Adding variants

You add variants to a product that has more than one option, such as size or color. Each combination of option values for a product can be a variant of that product.

When you add a product, you adjust the Pricing, Inventory, and Shipping settings for the product from the product details page. However, when you add variants to the product, you need to adjust those settings for each variant from the variant details page.

Considerations for adding variants

Before adding variants to your product, review the following considerations:

  • You can create up to 100 variants for a product.

  • Each product can have up to 3 options. The options can be different from product to product. For example, one product can use size, color, and style, and another product can use weight, finish, and material.

  • If you want to save specialized information for your variants, then you can add custom fields to your variant details pages by using metafields. If you have an Online Store 2.0 theme, such as Dawn, the free Shopify theme, then you can add references to your product variant metafields through the theme editor.

  • Stores with 50,000 or more variants are subject to a daily rate limit for uploading variants by using an app or CSV file import. You can add up to 1,000 new variants in a day before the limit is reached. If you exceed this limit, then an error is displayed and you need to wait 24 hours before you can add variants by using an app or CSV file import. Plus stores are exempt from this limit.

  • If you're adding a variant for the online store and you select Continue selling when out of stock, then you can continue selling products when your inventory reaches zero and below. For example, you have zero stock but are using a product listing as a pre-order and want customers to be able to buy the product. As the product is purchased, your stock levels will drop below zero. However, if you deselect this option because you don't want to sell a product that has sold out, then customers can't buy the product.

Add variants when creating a product

If you're in the process of creating a product, you can add its variants at the same time.

Add options to an existing product

If you've already created a product, you can add options to it to generate new variants. After you save the variants, you can add prices to them.

Add values to an existing option

If you've already created a product with variant options, you can add new values to it to quickly generate the multiple new variant combinations.

For example, if you currently offer three sizes (Small, Medium, and Large) and two colors (Red and Blue), and you want to add a third color Yellow, this method will create the 3 possible sizes of yellow variants at one time.

Add a variant manually

You can add variants one at a time. Before you can save a new variant, at least one of its option values must be new. You can't save an exact duplicate of another variant that already exists.

Add a variant by duplicating an existing variant

You can duplicate a variant to save time when adding similar variants, rather than entering the same details again. The duplicate variant has the same details as the original variant.

Before you can save a duplicated variant, you need to edit at least one of its option values. You can't save an exact duplicate of itself or another variant that already exists.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products.

  2. Click the name of the product that requires another variant.

  3. In the Variants section, click the name of the variant to duplicate, and then click Duplicate.

  4. Edit at least one option value to create a unique variant. You can add a new option value, or add one that is already in use for the product variants.

  5. Click Save.

Duplicate several variants by using a bulk action

If you need to create a new variant with the same options as a variant that you've already customized, then you can use a bulk action to duplicate the existing variant and add a new option.

To use a bulk action to add new variants, you select multiple similar variants and duplicate their details and then change at least one option value.

For example, you might sell T-shirts with two options: Size and Color. Your blue and red shirts are well-stocked and cost the same, but all of your yellow shirts are limited-edition, cost more, and are stored at a different warehouse. If you wanted to introduce green as a new limited-edition color, duplicating the yellow variants will save you time when setting quantities, prices, and locations for your green variants.

If a variant already exists, then duplicating a variant won't create a second copy. For example, you sell yellow T-shirts in small, medium, and large. You manually add a green T-shirt variant for size small. If you duplicate the color variant (yellow) to create green T-shirts in all available sizes, then the duplication will only create green T-shirts in medium and large, as the green T-shirt in size small already exists.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products.

  2. Click the name of the product that needs additional variants.

  3. In the Variants section, click an option value beside Select at the top of the variants list to select all the variants of a single option to duplicate. The variants you select need to have the same option value for the option you are adding, and different option values for all other options, such as green T-shirts in small, medium, and large.

  4. Click ... and then in the DUPLICATE VARIANTS section, click the "...in another Option" based on the set of variants you selected.

  5. In the Create duplicate variants dialog, enter the value for the new variants that you want to create and select the information to copy from the existing variants.

  6. Click Duplicate.

The product now has new variants with the option value that you entered, and the other option values duplicated from the variants that you selected. You might need to add additional information for the new variants depending on what you selected to copy from the original.

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