How do I offer variations of a product within WooCommerce?

This article only applies if you’re using the WooCommerce e-commerce software.

You can offer variations of a product, such as colour, size, language, etc. For example, a clothing item may be available in small, medium and large.

In the software, these choices are called “attributes”.

There’s two different methods you can use for this:

Method A) Setting up one-off product variations (when the choices may apply to just one product only), or

Method B) Setting up product variations which you can re-use and apply to lots of different products.

We’ll explain how to do both below:

Method A)  Setting up one-off product variations:

1. To do this, go into your product editing screen.
2. In the “Product data” box, and using the drop-down menu, change the product type from “Simple product” to “Variable product“:
3. Click on the “Attributes” tab.
4. The “Custom product attribute” option should be displaying, then click “Add“:
5. For each choice, you’ll need to type in a label and the values, e.g. Silver|Gold, making sure the “|” symbol is used between values:
6. Ensure the “Visible on the product page” and “Used for variations” boxes are ticked.
7. Click “Save attributes“.
8. Next, go to the “Variations” tab and, in the drop-down menu, select “Create variations from all attributes” and click “Go“.
9. If prompted, click “Ok” to any popup alert warning you this process may take a while.
10. Now you can publish your page to preview the selection menu. On your product page, you should now have a drop-down menu displayed:
11. Skip the next section, and continue our guide below at “Adding prices to each variation“.

Method B)  Setting up product variations which can be re-used in lots of products:

This varies from the instructions above, because you’ll be adding the product variations in a central area first, before adding them to your products later.

1. In the back-end area, go to “Products“, then “Attributes“.
2. Add or edit categories as appropriate. For example, you might have an attribute category called “Colour” and then different terms (e.g. black, red, etc) saved within this category. The categories are indicated below in green. Click on the “Configure terms” link (indicated in red) to edit the choices.
3. On this next screen, you can add new options by entering a title into the name box (e.g. “Black”), then clicking the blue button below. You can leave the slug and description boxes empty. Repeat this for as many options as you need.
4. Once you’ve added all your product attributes into your website, next you’ll need to enter the products themselves. Go to the “Products” menu and click “Add New“.
5. Enter your product information (see our separate guide on this).
6. In the “Product data” box, and using the drop-down menu, change the product type from “Simple product” to “Variable product“:
   
7. Click on the “Attributes” tab.
8. Use the drop-down menu to choose a category you edited earlier. Click “Add“:
9. In the “Value(s)” box, pick all the options that are applicable to this product.
10. Ensure the “Visible on the product page” and “Used for variations” boxes are ticked.
11. Click “Save attributes“.
12. Next, go to the “Variations” tab and, in the drop-down menu, select “Create variations from all attributes” and click “Go“.
13. If prompted, click “Ok” to any popup warning this process may take a while.
14. Now you can publish your page to preview how the selection menu looks.
15. Next, follow the section in our help guide above that says “Add a price to each variation“.

Add a price to each variation:

Now, you need to add a price to each product variation.

1. Click on “Variations” (shown below in red).
2. Click on the product variation to expand it (shown below in blue).
3. Upload a picture of this particular product variation (where the dark blue image icon is displayed).
4. Add a price and ensure it’s set to “In stock” (shown below in green). You can also add a temporary price into the “Sale price” box if relevant too (optional).
5. Repeat this for all variations.

If you don’t add a price to a particular variation, the WooCommerce software will tell customers: “Sorry, this product is unavailable. Please choose a different combination.”

If you have a lot of product variations, you can add a price to all variations in one go, rather than editing them individually. In the drop-down menu, choose “Set regular prices” (as indicated below in red), then enter a price in the popup box, and click “OK”.

There’s also the facility in this drop-down menu to add a sale price to all the variations too.

Deleting a product variation:

To delete the variations, go to the “Variations” tab, put your mouse over the option, and a “Remove” link will appear:

Ensure you save your product page after doing any edits.