How to Create a WooCommerce Variable Product? The Complete Guide

WooCommerce variable products let you show lots of options for products, but setting their prices and discounts can be tricky.

This challenge arises because the standard coupon functionality in WooCommerce doesn’t extend to product variations, leaving all the variations at the same price.

But don’t worry, plugins like the “Discount Rules for WooCommerce” exist to set the discount process for variable products.

Imagine giving a 15% discount on certain sizes of your product but keeping others at full price. Or maybe you want to give discounts for buying lots of variations. Discount plugins for WooCommerce can help with all that.

Why stick with basic coupons when you can do so much more?

In this blog, we’ll guide you through the steps to create variable products in WooCommerce using its built-in features. Additionally, we’ll show you how to apply discounts to these variable products with the plugin easily.

What is a WooCommerce Variable Product?

A WooCommerce Variable Product is a single product listing that represents multiple variations of that product. It’s like offering several different versions of the same product under one roof, giving customers more options and flexibility.

Example of a Variable Product in WooCommerce

If you are selling t-shirts, a WooCommerce product variation setup would allow you to offer the t-shirts in various sizes (small, medium, large) and colors (blue, red, green), with each combination of size and color being a different variation.

Customers can select the variation they want before making a purchase.

This approach simplifies the process of managing inventory and setting variation prices for WooCommerce products that have multiple options, as each variation can be treated as a separate product but grouped under one parent product for easier management and display on your website.

WooCommerce Product Variations vs Product Attributes

Product variations and Attributes in WooCommerce are related concepts, but they serve different purposes and function in distinct ways:

Product Attributes

Attributes refer to the characteristics of a product. These characteristics can be anything that describes a product’s features, such as color, size, material, brand, etc.

In WooCommerce, you can define attributes globally (applicable to multiple products) or on a per-product basis. Attributes on their own do not affect pricing, stock, or SKU; they are merely descriptive.

For example, if you sell clothing, relevant attributes might include “Color” (with values like red, blue, & green) and “Size” (with values like small, medium, & large).

Product Variations

Product variations are specific products that are created based on the combination of attributes.
Variations allow you to sell products that have multiple options, with each option being a unique variant with its own SKU, price, and stock status.

Variations are applicable to “Variable Products” in WooCommerce, which are products that have varying attributes customers can choose from.

Continuing with the clothing example, if you have a shirt that comes in three colors (red, blue, green) and three sizes (small, medium, large), each unique combination (e.g., small blue, medium red) would be a separate variation.

Each of these variations can have different prices, stock levels, images, and other specific details.

Advantages of WooCommerce Variable Products

WooCommerce variable products help online store owners offer a wider range of options to customers and enhance their shopping experience. It offers several advantages for online stores:

• Flexible Product Options: Variable Products in WooCommerce enable offering multiple variations (sizes, colors, materials), catering to diverse customer preferences and boosting sales potential.
• Efficient Inventory Management: Manage all variations under one listing, simplifying inventory tracking, reducing backend clutter, and enhancing stock level management.
• Improved User Experience: Customers can select specific variations, enhancing satisfaction and ease of purchase.
• Simplified Product Organization: Grouping related WooCommerce product variations facilitates catalog organization, aiding customer navigation and product discovery.
• Enhanced Marketing Opportunities: Highlight different product features across variations to target specific customer segments and promote upsells and cross-sells effectively.
• Optimized SEO: Combining variations on a single page enhances SEO efforts, improving product visibility in search results.
• Cost Efficiency: Creating Variable Products reduces resources needed for management, updates, and maintenance compared to separate listings.
• Scalability: Variable Products scale seamlessly as your business expands, accommodating a growing range of product variations without overwhelming your store infrastructure.

WooCommerce Variable Product vs WooCommerce Variable Pricing

In WooCommerce, “variable product” and “variable pricing” are related concepts but not exactly the same.

Variable Product

A variable product in WooCommerce is a product type that allows you to offer a set of variations, as we have already discussed above.

Variable Pricing

Variable pricing refers to the ability to set different prices for each variation of a variable product.

Each variation can have its own price, allowing you to offer tiered pricing based on factors like size, color, or other attributes. For example, you might charge a different price for a larger size of a T-shirt compared to a smaller size.

So, while variable pricing is an important feature of variable products in WooCommerce, they are not identical.

Variable products encompass the entire concept of offering variations, including different pricing, while variable pricing specifically refers to the ability to set different prices for each variation within a variable product.

How to create a WooCommerce Variable Product?

To create a variable product in WooCommerce, you need to set up global attributes within the WooCommerce product section. Once you’ve defined these attributes with their respective values, you can seamlessly incorporate them into the process of your variable product, creating multiple variations for a single product.

Now, let’s take you into the step-by-step process of creating a variable product.

Step 1: Adding New Attributes

In WooCommerce, attributes are like tags for products, describing characteristics such as color, size, or material.

There are two different attributes in WooCommerce.

1. Global Attribute
2. Custom Product Attribute

Global Attributes: Global attributes are attributes that apply to all products on your site, such as color, size, or material. These attributes can be created once and then used across multiple products, making it easy to maintain consistency and organization in your product catalog.

Custom Product Attributes: Custom Attributes are attributes that are specific to individual products. These attributes can be created and assigned to a single product, allowing you to provide detailed information about the product that may not apply to other products on your site.

Creating New Attributes

Let’s create different attributes like Colour and Size.

• Go to your WordPress Dashboard -> Products -> Attributes.
• Enter the Attribute name and slug name.
• Click the “Add Attribute” button.

Adding Values to Attributes

We have created global attributes already, so now let’s add values to each attribute based on which you will price your products.

For example, adding attribute value to ‘Size’ as Small, Medium, Large:

• Go to your WordPress dashboard -> Products -> Attributes.
• Click the attribute that you have created. Here, we will click on Size.
• Enter the style name, slug, and description of it.
• Click the “Add New Size” button.

Similarly, we can keep adding values to the attributes. The added values with attributes will be shown on the right side.

Step 2: Adding Global Attribute Values to the product

Now, let’s add the created attributes to the products.

• Go to your WordPress Dashboard -> Products -> All Products
• Click on the product to which you want to add attributes and values.

Step 3: Adding New Variable Product

• Go to your WordPress Dashboard -> Products -> Click the “Add New” button.
• Enter the “Product Name” and describe your product.
• In the product data section, choose ‘Variable Product’ to create variable products with different attributes like size and color.

On the product page, go to product data and choose ‘Variable Product’ to add the attributes and values.

• Select “Attributes” and choose “Color” from the drop-down.
• Click the “Add” button and select the values you want to add to the product.
• Click “Visible on the product page” to show the created variable product on the product page.
• Click “Used for variations” to add the price and image for each variation in the variation section.
• Click the “Save Attributes’ button.

Step 4: Adding Variations

• In the variations section, select “Create variations from all attributes.”
• Click “Go.” You will get a warning message such as “Are you sure you want to link all the variations?”
• Click “Ok” to add all the values from the attributes to the product.

Step 5: Adding Price and Images to Variable Product in WooCommerce

You can add the images and price for each variation in the variation section, as shown in the screenshot below.

Click “Save Changes.”

Now, the images and pricing for WooCommerce products will be added to your store.

Here is the live result of variable product options on the cart page:

Now, we have learned to create a variable product in WooCommerce. We will further learn the steps to set up discounts for variable products.

How to Set Up Product Variation Discounts in WooCommerce?

Setting up product variation discounts in WooCommerce is a simple process.

You will need a plugin like “Discount Rules for WooCommerce,” which helps you easily create this type of discount.

Check out the Installation guide for additional information. Let’s create a simple product variation pricing discount for a WooCommerce store.

Scenario 1: 10% Discount on Specific Product Variation

Example: Let’s offer a 10% discount on the product variation “Cotton T-Shirts.”

• Go to your WordPress Dashboard -> WooCommerce -> Woo Discount Rules.
• Click the “Add New Rule” button and give a title for the rule.
• Choose the discount type as “Product Adjustment.”
• In the filter section, choose the products that get the discount. In this example, we will be offering discounts on “Cotton T-Shirts.” Hence, Choose “Products,” select “In the list,” and choose “T-Shirts – Cotton.”
• In the discount section, you have to choose “Percentage discount” and set the range as “10.”
• Save and Publish the rule.

Now customers will get a 10% discount on Cotton T-shirts.

Scenario 2: 15% Discount on Specific Product Attribute

Offering product pricing based on certain product attributes in WooCommerce, such as color, size, or material, can provide personalized pricing options for customers.

For Example: Get a 15% offer on Full Sleeve “T-shirts.”

• Choose the discount type as “Product Adjustment.”
• In the filter section, choose “Attributes,” select “In the list,” and choose “Full Sleeve.”
• In the discount section, you have to choose “Percentage discount” and set the range as “15.”
• Save and Activate the rule.

Now, Your customers will get a 15% discount for the specific product attributes.

Scenario 3: Tiered pricing (or) Bulk discounts on Product Variations

Offering product variation discounts through tiered pricing or bulk discounts can incentivize customers to purchase more items at once, leading to increased revenue and customer satisfaction.

For Example:

• Purchase 50 Red T-shirts and get a $50 offer.
• Purchase 100 Red T-shirts and get a $100 offer.

To add bulk discounts for product variations:

• Choose the discount type as “Bulk Discount.”
• In the filter section, choose “Products,” select “In the list,” and choose “T-shirts- Red.”
• In the discount section, you have to select “Filters set above”, choose “Fixed discount,” and set the ranges like in the screenshot below:

• Save the rule.

Now, your customers will get a WooCommerce product variation discount on Red T-shirts.

Scenario 4: BOGO Deals For Specific Variable Products

Buy One Get One (BOGO) deals, when offered for a variable product can encourage customers to buy more. Eventually, they can also help clear out inventory and boost profits.

Example: Purchase 2 “Large Size T-shirts” and get a cap for free.

• Choose the discount type as “Buy X Get Y.”
• In the filter section, choose “Products,” select “In the list,” and choose “T-shirts – Large.”
• In the discount section, you have to choose “Buy X Get Y Products,” select “Filters set above,” choose “Cap” as the free product, and set the ranges like in the screenshot below:

• Make sure to click “Recursive” so that customers will get a free product for every two products that they purchase.
• Save the rule.

Now your Customers will get a BOGO deal on specific product variations.

Best Practices for WooCommerce Variable Pricing

When setting up variable pricing in WooCommerce, it’s essential to follow best practices to ensure a smooth shopping experience for your customers and efficient management for you as a store owner.

Here are some best practices for WooCommerce variable pricing:

• Clear Product Descriptions: Clearly describe each product variation, including any differences in features, materials, sizes, or colors. This helps customers understand the options available and choose the right product for their needs.
• Consistent Pricing Structure: Maintain a consistent pricing structure across product variations to avoid confusion. Ensure that the price differences reflect the actual value provided by each variation.
• Use Descriptive Attributes: Use descriptive attributes such as size, color, material, or any other relevant feature to differentiate product variations. This helps customers easily identify and select the options they prefer.
• Set Default Attributes: Set default attributes for each variable product to showcase the most popular or commonly chosen option. This simplifies the ordering process for customers who may not want to customize their selection.
• Clear Display of Options: Display product variations clearly on the product page, allowing customers to see all available options at a glance. Use dropdown menus, radio buttons, or swatches to make it easy for customers to select their preferred variation.
• Highlight Price Differences: Clearly indicate any price differences between product variations to avoid surprises at checkout. You can use strike-through pricing or display the price difference next to each option.
• Manage Inventory Effectively: Keep track of inventory levels for each product variation to prevent overselling. Set up notifications to alert you when stock is running low so you can replenish inventory in a timely manner.
• Optimize Performance: Optimize your WooCommerce site for performance to ensure that variable pricing options load quickly and smoothly. Minimize unnecessary plugins, optimize images, and use caching to improve page load times.
• Test thoroughly: Before launching your variable pricing setup, thoroughly test the ordering process from the customer’s perspective to ensure everything works as expected. Check for any usability issues or errors and address them before making your store live.
• Provide Customer Support: Offer reliable customer support to assist customers with any questions or issues they may have regarding product variations or pricing. This helps build trust and encourages repeat business.

Conclusion

Setting up WooCommerce product variations can be highly beneficial for store owners to attract more customers. With the ability to offer discounts and adjust pricing based on product variations, store owners can increase their sales.

Offering discounts and personalized pricing options can help build customer loyalty and repeat business. It can also provide a competitive edge in the crowded WooCommerce platform.

Using a discount plugin like “Discount Rules for WooCommerce” simplifies the pricing process and allows for easy customization of discounts and pricing for different product variations.

Combine this product variation strategy with other discounts like bulk discounts, bundled discounts, BOGO deals, and free shipping for more sales.

Also Read:

1. How to set multiple prices per product in WooCommerce?
2. How to Bulk Edit Product Categories in WooCommerce?
3. How to set dynamic pricing in WooCommerce?