In your cockpit you can add products as well as variation products to your product range. You already know a lot about products. But what are variation products? In this article we provide you with some basics and relevant terminology so that variation products will be a piece of cake for you.
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- What is the difference between a variation product and a product?
- What characterizes a variation product?
- When does it make sense to go with variation products?
What is the difference between a variation product and a product?
You'll use variation products for products that are available in different variations. A common example is a T-shirt that is available in different sizes and colors. Normal products such as CDs or unique paintings do not have these distinctive attributes.
What characterizes a variation product?
Variation products are products of the same type that differ only in certain attributes.
Good. A variation product does have attributes. These attributes, in turn, are assigned values. Let's stick to the example of the T-shirt. As a simple product you could only add it to your product range in one color, e.g. red, and one size, e.g. L. That would be weird for a T-shirt, wouldn't it? And a lot of work as well. Because when you sell T-shirts, you have a variety of designs on offer that differ in size, color, and material. We are talking about variations here.
And what is it with these attributes and values? It's not that complicated. An attribute describes the characteristic of the product. Attributes can be, for example, color, size, material, shape, or dimensions. Our T-shirt is available in different sizes. We differentiate the sizes with the values in which the T-shirt is available, e.g. S, M, L, XL or 38, 40, 42, 44.
Coming back to the work load: instead of creating a new product in your cockpit for every single one of these...
- T-shirt in red, size S
- T-shirt in red, size M
- T-shirt in red, size L
- T-shirt in red, size XL
- T-shirt in blue, size S
- T-shirt in blue, size M
- T-shirt in blue, size L
- T-shirt in blue, size XL
... you create just one variation product, specify attributes and assign values. That sounds a lot easier, doesn't it?
When does it make sense to go with variation products?
If you're selling products that differ in certain attributes we highly recommend to create variation products. Different sizes is THE example for a differentiator. You could still argue that you can create every available variation as a single product, but from a business point of view we advise against it.
Why? Because as a merchant you want to meet the expectations of your visitors. If they are visiting your website looking for a T-shirt and find red T-shirt, size L, they expect to pick a different size or color directly at this product. If you make every variation a single product, visitors would have to search for it, which is more effort for them. The risk is higher that they give up their search and go shopping elsewhere.
Lesson learned: if you have variation products, sell them as such. It meets visitor expectations and thus generates revenue.