Shopify Options vs Variants

What are Shopify Product Options?

Product options are attributes of a product that enable customers to configure their product choice. As an example let’s say you have a store that sells T-shirts. Your T-shirt might come in multiple colors (Red, Blue, Green) and multiple sizes (Small, Medium, Large). The group of values is called options. The combination of options is called an option set. You can configure any type of product option and are not limited to color and size. 

Product options serve the purpose of making it easier for customers to customize the product to their preferences. It also makes your store easier to use because it improves the customer experience by making it simple from a single page to find the exact combination of options that’s right for them.  

Usually, options are displayed on the product as one or many dropdowns or in a pill (button) style. As the customer selects their options various parts of the page might be updated such as the image if the color is different or the price if the option is more expensive. 

What are Shopify Product Variants?

Product variants are the unique combination of option values. So for example the above T-shirt would create the following variants as the output: 

• Red Small
• Red Medium
• Red Large
• Blue Small
• Blue Medium
• Blue Large
• Green Small
• Green Medium
• Green Large 

The combination of option values in an option set is called a variant. It makes sense to have your variant be a distinct object because you may make different decisions based on different combinations such as putting only one combination on sale, managing inventory because it’s important to know what color and size combinations you have left, updating prices, customizing shipping weight, and more. 

How do I use product options in Shopify?

There are a few different categories of product options apps to consider:

1. Shopify Variants
2. Product Option Apps that don’t map to native products
3. Product Option Apps that map to native products

Each approach has its pros and cons, which we will walk through below:

Shopify Variants

You can find the Shopify Variants feature inside each product you create in Shopify under the Variants section. Enter your options, and Shopify automatically creates the variants based on the options entered.

You can enter basic information for each variant, such as price and SKU, and then click on edit to fill out more specific information, such as inventory, shipping weight, and image. In your theme editor, you can choose to display the options as dropdowns or pills.

Pros:

• Free to use and included in all plans
• Easy to use
• Fast-to-load product pages
• Maps to a unique product, making it easy for customers to add to their cart and manage inventory

Cons:

• Limited to 3 options per product
• Limited to 100 variants per product
• Cannot configure SEO fields
• No unique description per variant
• Limited styles (only dropdown or pill)
• Variants don’t sync well with other sales channels (e.g., Google Shopping, Instagram, Etsy)
• Variants can’t rank in Google due to the rel=canonical tag
• Variants do not display in collections, only the main product does
• Discounts are shown at the product level, not the variant level

Product Option Apps

To address some of the cons of the Shopify Variants feature, there are various product option apps in the Shopify app store. These apps fall into two categories: apps that map to unique products and those that just add options onto the product page. Below are the leaders in each category:

Apps that don’t map to products

Globo

Pros:

• Highly rated with an average of 4.9 stars and over 1000 reviews
• Many option styles (dropdown, pills, text, color swatch, image swatch)
• Decent monthly price
• Easy to set up and use
• No limits on the number of variants or product options

Cons:

• No ability to implement SEO for variants
• No tracking of inventory per variant
• Variants don’t sync with other sales channels
• Cannot display variants in collections without other apps

Infinite Options

Pros:

• Highly rated with an average of 4.8 stars and over 3000 reviews
• Main option styles included (dropdown, pills, text, color swatch, image swatch)
• Simple and affordable pricing
• Easy to set up and use
• No limits on the number of variants or product options

Cons:

• No ability to implement SEO for variants
• No tracking of inventory per variant
• Variants don’t sync with other sales channels
• Cannot display variants in collections

Apps that map to products

Swatch King

Pros:

• Highly rated with an average of 4.9 stars and over 1000 reviews
• Main option styles included (dropdown, pills, text, color swatch, image swatch)
• Moderately easy to set up and use
• No limits on the number of variants or product options
• Ability to configure options that link directly to native products in Shopify
• Ability to do SEO for variants
• Inventory tracking at a variant level
• Variants sync well with other sales channels
• Ability to display variants in collections

Cons:

• Higher price compared to other options
• Configuration can be difficult
• Limited to one option per product

SEO Variants

Pros:

• Main option styles included (dropdown, pills, with color swatch and image swatch coming soon)
• Free to use during beta; future pricing will be more affordable than Swatch King
• Generous free tier
• Easier to set up and use compared to others in the same category
• No limits on the number of variants or product options
• Ability to configure options that link directly to native products in Shopify
• Ability to do SEO for variants
• Inventory tracking at a variant level
• Variants sync well with other sales channels
• Ability to display variants in collections
• Supports multiple product options per product (e.g., size and color)

Cons:

• Newer app, so it doesn’t have all the features of Swatch King yet, but these are being actively developed

Summary

Product options and variants help you maximize your store’s potential by enabling customers to find and customize the exact product they want to buy. For those with limited options who don’t care about SEO or use sales channels, Shopify Variants or other option apps that don’t map to products are sufficient.

For those looking to maximize their variants to grow sales, consider using one of the option apps that map to products in Shopify.