Appearance
Product siblings
Product siblings are related products displayed as swatches on the product page. Merchants can link products as alternatives, similar to variants. Some prefer managing inventory by creating separate products for each color, ensuring each color appears as an individual product in collections.
The Product list block enables seamless switching between sibling/related products as if they are the same product. This functionality mimics a swatch variant picker, making it seem like users are selecting colors, but they are actually navigating to a separate product.
IMPORTANT
The setup of this feature is not supported by our complimentary support.
Using Metafields to Link Products
The Product siblings block can utilize dynamic content such as metafields to display linked sibling products. You can create a new metafield of type Product list or use an existing metafield, such as Complementary products, managed through the Shopify Search & Discovery app.
Add a Custom Product List Metafield
From your Shopify admin, go to
Settings → Custom data → Metafield definitions.Click
Products, then Add definitionHere are the fields to fill in:
- Name:
Product siblings - Namespace and key:
openthinking.product_siblings - Type select
Product→List of products
🖼️ Screenshot

- Name:
Click Save
OPTIONAL
Create a Text metafield to store the heading for the Product siblings block.
Featured image metafield
To show a featured image instead of the product thumbnail, use a metafield with the type Image to store the desired image. If the metafield is empty or missing, the default product thumbnail will be shown instead.
From your Shopify admin, go to
Settings → Custom data → Metafield definitions.Click
Products, then Add definitionHere are the fields to fill in:
- Name:
Product siblings image - Namespace and key:
openthinking.product_siblings_featured_image - Type select
Media→Image (File)
🖼️ Screenshot

- Name:
Click Save
Next, simply open the product you want to have a custom featured image and add the desired image to the Product siblings image metafield.
Assign Sibling Products to a Product
Step ①
- From your Shopify admin, go to
Products. - Select the product you want and scroll to the Product metafields section.
- Click the newly created Product siblings metafield, then Select products.
- Add all sibling products you want to display.
- Click Save
Step ②
NOTE
You will need to update the metafields for each product you want to display siblings for. You can do this by using the Bulk Editor or by updating the metafields manually.
Link the Metafield to the Product Siblings Block
- From Shopify admin, go to
Online Store → Themes - Click Edit theme, then open the Product template.
- Select (+) Add block, then select the
Product listblock from the list. - Click Dynamic content button, then select the new
Product siblingsmetafield. - Click Save
🖼️ Screenshot

WARNING
If no products are assigned to the Product siblings metafield, the Product list block will not display. Make sure that you are viewing a product that has siblings assigned to it!!!