Product siblings

1. What are product siblings?

Product siblings let you group related products and display them as swatches on the product page. Unlike Shopify’s default variants, each sibling product has its own images, details, and price. This also helps with inventory management, cross-selling, and using custom product templates for each variation.

For example: A baby clothing store sells a set of 3 full-sleeve t-shirts and pant combos in different prints (e.g., Dinosaurs, Birds, Snakes). Each print is a separate product with different images, prices, URLs, etc. but should be linked for easy navigation.

(Example taken from real Eurus customer: Orange Sugar)

✍️ When you might need this product sibling feature?

• When you want each product variant to have its own images, description, price & related information.
• When your product has more than Shopify’s 3 variant option limit.
• When you need better inventory management by treating each variation as a separate product.
• When you want to improve cross-selling and product recommendations within the same sibling group.
• When you want to list each variation as a separate product with its own title, URL, and keywords (good for SEO).
• When you need custom product templates for different variations.
• When you want customers to easily switch between similar products on the same page, improve product discovery without extra clicks.

2. How to Set Up Product Siblings?

Step 1: Create individual products

In Shopify admin, click on the Products tab > “Add product” to create new products.

Example: If you sell t-shirts for kids with different designs such as Dinosaurs, Birds, and snakes, create 3 Individual products.

Step 2: Put those products into a collection

• Still in Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections
• Click the “Create collection” button and add all sibling products you created in Step 1.

Step 3: Create 2 product metafields

In Shopify admin, click on Settings > Custom data > Products > Add definition to create product metafields. You will need to do this process twice to create 2 different product metafield:

Still unsure what to do? Try to create metafield yourself down here 👇:

👉 Take a look at How to create Product metafields if you need more detailed guidance.

Step 4: Copy the collection’s URL handle:

Remember the collection you created at Step 2? 

• Go back to it (Products > Collections > click on your collection.
• Scroll all the way down, and find the Search engine listing group.
• Click on the pencil icon .
• Then, copy the URL handle.

Step 5: Enter the collection’s URL handle into the “Sibling collection handle” metafield:

Now, remember the individual products you created in Step 1? 

• Again, go to Products.
• Check the boxes of the products you want to be in the sibling.
• Choose “Bulk edit”.
• Click on “Columns” in the top right corner.
• Scroll to find Metafields, tick on “Sibling collection handle” (or search Sibling collection handle).
• Paste the URL handle you copied in Step 4 above into the Sibling collection handle column.
• Click “Save”.

Step 6: Enter the type into the “Sibling type” metafield:

Let’s rewind to the example mentioned in Step 1 about selling a t-shirt with different patterns such as Dinosaurs, Birds, and Snake. So here, this “Sibling type” metafield is where you enter the Dinosaur, Birds, and Snake text.

Just like the Step 5 above, you need to:

• Go to Products.
• Check the boxes of the products.
• Choose “Bulk edit”.
• Click on “Columns” on the top right corner.
• Scroll to find Metafields, tick on “Sibling type” (or search Sibling type).
• Enter the text into the metafields.
• Click “Save”.

Step 7: Add the “Sibling products” block in Theme Editor:

Now is the time to set up inside the Eurus Theme:

• In Shopify admin, go to Theme Editor by clicking on Online Store > Themes > “Customize”.
• Go to the Product page (click on the Homepage dropdown > Products > Default products).
• Under the Product Information section, click “Add block”.
• Find and add the “Sibling products” block.

Step 8: Set up the “Sibling products” block in Theme Editor:

Still on that page at step 6, you can see the Sibling products block setting panel, and there are 3 most important information to fill in:

• Option name: Enter any texts you want to show as the labels for the type. For example: color, and pattern.

• Collection handle metafield: Enter “custom.sibling_collection_handle” (which is the Namespace and key of the Sibling collection handle metafield).

• Option value metafield: Enter “custom.sibling_type” (which is the Namespace and key of the Sibling type metafield).

Don’t forget to click “Save” when you finished!

✍ Some other settings:

• Linking option: 

• • "Load sibling products' content only": Choose when the siblings are of the same template, and the template content is mostly static. 
  • "Redirect to sibling product pages": Choose when each sibling has distinct rich content (e.g. product reviews) to navigate users directly to the sibling product page.

• Option display type: Choose to show the type picker as a Button or Dropdown.

• Enable color swatches: Toggle on to show images/color instead of plain text for the type. (To make this work, you must first set up the product swatches).

Example:

• Swatch size: Change the size of swatches buttons, only able when Enable color swatches is turned on.

Step 9: Save & preview your result

Now, your product pages will display swatches linking to sibling products, making it easy for customers to switch between them!

Still stuck? Contact us to get help.