Variants

A variant is a version of a product the customer chooses between: Red or Blue, Small or Large. Setting them up takes three steps, in three different places.

How to set up a product with variants

The short version, then the detail below.

1. Stock → Catalog → Product Attributes → New record → create Size. Save, reopen it, and add its values (Small, Medium, Large) under Values.
2. Repeat for Colour.
3. Open the product → General tab → set Has variants to Yes → Save changes.
4. Go to the Variant options tab → New record → pick Size. Repeat for Colour. This declares which attributes this product varies by.
5. Go to the Variants tab → New record. Pick a value in each option dropdown at the bottom; the Name fills itself in as “Large / Red”. Add a SKU and Barcode, then Save.
6. Repeat step 5 for every combination you sell.

You create every combination by hand

There is no “generate all combinations” button. Three sizes in four colours means twelve variants, added one at a time.

Decide before you start whether you really need variants, or whether separate products would be less work.

To price variants separately, set Has its own price to Yes on the variant, then add a price row on the Pricing tab with that variant selected. See Pricing.

Step 1 — Define the attribute, once

Stock → Catalog → Product Attributes is where “Colour” and “Size” are created. They are shared across your whole catalog, so you do this once.

An attribute has a name, a display style and a list of values. The six styles — dropdown, colour, radio, image, circle and rectangle — are all ways of picking from a list.

Each value has the value itself, an optional friendlier display name, an optional colour code for swatches, and a sort order.

There is no free-text or number attribute

Every style is a picker. You cannot use an attribute for something like “Weight: 500g” — that belongs on the Specifications tab of the product.

Step 2 — Tell the product which attributes it varies by

On the product, open Variant options and add the attributes that apply to this product. Creating an attribute does not attach it to anything by itself.

Each one gets a sort order and a required flag. You cannot change which attribute an option points at afterwards — remove it and add the right one.

Step 3 — Create each variant

On the Variants tab, add them one at a time. The dialog gives you one picker per attribute you declared; choose a value in each.

There is no “generate all combinations” button

Three sizes in four colours means creating twelve variants by hand. Generate from options fills in the name by joining your choices — “Red / Large” — until you type over it, and that is the only shortcut.

What a variant can have of its own

Its own item code, barcode, unit of measure, quantity per pack, unit cost and status.

Two switches decide how independent it really is:

• Has its own price — on, it carries its own price; off, it uses the product’s price.
• Stocked separately — on, it has its own stock; off, it draws on the product’s stock.

Plan limits

Variants are one of the clearest places the plan shows up, and the limits are enforced properly — you get a real error, not just a hidden button.

Plan	Variants per product	Attributes per product
Essential	None	None
Standard	2	2
Growth	4	4
Professional	6	8
Enterprise	Unlimited	Unlimited

On the entry plan, variants are not available at all.

Things worth knowing

• Deleting an attribute that is in use is not blocked and gives no warning. It disappears from every picker while existing variants still point at it, leaving values that no longer show a name.
• There is no drag-and-drop ordering anywhere here. Reordering means typing new sort numbers.

Related

• The product record
• Prices