[intro]When you have completed this Guide you will understand what Product Variants are and whether your own products have them or not. If your Products do have Variants, you will also know the best way to build these Variants onto your Products for the best shopping experience for your customers.[/intro]

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If a Product on your EKM online shop is available in different sizes or colours, for example, it is a Product with ‘Product Variants’. ‘Variants’ are the different options customers can select from, such as ‘Size’ or ‘Colour’. Variant Choices are the names of each choice, such as ‘Blue’ or ‘Yellow’, for example. Combinations are one of many permutations from the Variant Choices multiplied by each other, such as ‘Blue - Large’:

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On the EKM online shop platform, per Product, you can have a maximum of:

  • 4 Variants (Type, Size, Colour, etc.);
  • 100 Variant Choices (Yellow, Blue, Green, Small, Medium, Large, etc.);
  • 250 Variant Combinations (Blue-Large, Blue-Medium, Blue-Small, etc.);

As an example, 5 sizes (small, medium, large, XL, XXL) multiplied by 5 colours (red, blue, yellow, green, pink) equals 25 Variant Combinations (5x5=25).[/remember]

Dividing down your Product Variants

When Variants are created on a Product, each possible Combination of the Variant Choices becomes a product in its own right. On the EKM online shop platform, you can have Products with up to four Variant Choices as long as the combinations do not exceed 250. For example, if a T-shirt is available in three different sizes and four different colours (3x4=12), each possible choice has become a Variant Combination:

[tips]Please bear in mind that if you have a product with a lot of Variants, this will change the way you have to display this product, as lots of Variant Combinations can negatively affect the page loading time and therefore, the user experience for any potential customers visiting your site. 

If you’re not sure how to display your products with variants correctly, contact your Account Manager or the Customer Support Team, who will be able to advise you further.[/tips]

If you have a Product with a lot of Variants, such as a T-shirt in 8 different sizes, 12 different colour choices for the sleeves and collar and another 12 different colour choices for the main body of the shirt, that equals 1,152 different Variant Combinations (8x12x12=1152). If you were able to upload that Product and its Variants to your EKM online shop, you would notice that the Product Page would load incredibly slowly. This is because as a Product Page loads - and if the Product has Variants - the system has to calculate all of the possible permutations of the Variant Choices.

We recommend that before you start adding Variants to your Products, you calculate the number of Variants on each to ensure that you don't negatively affect the Product Page. To do this, simply multiply the number of Variant Choices by each other - the total is the number of possible Variants that the Product has. For example:

  • A T-shirt with 5 different sizes and 46 different colours has 230 Variant Combinations (5x46=230).
  • A T-shirt available in 5 sizes with 10 different colour choices for the sleeves, and 10 colour choices for the body has 500 Variant Combinations (5x10x10=500).

[remember]We recommend that to ensure optimum page loading speed and thus a good user experience, you limit your Products to having no more than 250 Variants each. If you have a Product with a lot of Variants, you need to divide it up and make it into two or more Products.[/remember]

For example, the T-shirt with 500 Variant Combinations mentioned above would need to be divided into four separate Products, so to do this, we would look at the colours on offer:

Red, blue, yellow, grey, green, pink, black, white, brown, cream

Then we would divide those colours up into groups. As we're dealing with colours, I've divided the colour choices into two groups - Classic and Natural- as customers can easily distinguish between the colour groups:

Classic Colours T-Shirt

Available in 5 sizes and two colour options- five colours for the sleeves (red, blue, yellow, green, black) and five colours for the body (red, blue, yellow, green, black):

Natural Shades T-Shirt

Available in 5 sizes and two colour options- five colours for the sleeves (grey, pink, white, grey, cream) and five colours for the body (grey, pink, white, brown, cream):

This gives us two Products each with 125 Variant Combinations, but as the original Product had 500 Variants, we need to build two more Products that include all of the other combinations:

Classic Colours with Natural Sleeves T-Shirt

Available in 5 sizes and two options- five colours for the sleeves (grey, pink, white, brown, cream) and five colours for the body (red, blue, yellow, green, black):

Natural Shades with Classic Colour Sleeves T-Shirt

Available in 5 sizes and two options- five colours for the sleeves (red, blue, yellow, green, black) and five colours for the body (grey, pink, white, brown, cream):

Each Product has 125 Variant Combinations (5x5x5=125) - multiplying this by 4=500 - which was the number of Product Variants we had when the Product was a single Product before we divided it into four separate Products.

Dividing Product Variants like this ensures that your Product Pages will always load quickly and it also allows the customer to see four variations of the original Product on the Category Page all at once as opposed to one variation of a single product.

Creating Product Variants

You can create Product Variants within the Edit Product window and on spreadsheets by using the Import/Export System feature. We recommend that if you wish to use spreadsheets to add new Products with Variants to your EKM online shop you create one Product manually within the Add/Edit Product window before you begin, adding the Variants, Custom Attributes and Images. You can then export this Product's details to a spreadsheet to use as a template when adding the rest of your Products with Variants to your EKM online shop.

1. First, you need to log into your EKM online shop and from the Dashboard, click Shop on the left-hand menu:

2. Navigate to the Category where you would like to add this new Product with Variants and then click Add Product:

3. This will open the Add Product window. Give the Product a Name, Price and Description before clicking the Variants tab:

4. Click the Add Variant Button:

5. You will then see this window appear:

6. You can now choose what kind of Variants you want to add to your Product. Click Create Variant for the most applicable version for your Product before clicking below to select the relevant Support Guide:

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[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Ecommerce Expert or the Customer Support Team, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions Board. If you have a non-account-specific question to ask the EKM Team, join us in the EKM Community. [/contact]