WPC Smart Recommendations

WPC Smart Recommendations is a product recommendation engine for WooCommerce. It analyzes customer shopping behavior — including items frequently purchased together, products viewed within the same browsing session, and customer affinities — to display tailored product recommendations across your store and help increase average order value.

Why WPC Smart Recommendations?

• Easy setup — activate the plugin and it begins analyzing store data immediately while providing fallback recommendations out of the box.
• Multi-algorithm engine — combines co-purchase, co-view, category affinity, wishlist, and compare data to generate tailored product recommendations.
• Multiple display surfaces — product pages, cart, checkout, thank you page, popups, and anywhere via shortcodes or widgets.
• Three layout options — Grid, Carousel (CSS scroll-snap), and compact List view.
• Performance analytics — track impressions, clicks, add-to-carts, purchases, and revenue attributed to recommendations.
• Priority rules engine — boost, penalize, or exclude products based on price, stock, age, category, and more.
• Template overridable — all templates can be customized from your theme.

Key Features

• Co-purchase algorithm (“Customers who bought this also bought”)
• Co-view algorithm (“Customers who viewed this also viewed”)
• Category affinity fallback (popular products from the same category)
• Wishlist-based recommendations (integrates with WPC Smart Wishlist)
• Compare-based recommendations (integrates with WPC Smart Compare)
• Trending Now section with time-decay scoring
• Recently Viewed products (localStorage-based, zero server load)
• Personalized “For You” popup (once per session)
• Manual recommendations per product (drag to reorder)
• Order-based recommendations for thank you pages and emails
• Carousel / Slider layout with CSS scroll-snap (zero JS dependency)
• Grid layout using WooCommerce product cards
• Compact List layout for sidebars and popups
• Configurable number of columns (2-6) for Grid and Carousel
• Smart product link behavior (same tab, new tab, or Quick View popup)
• Social proof badges (“🔥 12 people bought this today”)
• Exclude out-of-stock and unpurchasable products
• Exclude recently purchased products (configurable timeframe)
• Exclude specific product types
• Exclude specific pages
• Priority rules with drag-to-reorder
• Background performance tracking (impressions, clicks, add-to-carts, purchases, revenue)
• Transient-based caching with configurable TTL
• Configurable behavior data retention
• 6 shortcodes for flexible placement
• WordPress widget support
• HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) compatible
• Translation ready

Quick Start Guide (Using from Scratch)

1. Install & Activate: Ensure WooCommerce 3.0 or higher is installed and activated, then activate WPC Smart Recommendations.
2. Initial Scan & Fallback: On activation, the plugin automatically scans past completed orders to build initial co-purchase data. For fresh stores with no order history, the plugin automatically falls back to category and store products so recommendations appear immediately.
3. Configure Settings: Go to WP-admin > Recommendations to adjust display positions, layouts, columns, and recommendation algorithms.
4. Manual Recommendations (Optional): Edit any individual product in WP-admin > Products, go to the Product Data > Recommendations tab, and manually choose or reorder recommended products.
5. View Results: Visit any single product page or your cart page to see recommendations displayed.

How to Configure

All plugin options are organized under WP-admin > Recommendations:

• General Settings:
  • Sort order: Sort recommended products by relevance, price low to high, or price high to low.
  • Exclude unpurchasable: Hide out-of-stock and non-purchasable products.
  • Exclude recently purchased: Exclude items the shopper has bought in the last X days.
  • Product link: Open product links in the same tab, new tab, or trigger WPC Smart Quick View popup.
  • Exclude product types: Exclude variable, grouped, external, or custom product types.
• Product Page Settings:
  • Position: Choose where recommendation widgets appear (below add-to-cart form, below product summary, after related products, in a custom tab, or replace native WooCommerce related products).
  • Layout: Select Grid, Carousel (CSS scroll-snap slider), or List view.
  • Columns & Limit: Set columns (2 to 6) and maximum products to display (default: 8).
• Cart & Checkout Settings:
  • Cart Position: Display recommendations after cross-sells, before cross-sells, or replace standard cross-sells.
  • Checkout Position: Optionally display recommendations before or after order review or customer details.
• Personalized & Trending Settings:
  • Personalized Popup: Display a tailored “For You” popup once per session based on user browsing history.
  • Trending Products: Enable trending section with time-decay scoring across views, carts, and purchases.
• Algorithms Settings:
  • Enable or disable individual recommendation sources: Co-purchase, Co-view, Category Affinity, On-sale products, Wishlist, and Compare data.
• Priority Rules:
  • Create rules to boost, penalize, or exclude products based on condition criteria such as stock quantity, price, age in days, on-sale status, or category.

How to Use Shortcodes

Embed recommendation sections anywhere in posts, pages, or page builders using shortcodes:

• [wpcrc_product] — Display recommendations for a product.

  • id: Target product ID (optional, defaults to current product on single product pages).
  • limit: Number of products to show (default: 4).
  • columns: Number of columns (2 to 6, default: 4).
  • layout: Display layout: grid, carousel, or list (default: grid).
  • Example: [wpcrc_product id="123" limit="4" columns="4" layout="grid"]

• [wpcrc_trending] — Display trending products across the store.

  • limit: Number of products to show (default: 8).
  • columns: Number of columns (2 to 6, default: 4).
  • layout: Display layout: grid, carousel, or list (default: grid).
  • Example: [wpcrc_trending limit="8" columns="4" layout="carousel"]

• [wpcrc_for_you] — Display personalized recommendations for the current visitor.

  • limit: Number of products to show (default: 8).
  • columns: Number of columns (2 to 6, default: 4).
  • layout: Display layout: grid, carousel, or list (default: grid).
  • Example: [wpcrc_for_you limit="6" columns="3" layout="grid"]

• [wpcrc_cart] — Display recommendations based on current cart contents.

  • limit: Number of products to show (default: 4).
  • columns: Number of columns (2 to 6, default: 4).
  • layout: Display layout: grid, carousel, or list (default: grid).
  • Example: [wpcrc_cart limit="4" columns="4" layout="grid"]

• [wpcrc_recent_viewed] — Display recently viewed products.

  • limit: Number of products to show (default: 6).
  • columns: Number of columns (2 to 6, default: 6).
  • Example: [wpcrc_recent_viewed limit="6" columns="6"]

• [wpcrc_order] — Display recommendations based on items in an order (useful for custom thank you pages).

  • id: WooCommerce Order ID.
  • limit: Number of products to show (default: 4).
  • Example: [wpcrc_order id="456" limit="4"]

Widget

Go to WP-admin > Appearance > Widgets and add the WPC Smart Recommendations widget to any sidebar or widget area. Choose between personalized, trending, or cart-based recommendation modes.