# Complementary Recommendation in E-commerce: Definition, Approaches, and Future Directions

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16135 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16135/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 17 of its 35 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Mar 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Inferring Networks of Substitutable and Complementary Products](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.08839/) (2015)
- [Product Knowledge Graph Embedding for E-commerce](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.12481/) (2019)
- [Complete the Look: Scene-based Complementary Product Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01748/) (2018)
- [Knowledge-aware Complementary Product Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.12574/) (2019)
- [Spectral-Based Graph Neural Networks for Complementary Item Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.02130/) (2024)
- [Recommending Complementary Products in E-Commerce Push Notifications with a Mixture Model Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.08113/) (2017)
- [Towards High-Order Complementary Recommendation via Logical Reasoning Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04966/) (2022)
- [Semi-supervised Adversarial Learning for Complementary Item Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05812/) (2023)
- [CCGen: Explainable Complementary Concept Generation in E-Commerce](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11480/) (2023)
- [Inferring Complementary Products from Baskets and Browsing Sessions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.09621/) (2018)
- [Session-based Complementary Fashion Recommendations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.08327/) (2019)
- [NEAT: A Label Noise-resistant Complementary Item Recommender System with Trustworthy Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.05456/) (2022)
- [Deep Style Match for Complementary Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.07938/) (2017)
- [Inferring Substitutable and Complementary Products with Knowledge-Aware Path Reasoning based on Dynamic Policy Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.03276/) (2021)
- [Attribute-aware Explainable Complementary Clothing Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.01655/) (2021)
- [Two Is Better Than One: Dual Embeddings for Complementary Product Recommendations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.14982/) (2022)
- [Identifying Substitute and Complementary Products for Assortment Optimization with Cleora Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.06262/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Revisiting Graph Projections for Effective Complementary Product Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09209/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In recent years, complementary recommendation has received extensive attention in the e-commerce domain. In this paper, we comprehensively summarize and compare 34 representative studies conducted between 2009 and 2024. Firstly, we compare the data and methods used for modeling complementary relationships between products, including simple complementarity and more complex scenarios such as asymmetric complementarity, the coexistence of substitution and complementarity relationships between products, and varying degrees of complementarity between different pairs of products. Next, we classify and compare the models based on the research problems of complementary recommendation, such as diversity, personalization, and cold-start. Furthermore, we provide a comparative analysis of experimental results from different studies conducted on the same dataset, which helps identify the strengths and weaknesses of the research. Compared to previous surveys, this paper provides a more updated and comprehensive summary of the research, discusses future research directions, and contributes to the advancement of this field.