Product Recommendations Category Filter Fix Released

November 12, 2024 brought an important fix for Product Recommendations' category filtering. The update ensures that category filters properly respect store-view boundaries, preventing recommendations from products in unrelated stores from contaminating results. For merchants operating multi-store environments, this fix addresses a critical data quality concern.

The Issue

In multi-store environments, merchants can configure different product assortments and pricing for different customer regions or brands. Product Recommendations' category filtering previously failed to respect these store-view boundaries. This meant that recommendations might include products from sibling stores that weren't configured for the current store-view, creating a disjointed customer experience and potentially showing products customers couldn't actually purchase.

Real-World Impact

Consider a multi-regional retailer operating European, US, and Asian storefronts with different product assortments. Product Recommendations would occasionally recommend products only available in sibling regions, frustrating customers who couldn't complete the purchase. The November fix ensures recommendations only surface products available in the current store-view.

Technical Details

The fix modifies how Product Recommendations' category filter interprets store-view context. Previously, the filter performed category-based lookups without properly scoping results to the active store-view. The update ensures all recommendation queries respect the current store-view, eliminating cross-store contamination.

Applying the Fix

The fix is available through standard Product Recommendations updates. Merchants running Product Recommendations should ensure they're on the latest version. The update is backward compatible and requires no configuration changes.

Testing After Update

After applying the fix, merchants operating multi-store environments should test Product Recommendations across each store-view. Verify that recommendations only surface products actually available in each store. This testing provides confidence that the recommendation experience is now properly scoped.

Why This Matters

Data quality is fundamental to personalisation effectiveness. When recommendations include irrelevant products, they lose value. This fix improves recommendation relevance and customer experience, particularly for sophisticated multi-store merchants.