You sell a T-shirt in three sizes and four colours, and you do not want twelve separate products. That is what variations are for: one product, with the combinations inside, each with its own price, its own stock and, if you like, its own image. The part that muddles everyone is the order: first the attributes, then the variations.
Creating a variable product
| 1 |
Create the product and, in the product data box, change the type to variable product. Give it the name, description and images as you would any other.
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| 2 |
On the Attributes tab, add what varies: size, colour. Type the values (“S, M, L”). Tick “used for variations”. Without this tick, the attribute generates no variations.
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| 3 |
On the Variations tab, choose to generate variations from attributes. WooCommerce creates every combination. You can also add them by hand, one at a time.
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| 4 |
Open each variation and fill it in: price, sale price, SKU, stock and image. There is a bulk action to set the same price on all of them at once.
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Save or update the product and view it in the shop, in a private browsing window. Pick a combination and check that the price, stock and image change.
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Global or custom attribute?
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Global |
Custom |
| Where you create it |
Once, in the products’ attributes list. |
On the product itself. |
| What it is for |
Reusing across many products and filtering the shop by it (by colour, by size). |
Something that exists on that product only. |
| Pick it when |
You have many products with similar sizes and colours. |
You have few products, each one different. |
When a variation does not show or cannot be bought
| Symptom |
Usual cause |
| The customer cannot choose an option |
The variation has no price. A variation without a price cannot be sold, and WooCommerce hides it. |
| No variations were generated |
The attribute is not ticked as used for variations, or the product has not been saved as variable yet. |
| The price shows as a range |
Normal: WooCommerce shows lowest to highest until the customer chooses. |
| The image does not change when choosing |
The variation has no image of its own. Assign one to each. |
| “Out of stock” on one combination |
Stock is per variation. See stock and low-stock alerts. |
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Watch the number of combinations. Three sizes, five colours and four fabrics make sixty variations to fill in. The editor gets slow, and the shop can get heavy too. If an attribute barely changes the price and does not affect stock, ask yourself whether it really needs to be a variation, or whether a note in the description is enough.
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Start with a test product. Build it with two colours and two sizes, try buying it, and only then repeat the method on the others. The photos for each colour should share the same size and proportion: see product images for a fast shop.
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Has the product page become slow, or does it break when you pick a variation? Tell us the product address.
Open a support ticket
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