winners from each category. Use audience targeting to show Trending to new visitors and personalized picks to returning customers.

How it works

You control which collections get more visibility in recommendations. Promote collections with higher conversion rates or margins, and deprioritize items with conditions like free products, low margins, or high shipping costs. Any product assigned to a collection can have its recommendation priority adjusted.

How to set it up

In LimeSpot's collection settings, you can promote, increase visibility, decrease visibility, or unpublish collections from recommendations. See our collection prioritization guide for detailed instructions.

Best practices

Combine collection prioritization with segmented experiences for maximum impact. Show different collection priorities to different customer segments—for example, highlight premium collections for high-value shoppers while featuring entry-level collections for price-sensitive visitors.

How it works

One type of recommendation doesn't fit all situations. LimeSpot supports stacking multiple box types on any page—"Frequently Bought Together" near the add-to-cart button, "You May Also Like" below the product details, and "Recently Viewed" at the bottom. LimeSpot automatically deduplicates products across boxes (exceptions: Recent Views and manually curated Upsell boxes always show their full set). If your catalog is small, some boxes may hide automatically to prevent repeated products.

How to set it up

Create multiple recommendation boxes with different types in the Designer. Place them at different positions on the page—top, middle, and bottom. Each box can have its own layout style, audience targeting, and fallback type, giving you complete control over the stacking experience.

Best practices

Use A/B/n testing to find the right number and spacing of stacked boxes. If you're concerned about overwhelming customers, experiment with placing other content (reviews, product details) between recommendation rows. Different layouts for each box also help differentiate them visually—a Carousel for "Frequently Bought Together" and a Grid for "You May Also Like," for example.

How it works

When a shopper clicks a recommended product, instead of navigating to a new page, a Quick View modal appears. They can view additional images, select variants (size, color, etc.), adjust quantity, and add to cart—all without losing their place. This keeps the browsing flow uninterrupted and increases the likelihood of adding multiple items.

How to set it up

In the Designer, go to Global Settings > Quick Actions > Action Type and select Quick View dialog. Configure which product details to display in the modal (description, quantity selector, etc.). You can also integrate with your theme's existing Quick View popup if you prefer using the native experience.

Best practices

Quick View modals work well for low-consideration products, especially those with many variants like size or color. For products that need detailed specs, reviews, or educational content before purchase, redirect to the full product page instead. Use the Vue.js customization layer to tailor the Quick View experience to match your brand's look and feel.

How it works

LimeSpot recommendation boxes can be placed virtually anywhere on your site. Four high-impact locations often overlooked:

• Navigation menus: Add "Bestsellers" or "Recommended for You" as a nav item that shows AI-driven products when hovered—tailored per customer instead of a static collection.
• Customer account center: Insert recommendations into order history and account management pages, where returning customers are already engaged with your brand.
• 404 & out-of-stock pages: Instead of a dead end, serve related products to keep shoppers browsing. If someone searched for a sold-out item, show similar alternatives.
• Exit-intent pop-ups: Use LimeSpot recommendations inside exit pop-ups to show bestsellers or "You May Also Like" products before a customer bounces.

How to set it up

Create recommendation boxes in the Designer and add them to any page template. For navigation placement, create an empty landing page and insert a Grid-style recommendation box. For exit-intent pop-ups, embed LimeSpot boxes into your preferred pop-up tool using JavaScript. For all placements, use audience targeting to control who sees each box.

Best practices

For navigation recommendations, show 4-5 products maximum (more becomes too small on mobile) and place the menu item at the far left for visibility. For account center pages, match the box type to the customer relationship: Recent Purchases for frequent rebuyers, Recent Views for regular browsers, "Recommended for You" for purchase-history-based picks. For exit-intent pop-ups, A/B/n test different approaches: discounts, email signup, bestsellers, or personalized picks.

How it works

For stores selling replenishable products (vitamins, coffee, skincare, pet food), Recent Purchases boxes remove guesswork by showing returning customers exactly what they ordered last time. This creates a one-click path to reorder and significantly reduces friction for repeat buyers.

How to set it up

Choose the Recent Purchases box type in the Designer and configure it to appear for logged-in or recognized customers. Select your preferred layout style and set a fallback type (such as Most Popular) for unrecognized visitors.

Best practices

Place Recent Purchases toward the bottom of the page so it doesn't overshadow new product discovery. For Shopify+ or BigCommerce stores, add a Recent Purchases box to checkout so customers can add their favorites to a fresh order. Don't forget to combine with cross-sell and upsell boxes—help repeat buyers discover new products that complement their regulars.

How it works

LimeSpot integrates with leading review platforms including Yotpo, Okendo, and others. When activated, star ratings appear directly on recommended products, giving customers instant social proof. Seeing that a recommended product has hundreds of 5-star reviews dramatically increases the likelihood of a click.

How to set it up

Contact LimeSpot to activate your review provider integration on your recommendation boxes. Once enabled, ratings automatically appear for any product that has reviews, across all box types.

Best practices

Social proof works especially well with Most Popular boxes—bestsellers naturally accumulate more reviews and higher ratings, creating a powerful feedback loop. This combination is ideal for homepage placement where new visitors are making their first browsing decisions.

How it works

LimeSpot integrates with loyalty platforms including LoyaltyLion, Yotpo, and Smile.io. With this integration, you can show how many points a customer would earn by purchasing a recommended product—including bonus point offers. A cross-sell becomes significantly more compelling when customers can rationalize the extra purchase as earning toward a future discount.

How to set it up

Contact LimeSpot to activate your loyalty program provider on your recommendation boxes. Once enabled, point values appear automatically on recommended products for enrolled loyalty members.

Best practices

Two approaches work well: highlight products related to what a customer is browsing (maximum relevance), or feature a collection of products with loyalty point incentives (centralizing your best offers). Use audience segmentation to show loyalty-integrated recommendations only to enrolled members, while other visitors see standard recommendations.

How it works

LimeSpot's A/B/n testing lets you run multi-variate tests on virtually any recommendation parameter—box type, layout style, placement position, number of products shown, even which audience segments see which experience. Tests can run on specific pages or across the full customer journey, and they don't jeopardize your existing performance because each variant only reaches a controlled portion of traffic.

How to set it up

Contact your Customer Success Manager to configure an A/B test, or explore the self-serve testing features in the LimeSpot dashboard. Define your variants, select the traffic split, and set the pages or journey stages to test.

Best practices

Start by testing a portion of your traffic before rolling changes site-wide. Prioritize testing high-impact variables first: box placement and type tend to have the largest effect on conversions. Review our box placement best practices as a baseline, then test variations from there.

How it works

While LimeSpot recommendations aren't personalized on a 1:1 basis at the page level, you can use segments and recommendation boxes together to create highly curated collection pages. Identify segments (e.g., premium brand buyers, category enthusiasts) and serve each a tailored set of recommendations on a dedicated page. Use segmented experiences to hide this page from customers who haven't made a purchase yet.

How to set it up

Create audience segments based on buying or browsing behavior. Build a page with Grid-style recommendation boxes and link it to your top navigation. Configure audience show/hide rules to display different product sets for different segments visiting the same page.

Best practices

The goal is to make the page feel ultra-personalized even though it's segment-based. Use descriptive labels like "Picked For You" or even "Picked For [Name]" if you can pull logged-in customer names. Keep segment definitions broad enough to have meaningful product sets, but specific enough that the recommendations feel relevant to each group.