How to Configure Correlated Items in SuiteCommerce

Product recommendations can help shoppers discover additional items while browsing your SuiteCommerce storefront.

For example, a customer viewing a particular product might also be interested in accessories or other items frequently purchased alongside it.

One Anchor Group customer wanted to display additional product recommendations on product detail pages and in the shopping cart.

SuiteCommerce offers several approaches to product recommendations, including Related Items, Correlated Items, and Intelligent Recommendations.

In this article, we'll compare these options and walk through the configuration of correlated items in SuiteCommerce.

Related Items vs. Correlated Items vs. Intelligent Recommendations

Although these features can all help shoppers discover additional products, they work differently.

Related Items

Related Items allow you to manually associate products with one another.

For example, you might recommend replacement parts or accessories that complement a particular product.

Advantages

• You control which products are recommended.
• Recommendations can reflect product compatibility, merchandising priorities, or other business requirements.
• They don't depend on having sufficient purchasing history.

Limitations

• Recommendations are not automatically generated from purchasing patterns.
• Setting up and maintaining associations can take time, particularly with a large product catalog.

Related Items may be a good fit when you want precise control over which products appear together.

Correlated Items

Correlated Items use purchasing relationships to identify products that customers tend to buy together.

Rather than manually selecting every recommendation, you can use purchasing activity to inform the recommended items.

Advantages

• Recommendations are generated from purchasing patterns.
• Product associations can change as purchasing behavior changes.
• They can help shoppers discover complementary products that aren't obvious from product descriptions alone.

Limitations

• You have less direct control over individual recommendations.
• Results depend on the purchasing information available.
• New products or products with limited purchasing history may not have meaningful correlations.

Correlated Items may be useful when you want recommendations informed by actual customer purchasing behavior.

Intelligent Recommendations

Intelligent Recommendations provide another approach to automated product suggestions.

Depending on the available configuration, these recommendations can incorporate additional criteria, such as diversity, freshness, or novelty.

Administrators may also have options to exclude particular products from recommendations.

Advantages

• More options for controlling recommendation behavior.
• Automatically generated recommendations.
• The ability to apply merchandising rules beyond basic product associations.

Limitations

• Configuration can be more involved.
• Adding a particular product to a recommendation may be less straightforward than using manually configured Related Items.

Intelligent Recommendations may be worth considering when your business needs more advanced recommendation controls.

How Correlated Items Work in SuiteCommerce

Correlated Items are calculated using purchasing relationships between products.

For example, if customers frequently purchase Product A and Product B together, NetSuite may identify a correlation between those items.

These relationships are evaluated using three measurements: Correlation, Lift, and Count.

Correlation

Correlation indicates the strength of the purchasing relationship between two items.

A higher correlation generally indicates that the items are more closely associated through purchasing activity.

Lift

Lift compares the observed relationship between items with what would be expected from their overall purchasing frequency.

A higher lift suggests that the products are purchased together more frequently than their individual popularity alone would predict.

Count

Count reflects how often the two products have been purchased together within the data used for the calculation.

These measurements help NetSuite identify which product relationships are meaningful enough to use for recommendations.

How to Configure Correlated Items in SuiteCommerce

Step 1: Open the Website Setup Record

In NetSuite, navigate to:

Commerce > Websites > Website List

Open the Website Setup record for the relevant SuiteCommerce storefront.

Step 2: Review the Upsell Settings

Navigate to the Upsell tab.

This is where the correlated-item settings are managed in the implementation described here.

Review the available settings for:

• Correlation
• Lift
• Count

These settings determine which calculated relationships meet the criteria for correlated-item recommendations.

For example, a higher minimum count may help exclude product relationships based on very few purchases.

Be aware that stricter criteria can also reduce the number of products eligible for recommendations.

Step 3: Verify the Correlated Items Field Sets

Next, review the Field Sets tab in the Website Setup record.

Confirm that the relevant Correlated Items fields are available through the field sets used by your SuiteCommerce implementation.

In the original implementation, this included checking the Search field set and the Correlated Items field set.

Although these settings may already be configured as part of the storefront setup, they're worth reviewing if recommendations aren't appearing as expected.

Step 4: Review Correlated Items on an Item Record

Open an item record in NetSuite.

Navigate to:

Web Store > Correlated Items

Here, you can review the correlated products associated with the item and their calculated measurements.

The original implementation displayed the following information:

Correlated item

Correlation

Lift

Count

These values are generated from purchasing relationships rather than manually maintained as a static list.

Step 5: Check the Product Detail Page and Cart

Return to the SuiteCommerce storefront and open a product detail page.

If correlated recommendations are available and the storefront is configured to display them, you should be able to review the recommended products.

Depending on the implementation, correlated items may also appear in the shopping cart.

If the recommendations don't appear, review the Website Setup settings, field sets, available correlation data, and storefront configuration.

The display of correlated items may depend on the SuiteCommerce version, theme, or customizations used by the store.

What if Correlated Items Aren't Appearing?

If you've configured correlated items but don't see recommendations on the storefront, start with these checks:

1. Review the Upsell settings. Confirm that the correlation, lift, and count thresholds are appropriate for the available purchasing data.
2. Check the field sets. Make sure the storefront can access the relevant correlated-item information.
3. Review the item record. Determine whether NetSuite has calculated correlated items for the product.
4. Check the storefront display. Confirm that the relevant product detail page or cart component is configured to show recommendations.
5. Consider purchasing history. Products with limited purchasing data may not have enough information to generate useful correlations.

These checks can help distinguish between missing recommendation data and a storefront display issue.

Which SuiteCommerce Recommendation Method Should You Use?

The best approach depends on how much control you need and what information is available.

Use Related Items when you want to manually determine which products should appear together.

Consider Correlated Items when you want recommendations informed by customers' purchasing patterns.

Explore Intelligent Recommendations when you need more advanced recommendation rules and controls.

These approaches serve different merchandising needs, and the right choice depends on your catalog, purchasing activity, and storefront requirements.

If you're unsure which approach fits your business, start by identifying what you want recommendations to accomplish and how much control you need over the products displayed.