Product variations enable you to list a single product whilst offering additional options such as size, colour, scent etc.
What are Attributes & Variations?
Attributes
Attributes are a way of adding extra detail to a product. Imagine you have a t-Shirt for sale with various sizes. In this case, Size is your attribute. Using attributes allow customers to filter products within the marketplace (eg. Sort by colour).
Crafter’s Market UK have various preset attributes that we use for our sidebar product filtering. Of course not all of these may fit within your product in which case you can add your own custom attributes.
Attributes are a great way to help customers find your product by allowing them to filter by attributes.
Variations
Variations are the options within an attribute. Where Size is the attribute, Large, Medium and Small would be the variations. For variations you may wish to provide a separate image, price or even stock quantity.
Adding attributes
In order to enable variations you need to set the product type to a variable product.
After you have selected your product type head further down the edit page and you’ll see an Attributes tab.
When using preset attributes for variations you should check the Enable and Used for variations checkboxes.
Using preset attributes
To use our preset attributes, simply head to the attributes tab and tick the checkbox next to the attribute you’d like to use.
Some attributes are used for variations (such as colour) whereas some are used to activate various badges (such as Free Delivery). When using the latter you should activate it but not use it as a variation.
Using your own custom attributes
You can add and specify your own attributes for variations by clicking Add at the bottom of the attributes tab.
This will create an empty attribute block as seen below
Enter a name for the attribute, eg. Pattern
Value(s) should be entered on one line separated with pipe | marks.
For example:
Polka Dot | Glitter | Metallic
Lastly, make sure the attribute is marked as Active and Used as Variation.
Once you’re happy with your attributes you can move to the Variations tab. Don’t worry, attributes are saved automatically.
Only toggle the “Use as Variation” checkbox on the attributes you wish to use as variations
Setting up your variations
Now that you’ve set up your attributes you can head over to the Variations tab.
By default, you should see something like the screenshot below:
This is where you should decide whether you need to specify unique images, stock level or prices for your variations or not. If you don’t, then you simply need to specify a price in the existing dialog box. This will allow the customer to select their preference without the price changing.
Need to specify different images, prices or stock levels for your variations?
You can do this by utilising the Variations Bulk Options Tool.
Using this drop down you can create all the possible variations with your combined attributes.
Before creating variations from all attributes, make sure you’ve only selected the attributes you wish to use as variations under the attributes tab.
Selecting the Create variations from all attributes option will fire up to 50 times and save your product as a draft. This will reload your page.
Click the blue arrow icon to expand the variation block and edit each variation. The minimum requirement is the variation’s price.
Looking to manage stock within your variation?
Within the variation block, toggle the Manage Stock checkbox and enter a value within the Stock Qty field.
