Siblings

This article explains the Product Siblings functionality and how to create the relationship in commercetools.

What is a Sibling

A product sibling in commercetools refers to a particular way that products can be grouped together. Siblings are displayed in a drop-down selection field at the top of the buybox of each other on the website. Here is an example of a Product using a Sibling relationship. At the top of the buybox, the customer can quickly navigate between the configured siblings.

The prices, discounts and available variants are all independent from the other siblings and thus it allows for different configuration. Here is a sibling from the above example, notice the difference in discount, and an additional subscription variant.

This functionality should be used by similar products that, for instance:

• Don't share the exact same content on the PDP.
• Don't have the same ingredients, for instance, different additives.
• Don't have the same reviews.

This is not the same as variants of one product, and not Hygraph category “sibling” categories. Labels use short name (short-name) when set, otherwise product name. Choosing a sibling navigates to that product’s Hygraph URL (the quantity query is kept). Out-of-stock siblings are disabled.

The shop loads siblings from the IDs on this product’s product-siblings attribute, then matches each sibling’s Hygraph product. A sibling without Hygraph is omitted.

Configuration

Product sibling configurations in commercetools can either be done during the initial creation of a group of products or by connecting existing products. Linking products as siblings is done in the General tab of a product overview. In the Product Attributes subsection there is the Product siblings search bar, remove and add buttons. To Add the first sibling simply enter the name of the product you wish to link.

Adding consecutive products as siblings is done by clicking the + button to the left of the search bar, removing one is done by clicking the trashcan icon.

By clicking the Show all set items (x) text, all existing connected product siblings will be displayed. API name: product-siblings, a set of product references (ids). Imports rewrite them to keys. Put the list on each product that should show the dropdown. The shop only reads the current product’s list (plus itself). Merchant Center does not keep the set in sync both ways.

If B is missing on A, A’s product page will not offer B. An image whose label is exactly sibling is stripped from the shop gallery and tiles. Do not use that label for a normal product-page shot. Each sibling still needs product selection, stock, and Hygraph. See Create a Product (short-name, categories, variants).