Product pairings
Product pairing recommendations are curated suggestions aimed at inspiring customers by showcasing products that pair well together. This feature focuses on enhancing the discovery process, highlighting combinations that create rich buying opportunities.
Unlike complementary items, which focus on items based on broader customer behavior or past purchases, product pairings emphasize discovery and inspiration by displaying thoughtfully crafted combinations. For example, while exploring pasta, customers might see a pairing of a specific brand of spaghetti with a premium tomato sauce or gourmet parmesan cheese.
Product pairings on your storefront
Product pairing recommendations appear in the following locations during a customer's shopping experience:
- Search results
- Browsing
- Checkout aisle
The following image shows product pairings on a search results page after ground beef was added to the cart:
How product pairings are generated
Instacart uses a combination of co-purchase scoring and machine learning to suggest pairings. The suggestions may reflect popular pairings or pre-configured bundles to engage customers earlier in their shopping journey.
When a customer searches for an item or adds an item to their cart, that item becomes an anchor item for pairing. These pairings are ranked based on a combination of two scores:
- Machine learning. Evaluates how relevant each pairing is to the anchor item.
- Co-purchasing. Evaluates how often an item is purchased alongside the anchor item.
When the two scores are combined, the pairing with the highest combined score is shown to the customer.