Skip to main content
WISEPIM products table with a configurable jeans product expanded to show its five size variants, each a simple product with its own SKU WISEPIM products table with a configurable jeans product expanded to show its five size variants, each a simple product with its own SKU A product that comes in several sizes or colors is stored in WISEPIM as one parent with variants. The parent is a Configurable product. Each variant is a Simple product linked to that parent, with its own SKU, price, stock, photo and values. The attributes that tell the variants apart, such as size or color, are the parent’s variant options. What this page enables: you can find and expand variants in the products table, set and check the options that tell variants apart, give a variant a photo from its parent, and turn look-alike products into one product with variants. Where to find it: variants show in Catalog > All Products under their parent. Variant options live on the parent’s Relations tab in the product editor.

How variants work

A variant can’t have variants of its own, and the parent must be a top-level product in the same project.
WISEPIM doesn’t create variant products for you from a list of options. Preview combinations checks the variants you already have. To add a missing size, create the product and link it to the parent.

Variants in the products table

A parent row shows the number of variants under its name, for example “5 variants”. Click it to expand the variants beneath the parent, and click again to collapse them. The Product Type column shows Configurable for the parent and Simple for each variant. The footer counts variants separately, for example “Showing 1-1 of 1 · 6 products incl. 5 variants”.
  • Search by the parent SKU to find the parent and all its variants at once.
  • Filter with Has Variants to find parents, or Is Variant to find variants or standalone products. The smart filter Parent Products does the same in one click. See Filtering & Searching Products.
  • Collapse variants in Product Views groups variant matches under their parent during search, so a search for “jeans” doesn’t list every size.
Deleting a product also deletes its variants. Detach the variants first if you want to keep them.

Make a product a variant

Open the product you want to turn into a variant and go to the Pricing tab. The Product structure section holds Product Type, Product family and Parent product: “Type, family and parent decide which attributes and variants apply.”
1

Pick the parent

In Parent product, search by name or SKU. The list shows configurable products. Turn on Show all products, not just configurable ones to pick a simple product instead.
2

Save

If you picked a simple product, WISEPIM warns you first that saving will convert it to a configurable (parent) product. Save to link the variant.
To detach a variant, clear Parent product and save. The product becomes standalone again. On a variant, the Relations tab shows a banner “This product is a variant of” with a link to the parent.

Use the parent’s photo

A variant without its own photo can borrow one. On the variant’s Relations tab, click Use a photo from the parent product and pick the image. It becomes the variant’s main image, and WISEPIM confirms with “Variant photo set”.

Choose variant options

WISEPIM Variant options card with Color selected as option attribute, detected from variant values as Blue and Red, and Preview combinations and Save options buttons WISEPIM Variant options card with Color selected as option attribute, detected from variant values as Blue and Red, and Preview combinations and Save options buttons On a configurable parent, the Variant options card sits at the top of the Relations tab: “Choose the attributes that distinguish these variants. Preview every combination before saving.”
1

Pick the option attributes

Open Option attributes and choose the attributes that tell the variants apart, such as Color and Size.
2

Preview combinations

Click Preview combinations. WISEPIM lists each option with its values, for example “Color: Blue, Red”, and warns you about problems:
  • “1 variant needs an option value.” A variant has no value for one of the options.
  • “1 duplicate combination needs attention.” Two variants have the same values.
3

Save options

Fix any warnings on the variants, then click Save options. The button stays disabled while there are warnings. WISEPIM confirms with “Variant options saved.”
The line under the field tells you where the current options come from: When every variant shares the same family and nothing conflicts, WISEPIM saves the options on that family, so other parents in it get them too. Otherwise it saves them on this parent only.
A parent can have up to 32 option attributes. As the card warns, products without option attributes cannot be published as grouped variants. Without write access to the project, you can view the options but not change them.

Group look-alike products

Imports often arrive flat, with every color or size as a separate product. There are three ways to turn them into one product with variants:

Turn look-alikes into variants

The job looks for top-level simple products that share a name or the start of their SKU. It never groups across brands or categories. AI checks each member is the same model in another color or size, and can read a missing option from the photo for 1 credit per product. You set What makes a group (We pick, Same name or Same start of the SKU), the allowed Price difference, and under In this shop whether to change only WISEPIM (Only in WISEPIM) or also Merge the pages in my shop. When you accept a group, WISEPIM creates the parent and links the members as its variants.
A group with products that are already listed on your Shopify shop can’t be accepted yet.
Grouping links the products but doesn’t set the variant options. After grouping, open the parent and check Variant options, or mark the variant axes on the product family first.

Variants on export

When a variant has no value of its own for its description, short description, brand, meta title, meta description, images, categories or FAQs, the export uses the parent’s value. SKU, price, stock and the variant options are never taken from the parent. Nothing is copied into the variant itself: the fallback only happens on export. How variants arrive in your shop depends on the channel. For Shopify, switch on Export variants as options on the connection to send a parent as one product with options. See Shopify Integration.

Act on what you find

Open that variant and fill in the missing attribute, for example its size. Then preview again on the parent.
Either one of them is a duplicate, or the options miss an attribute that tells them apart. Delete the duplicate, or add the missing attribute to Option attributes.
Run Turn look-alikes into variants from Catalog Jobs and accept the High groups in the review queue in one go. Check the Unsure groups with Edit group.
Click Use a photo from the parent product on the variant, or leave its images empty so the export falls back to the parent’s images.

Group as Variants

Attach many products to one parent in a single action.

Catalog Jobs

Let WISEPIM find look-alikes and group them for you.

Product Families

Mark variant axes once for every product in a family.

Editing Products

Every tab of the product editor.

Catalog Structure

Find variant groups that miss their options.

Shopify Integration

Send parents as one Shopify product with options.