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Parent product

A parent product is the product as a whole that holds its variants together, such as the hoodie itself rather than the navy hoodie in size M.

Also known as
  • Variable product
  • Product group

Integrations engineer

What it means

A parent product carries what its variants share (the name, the description, the brand) and the key that ties them together. Shoppers never buy the parent itself; they choose one of its variants.

Each platform builds the parent differently:

  • Google Merchant Center has no parent row. Variants share an item group ID, ideally the parent SKU, and Google says: “Don’t submit a parent SKU as a separate product.”1
  • Shopify treats the product itself as the parent. Its first CSV row carries the title, description and vendor; each variant row repeats the handle and skips them.2
  • WooCommerce uses a parent row of the type variable, listing every attribute value, and each variation row names that parent in its Parent column.3

Think of it like this

Think of the display shoe on a shoe shop’s shelf. Nobody takes it home. You ask for it in your size, and the box you are handed is the variant.

For example

A kettle in three colours, as a WooCommerce import: one parent row with Type variable, SKU KT-100 and Colour values “Black, Cream, Red”, then three variation rows, KT-100-BLK, KT-100-CRM and KT-100-RED, each with KT-100 in Parent and its own price and stock.3

Why it matters

The parent holds the group together, so a slip there splits the product. Shopify groups rows into a product by handle, so rows that do not share one import as separate products, one per size.2 And a parent sent to Google as a product of its own breaks its rule on parent SKUs.1

Not to be confused with

A parent product should not be confused with a parent category, the level above a category in a category tree. A parent product groups versions of one product; a parent category groups different products.

Sources

  1. Google Merchant Center Help. Item group ID [item_group_id].
  2. Shopify Help Center. Using CSV files to import and export products.
  3. WooCommerce documentation. Product CSV Importer and Exporter.

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