Shopify Variants: A Complete Guide to Product Options

Understanding Shopify's Variant System

Variants allow you to offer multiple versions of a single product — different sizes, colours, materials, or any other attribute. Here's how to master Shopify's variant system and how PIM makes variant management dramatically easier.

Variant Basics: The Ground Rules

Before creating variants, understand Shopify's constraints:

📊 100 Variant Limit — Each product supports a maximum of 100 variants

🎛️ 3 Option Types — You can define up to three option categories (e.g., Size, Colour, Material)

🔌 Extensions Available — Third-party apps can expand these limits if your products require more complexity

Creating Variants in Shopify

The standard process for creating variants directly in Shopify:

1. Add your product — Create the parent product with shared information
2. Enable options — Scroll to "Options" and tick "This product has options, like size or color"
3. Define option names — Name your variant attributes (e.g., "Size" and "Colour")
4. Add option values — Enter the specific choices (e.g., "Small, Medium, Large" and "Red, Blue, Green")
5. Review variant grid — Shopify automatically generates all possible combinations
6. Refine the list — Remove combinations you don't stock (no blue shirts in small? Delete that row)
7. Save — Your variants are created, provided you're within the 100 variant limit

Duplicating Variants

To copy variants from an existing product:

1. Navigate to the product with the variants you want to duplicate
2. Select the specific variants to copy
3. Click "Duplicate"
4. Edit the duplicates to create unique products (Shopify requires distinct identifiers)
5. Save your new variants

Batch Duplication

For larger operations, batch duplication saves significant time:

• Works for products sharing common option values
• Automatically skips existing items to prevent duplicates
• Enables batch editing across multiple variants simultaneously

Why PIM Transforms Variant Management

Creating variants directly in Shopify works for small catalogues. But as complexity grows, a PIM system becomes essential:

🤖 Automated Creation — Generate variants from structured data rather than manual entry

⚡ Faster Updates — Modify variant attributes across your entire catalogue in seconds

📤 One-Click Publishing — Push all variants to Shopify with a single action

🖼️ Streamlined Media — Associate images with variants efficiently

📂 Automatic Organisation — Categorise products and variants systematically

The OneTimePIM Approach to Variants

OneTimePIM's variant system simplifies the entire process:

👤 Parent Products — Create the master product with all shared attributes

🔒 Locked Inheritance — Define which attributes stay consistent across variants

🎨 Variant Attributes — Specify what differs between versions

🔄 Automatic Sync — The Shopify connector pushes variants with proper relationships intact

Publishing Variants to Shopify

Once your variants are configured in OneTimePIM:

1. Run the Shopify connector
2. Check the task log to confirm successful transfer
3. Review your Shopify store — variants appear with all attributes, images, and relationships intact

The entire process takes seconds, regardless of how many variants you're publishing.