Thread: Variants and SKUs - Rules of Thumb?

Hi:

I'm just starting an online retail clothing store and using the opportunity to organize my inventory and display. As I understand it, a variant is like a SKU - a unique Stock Keeping Unit that is tracked in inventory? - at least I think.

Are there any rules of thumb about what constitutes a variant? For example, let's say that I have a T-Shirt that comes in multiple sizes and red, green, and black. Am I better to have one product - T-Shirt that has two dropdown boxes for size and colour or better to have a T-Shirt Product that comes in 3 variants - red, green, black.
What should be the rationale for choosing one over the other?

Any help appreciated!

If you offered one type of shirt that came in those three colors and sizes you could create one product called "T-shirts" and create two kit items that would set the size and color.

We sell heating items mainly and this is how we deal with it.

First if it is a multi variant item the root product does not have any SKU or MPN. We then create variants for each product inside this "range".

A prime example for us is our heaters that have three different factors. You select the output, the colour and the control. All of this is under one product.

With t-shirts I would create one product (i.e. wolf shirt) and then 9 variants. These variants would be small-white, small-yellow, small-black, medium-white etc...

You will need to customise your product xml to have two drop down boxes but it means you can track stock very easily. Also each variant can have a SKU, so small-white is SWWS and small-yellow is SMWS etc..

We find this works best and is the most flexible approach to any items that can be grouped by a common theme, in your case I would suggest shirt design as the colours and sizes change but the design does not.

Hope that helps! Looking forward to seeing your store.

Thanks for this e-TradeCounter - what you say makes a lot of sense.

Cheers,
Roger

Thanks for your help - posted this a few days ago - but it doesn't show up.

Cheers,
Roger