Variant
A variant is one buyable version of a product that differs from its siblings only in details such as size or colour, like a navy hoodie in size M.
- Variation
- Product variant
What it means
A variant is the version a shopper actually puts in the basket: the navy hoodie in size M, as distinct from the hoodie. Google describes variants as “a group of similar products that only differ from one another by product details such as colour and size for clothing”.1
Each platform groups them in its own words:
- Google Merchant Center: every variant is sent as a product of its own, and siblings share one item group ID.1
- Shopify: a product has up to three options, such as Size and Colour, and up to 2,048 variants, and in a CSV every variant row repeats the product’s handle.23
- WooCommerce: a variable product holds variations, and each variation row names its parent in a Parent column, by SKU or ID.4
Each variant also needs identifiers of its own: Google says each variant of a product “has its own GTIN”.5
Think of it like this
In a shoe shop, the shoe is one product, but the box you carry home is one size in one colour, with its own barcode on the end. That box is the variant.
For example
A supplier sends a hoodie as three rows, HD-200, HD-200-BLK and HD200-GRY, with “S/M/L/XL” in one Size cell. Rebuilt, it is one product with 12 variants, HD-200-NVY-S through to HD-200-GRY-XL, each with one colour, one size and a row of its own.
Why it matters
Grouped, the variants let a shopper pick a size on one page instead of hunting through separate listings. Left ungrouped, a store makes three hoodies of them, and Google has no way to show them “as a group, instead of separately”.1 A cell holding S/M/L/XL is worse still, because it gives a shopper no size M to buy.
Not to be confused with
Different products are not variants of each other. Google’s examples of things that are not variants include “a suit consisting of a jacket and trousers or a set of bath accessories”,1 and a zip-up version of a pullover hoodie is a different design.
Sources
- Google Merchant Center Help. Item group ID [item_group_id].
- Shopify Help Center. Adding variants.
- Shopify Help Center. Using CSV files to import and export products.
- WooCommerce documentation. Product CSV Importer and Exporter.
- Google Merchant Center Help. GTIN [gtin].