Configurable products

Sell one product in several sizes or colours, using a master product and its variants.

A configurable product is a master product with variants underneath it — a t-shirt that exists in S, M, L and XL. The master is what you and the customer think of as "the product"; the variants are what actually carry stock, barcodes and sales.

What you need first

Variants are defined by properties, so the properties have to exist before the product does.

Property type required	Single Select only
Why	Each variant needs exactly one clear value per property, so it can be identified uniquely
Set up under	Admin → Products → Properties

Multiple Select and Text properties can be attached to a product for information, but they cannot define a variant. A shirt can be Size M or Size L — not both. See Properties.

How it fits together

Level	Product type	Carries
Master	CONFIGURABLE	The name, the description, the images, the property set
Variant	STOCK	Its own SKU, barcode, stock and price

Stock is held on the variant, never on the master. A master with four sizes is four stock records, and four rows in a stocktaking.

What this means for you

• Set up the properties before you start adding products. Retrofitting variants onto products that already exist is considerably more work than getting the property in place first.

• Keep option values consistent. Red everywhere — not red on some products and RED on others. Inconsistent values fragment filtering and reporting, and there is no tidy way to merge them later.

• Only create properties you will use. Every property you define appears on the product form.

Limitations

• Only Single Select properties can define variants.

• A variant needs a value for every property that defines the variant set; a missing value means the variant cannot be identified uniquely.