In the evolving world of eCommerce, customer experience is king. Online retailers continually look for ways to enhance browsing and encourage buying. Two powerful merchandising strategies gaining traction are Shop The Look and Complete The Look. While these terms are often used interchangeably, they serve slightly different purposes and can significantly impact your store's conversion rates, upsell potential, and customer satisfaction.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore what each of these features means, their key differences, when to use them, and how to implement them effectively using the Lookfy app.
Both "Shop The Look" and "Complete The Look" are visual merchandising techniques designed to improve the customer journey by suggesting complementary products in a contextual, visually appealing format. Instead of showing individual products in isolation, they allow customers to see how items work together in real-life scenarios.
This strategy capitalizes on suggestive selling, a tactic proven to increase average order value by showing how a product fits into a lifestyle or collection. Whether you're selling fashion, furniture, or home decor, both "Shop The Look" and "Complete The Look" encourage customers to buy more by helping them visualize complete ensembles or settings.
However, the difference lies in intent and timing: one is curated upfront to inspire a full look, while the other is based on complementary additions after a product is already selected.
Shop The Look is a curated shopping experience where customers are presented with a fully styled scene — such as an outfit, living room setup, or table arrangement, and can purchase all the featured items with just a few clicks.
This approach is most common in:
It’s about creating a visual story that showcases a collection of products together, giving customers an easy way to buy everything they see and love in the scene.
Complete The Look is a cross-selling strategy that suggests additional complementary products once a customer has shown interest in or added a specific product to their cart. It answers the question: "What goes well with this item?"
Examples include:
Unlike "Shop The Look," which is a proactive display of items, "Complete The Look" is reactive — triggered by customer interaction. It's especially effective on product pages and cart pages.
Though both strategies aim to enhance the shopping journey, they differ in presentation, timing, and purpose.
Shop The Look allows you to showcase multiple products in a single styled scene, making it ideal for storytelling.
Complete The Look provides smart product suggestions based on what a customer is already viewing or purchasing.
While both “Shop The Look” and “Complete The Look” are excellent strategies for boosting sales and improving user experience, their strengths lie in different parts of the buyer’s journey. Understanding their unique benefits will help you implement each method more effectively.
Shop The Look is designed to inspire and simplify the shopping experience, especially for customers who seek ideas or struggle with styling decisions. It transforms your store from a simple product catalog into an engaging visual experience.
Complete The Look is a more targeted approach that helps customers finalize their purchase by offering thoughtful, relevant add-ons once they’ve already shown intent to buy.
In summary, Shop The Look builds desire and drives inspiration in the early stages of browsing, while Complete The Look supports conversion by refining the decision process at the product level. Together, they cater to both emotional and practical aspects of shopping — leading to a more satisfying customer experience and stronger sales performance.
Each feature shines at different points in the customer journey, and using them strategically can maximize their impact.
For best results, combine both strategies: use Shop The Look to inspire, and Complete The Look to convert.
To implement both “Shop The Look” and “Complete The Look” seamlessly on your Shopify store, Lookfy – Gallery & Lookbook which is one of the most effective Shopify lookbook apps available makes it simple to implement both features without any coding knowledge.
Lookfy is a powerful Shopify app designed specifically to enhance visual merchandising. It enables merchants to create shoppable lookbooks with interactive image tagging, perfect for building immersive “Shop The Look” experiences. With Lookfy, you can showcase styled scenes where customers can explore and purchase multiple tagged items directly from a single image.
At the same time, Lookfy supports product bundling features that help you set up “Complete The Look” suggestions. By grouping related products, you can display curated add-ons or complementary items directly on product pages, encouraging customers to add more to their carts.
Whether you're in fashion, home décor, or lifestyle retail, Lookfy combines both storytelling and upselling capabilities, helping you increase engagement, boost average order value, and provide a more intuitive shopping experience, all without any coding required.
Benefits of Lookfy:
While both Shop The Look and Complete The Look enhance the shopping experience, they serve different but complementary purposes. Shop The Look is all about inspiration and storytelling, helping customers visualize how products work together in a styled context. Complete The Look, on the other hand, is about strategic suggestions, helping customers fill in the blanks for a more complete purchase.
The most effective Shopify stores often use both Shop The Look to draw customers in and Complete The Look to boost conversion once customers are engaged.
By using a powerful Shopify gallery app like Lookfy, you can easily implement both strategies with no technical skills. Whether you're running a fashion boutique, furniture store, or lifestyle brand, these features can dramatically improve how customers engage with your products, and ultimately, how much they spend.