Accessory
An accessory is a product that adds something new to another product, such as a wine rack for a fridge, rather than replacing a part it came with.
- Add-on
What it means
An accessory is bought to go with a product the shopper already owns or is buying. It adds something that product did not come with: a wine rack for a fridge, a carry case for a drill. A spare part replaces something the product came with, and a consumable is used up and bought again, so the three are bought for different reasons.
Schema.org, the shared vocabulary for structured data, has one property for the link, isAccessoryOrSparePartFor. It defines it as “A pointer to another product (or multiple products) for which this product is an accessory or spare part.”1 Because it folds accessories and spares together, a Relationship column in your own data is what keeps them apart.
Good accessory data gives the item its own title and MPN, names the products it fits, and files it in an accessories category named for them. Google’s own taxonomy does the same, filing Refrigerator Accessories under Kitchen Appliance Accessories rather than inside Refrigerators.2
Think of it like this
An accessory is like a case for a phone. The phone works without it, the case was never in the box, and it is no use unless it fits that exact model.
For example
A supplier sends “Wine Rack KFR320” filed under Fridge Freezers, where shoppers browsing fridges meet it and shoppers looking for racks never do. Cleaned, it becomes “Fridge wine rack” with its own MPN, the relationship Accessory for, the category Fridge accessories, and two compatibility rows, KFR-320W and KFR-325W.
Why it matters
Accessories are the add-on sale, and the link to the main product makes it work. Shopify and WooCommerce generate related products themselves but leave complementary items to you.34 So a store can only offer the right rack beside the right fridge if the data says which fits which.
Not to be confused with
An accessory differs from a spare part. A spare part replaces something the product came with, such as a door shelf, while an accessory adds something it never had, such as a wine rack.
Sources
- schema.org. isAccessoryOrSparePartFor.
- Google. Google product taxonomy with IDs (en-GB).
- Shopify.dev. Product recommendations.
- WooCommerce documentation. Set up Related Products, Up-Sells and Cross-Sells.