With SmartSeller Online Store you can sell anything because there are various product types that you can set up with it. One of these product types is Variable Product.
To define a variable product, first you need to add Attributes to it, then you can create Variations. But what is exactly the difference between attributes and variations?
1. Product Attributes
Product attributes are data that describe the product in details.
For example, if you are selling a dress, an attribute for it could be the size of that dress, or its color.
Product attributes can be added to almost any type of product, being it Variable, Simple, etc.
2. Variations
Variations instead, are the choices that the customer has when purchasing the product and they are based on the product attributes.
For a simple product, attributes are not mandatory, but for a variable product, attributes are mandatory because the variations have to be based on some options that the customer has, the attribute terms.
In the example of the dress, you have the attributes size and color. When the customer purchases that dress you need to know exactly what size and what color they want, and they need to know instead if a specific size of a specific color is available or not.
The combination of all the attribute terms is a variation.
Let’s see a practical example with the dress to make it easy to understand.
You have this dress in three different sizes and two colors, this means that the product has two attributes:
- Size
- Color
Each attribute has its own terms:
- Size
- Small
- Medium
- Large
- Color
- White
- Black
Each combination of two terms (one from the Size attribute, and one from the Color attribute) is a variation.
- Small, White
- Small, Black
- Medium, White
- Medium, Black
- Large, White
- Large, Black
In short, attributes are extra information about the product, variations are the combination of choices that the customer has when purchasing the product.
Attributes are optional for all products, except for Variable products. Variations and attributes are instead mandatory for a variable product.
Click HERE to learn how to create attributes.
Click HERE to learn how to create variations.