Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting: AI Recommended returns nothing
When Shopify's productRecommendations API returns no results.
This article is a draft and may be incomplete or change before publishing.
If your AI Recommended strategy returns nothing, Shopify's recommendation engine has no data for the seed product.
Why it happens
Shopify's productRecommendations API needs purchase pattern data to learn what to recommend. New products with little purchase history can return empty results.
Two fixes
Switch strategies
Change the offer's product selection strategy from AI Recommended to:
- Specific Products — Hand-pick what to upsell.
- Most Expensive in Cart — Use the highest-priced item the buyer ordered as the upsell.
Add purchases to the seed product
Run the seed product through more checkouts so Shopify's engine learns. This takes weeks of real traffic — switch strategies in the meantime.
Recommended pattern
Use Specific Products as the default. Test AI Recommended only on products with established purchase history.