The Complete Guide to Magento 2 Related Products, Upsell Products & Cross-Sell Products

To sell effectively one must learn to predict and analyze. What are people looking for at my store? How can I make their search fruitful? At what point do the results become satisfying?

The answers to the questions lie within everyone’s reach — run through some behavior statistics and create the most relevant offers for your audience. And your Magento website is ready to help. By default, it offers lots of marketing tools that can dramatically improve sales. Today, we are going to discuss Magento 2 related products. Of course, it is impossible to talk about them without entering the territory of Magento 2 upsell products. And to complete the picture, we also shed light on Magento 2 cross-sell products. These are the very tools that can help you follow your customers’ needs, providing them with extended offers.

In this guide, we explain how to enrich a customer experience by using related items. You will find out what Magento related products are. Next, we define Magento upsells. And, of course, you will learn what Magento cross-sell items are and what makes them unique in comparison to other relation types. 

You will learn how to use all these marketing tools. We explain how to associate particular products with related products, upsells, and cross-sells in Magento 2. The article sheds light on assigning them to product and cart pages.

Next, we describe the corresponding import and export processes. You will learn what attributes to add to a CSV table to import Magento 2 related products, upsells, and cross-sells in a single file. We quickly go through the native Magento 2 import and then focus on the extended procedure that Involves the Improved Import & Export extension.

The Difference Between Magento 2 Related Products, Upsells & Cross-Sells

Consider Magento 2 related products, upsells, and cross-sells as a promo engine for your e-commerce website. Each relation type is distinguished following the display location and specific marketing goals. However, the core idea of being a purchase stimulus is similar for all the triplet items. But what are the differences? Let’s define each relation type to find out.

Magento 2 Related Products – Perfect Additions to a Chosen Product

Related products in Magento 2 are a selection of products connected to another one. Whether it is based on the same category affiliation or on how often the items are bought together you can set the relations between multiple products.

Customers see these promo objects every time they visit one of the listed product pages. Related product block place is determined by a store layout: it can be displayed at the bottom of the page, in the sidebar, etc.

Magento related products are configured in the backend in a few steps. Just specify the list of items that may attract your customers in combo (e.g., a yoga mat + yoga video courses); thus, you will push them to buy an extra item or two.

Magento 2 Upsell Products – Better Versions of a Product

To up the stakes and involve customers deeper into the diversity of your store content use the Magento upsell product promotion. These products are technically similar to related products for item interchange with a slight difference in options.

In Magento 2, upsells are displayed on a product page to advertise goods more profitable for your business than the one that a customer observes. You offer products that are pretty much the same, but the quality is better, the functionality is improved, the brand is more famous, etc. And that implies a higher price.

It’s sort of a trick to play on the human tendency to get the best out of any situation. You encourage customers to try new opportunities, and they pay you willingly more for pleasure. The case where both sides win.

Magento 2 Cross-Sell Products – Last Chance to Trigger The Impulse

No one wants to miss chances. Not to promote in a shopping cart is a waste.

Magento cross-sells are the last chance to trigger the impulse purchase (the very case when you see a tempting thing — you buy it), that’s why the products for this task must be selected carefully.

Similar to related products and upsells, cross-sells are added manually from the backend and are shown in a shopping cart. When your customer is a step away from the checkout, it’s still possible to persuade them to make an additional purchase. Keep in mind to plan what kind of promotions you want to run with upsells:

• Price-based stimulation;
• Bestseller display;
• Products that amplify the functionality of a product in a cart.

As you can see, Magento displays upsells and related products on product pages while cross-sells settle in the cart. The purpose of Magento’s related products and cross-sells is to promote additional goods while upsells are mostly used to offer a more expensive variation of a product a customer looks at.

Let’s see how to assign each relation type to a product.

How to Assign Related Products, Upsell Products & Sross-Sell Products in Magento 2

It is not an accident that Magento 2 related products, upsells, and cross-sells are often put together in guides. The thing is they share both the primary promo goal and the assigning process.

To retrace the path, we start under Catalog > Products. Follow these steps to assign Magento 2 related products, upsells, and cross-sells to a product: 

• Select a product you want to assign new relations to and click ‘Edit’;
• Scroll down the product setting page to the ‘Related Products, Up-Sells, and Cross-Sells’ section;
• Choose ‘Add … Products’ for any of the options or all of them;
  
• Decide on what products to use as related products, upsells, and cross-sells. Choose corresponding items in a popover with the product list.
  

NOTE: You can show/hide the Magento cross-sell display. Go to Store > Configuration > Sales > Checkout > Shopping Cart and change the status of ‘Show Cross-sell Items in the Shopping Cart’.

How to Import Magento 2 Related Products, Upsells & Cross-Sells

In this section, we are going to show how to import related products, upsells, and cross-sells to Magento 2 in a CSV file as it is the most commonly used format, but keep in mind that Magento 2 Improved Import & Export allows using various file types and choose between different import/export sources.

We strongly advise using Google Sheets for editing CSV tables, as this is the most convenient and simple way of editing CSV tables. See the detailed guide to how to use Google Sheets to edit CSV files, and how to import directly from the Google Sheets: Google Sheet Master Import Table Guide.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the related items are imported along with the Magento 2 products using the dedicated columns. Below we describe how to fill in these columns and how to compose the import table.

Magento 2 Attributes in a CSV Table Responsible for Related Products, Upsells & Cross-Sells

To perform the import of Magento 2 related products, upsells, and cross-sells, create a CSV file with product data. Specifying related products, upsells, and cross-sells requires these columns in the table:

• related_skus – for related products
• crosssell_skus – for cross-sells
• upsell_skus – for upsells

All columns have the same formatting. To assign a product as related you need to specify its SKU. If you want to assign multiple related products use a comma to separate multiple SKUs.

Get a sample Google Sheet import table with related products, upsells, and cross-sells

Visit GitHub to get CSV, XML, JSON, XSLX, and ODS sample files with related products, upsells, and cross-sells

Native Magento 2 Import of Related Products, Upsells & Cross-Sells

To experience the native Magento 2 import of related products, upsells, and cross-sells, proceed to System -> Data Transfer -> Import and follow these steps:

1. Choose the entity type to specify what kind of data will be imported/exported. There is no such entity as related products, cross-sells, or upsells in Magento 2. You import this data as a part of the Products entity.
2. Decide how imported data will behave toward the store data. Select Add/Update to update the existing products with new relations.  
3. Configure separators. Use the standard separators if your CSV file is composed according to the default requirements.
4. Upload a CSV file to import related products, cross-sells, and upsells to Magento 2.

Improved Import of Magento Related Products, Upsells & Cross-Sells

As it was mentioned above the Improved Import & Export module also lets you import related products, cross-sells, and upsells to your Magento 2 website. In comparison to the built-in importer, this extension offers a series of advantages. It supports various types of import files (CSV, XML, Json, ODS, XLSX) as well as multiple import sources (manual file upload, Dropbox, Google Sheets, FTP/SFTP, direct URL uploads, REST and SOAP APIs). In addition, you can use cron-based schedules to automate your data transfers. 

These features involve a few more setting fields in the admin but let’s take it slowly and see how it’s done step by step.

Go to System > Import Jobs to import Magento 2 related products, upsell products, and cross-sell products to your store content:

1. Select an existing job or add a new one by clicking ‘Add New Job’;
2. Enable the job in the General Settings section;
3. Name the job;
4. Define whether the job is run manually or automated. You can always set a custom schedule if no present options satisfy you;
5. Connect the job run time and the locale;
6. You can avoid product duplication by automatically generating new URLs;
7. Re-index data after import to apply changes seamlessly;
   
8.  Allow using API if you are connecting to a particular third-party system. You don’t need this option for importing a CSV file with related products, cross-sells, and upsells to Magento 2;
9. Specify the entity type to be imported. In our case, choose ‘Products’;
10. Indicate where the data is coming from. You can choose a preset that automatically adjusts third-party data to the Magento 2 requirements; 
11. Clear attributes values or other product characteristics to avoid conflict with the existing database;
    
    
12. Set up the import behavior to outline the new data and store data relations; 
13. Plan to stop the job after a certain number of errors if the data is not imported correctly; 
14. Configure separators if necessary;
    
15. Select a CSV file as an import container with Magento 2 related products, cross-sells, and upsells;
16. Choose an import source. With Improved Import & Export, you can use Google Sheets as a source. In this case, there’s no need to copy & paste the whole CSV table, just insert a URL to the spreadsheet and the module will upload the data automatically;
17. Specify a path to product images;
    
18. Use advanced mapping settings if you import related products from external systems;
19. Set up price rules if there’s a need to manage the prices of the imported entities in bulk;
20. Save and run the job.
    
    

No matter what tool you use, now you know how to import Magento 2 related products, cross-sells, and upsells. Let’s take a look at the corresponding export procedure.

How to Export Magento 2 Related Products, Upsells & Cross-Sells

You cannot use the default Magento 2 exporter to export related products, cross-sells, and upsells. Therefore, use the Improved Import & Export extension as follows:

1. Go to System > Export Jobs and create a new export job.
2. The General Settings resembles the same section for Import Jobs except for two unique options in this case:
   – Define the event that will trigger the job running (you can use it to automate exports);
   – Divide additional attributes to control the number of columns in the CSV table.
3. Specifying the entity for export. Choose Products to export related products, up-sells, and cross-sells from Magento 2:
   
4. Enable ‘Consecutive Export’ to export entities created after the last job run;
5. Assign particular behavior and a source for the export;
   
6. Select an export source and specify a path for export. Also, map attributes if necessary;
   
7. Use filters to export specific entities;
   
8. Save and run the job.

As you can see, Improved Import & Export adds a bunch of features that make the import & export processes more diverse and precise. With the help of cron and API, the module provides the ability to link your e-commerce website to any external system. Multi-platform support guarantees seamless data import from one store to another. Various import and export sources will help you add or download the database from your store in the most suitable format, seamlessly transferring related products, cross-sells, and upsells between Magento and external systems. Follow this link to get more information about the extension:

Get Improved Import and Export extension for Magento 2

Magento 2 Related Product, Up-sell, and Cross-sell Import & Export FAQ

Let’s take a look at other nuances of importing and exporting related products, upsells, and cross-sells in Magento 2 with the help of the Improved Import & Export Magento 2 extension.

Final Words

Magento 2 related products, cross-sells, and upsells are powerful marketing instruments built into the platform. You can easily enhance your product page with the help of a related products block or add a section with upsells to it. When it comes to a cart page, Magento cross-sell items are at your disposal. Adding all these goods to a product doesn’t take much time. However, the more product relations you plan to add, the more time it takes. In this situation, you can import related products, cross-sells, and upsells to Magento 2 within a couple of clicks. If the default import procedure is not enough, consider Improved Import & Export a reliable replacement. Follow this link for more information about the extension:

Get Improved Import and Export extension for Magento 2