Sync products with variants

Many products come in more than one size, colour or material. In Shopify each of those is a variant of one product. Everstock can create products with variants, and it can add a new variant when your supplier starts selling one.

Where variants come from

Everstock needs to know which supplier rows belong to the same product. How it knows depends on the feed:

• WooCommerce: a variable product and its variations become one product. The option names come from the product's attributes.
• CSV or spreadsheet: map Product grouping (handle or parent SKU) under More columns. Rows that share that value become one product. Then map up to three options, starting with Option 1 values, and use Add option for more. See Connect a CSV file or spreadsheet.
• REST API feeds: some supplier presets group rows for you. A feed set up by hand treats every row as its own product.

When a feed has no grouping, the Variants & new products section on the connection page says "Variants: not available from this supplier's feed." Each row is then its own single variant product.

Stock and price still sync one variant at a time. Each variant is matched to your store by its own barcode first, then its SKU.

New products with variants

When Create missing products is on, a group of new supplier rows becomes one draft product. It gets every option the supplier sends, up to three, and one variant for each row. For example, a shirt with a Size option and a Colour option becomes one product with both options.

Shopify allows at most three options on a product. Everstock does not build a product it cannot build correctly. Two cases go to review instead, and nothing is created:

• The group uses more than three options. The message says "this product has more option combinations than Shopify allows (3), so nothing was created".
• The rows in a group do not all use the same options. For example, one row has Size and Colour, and another has only Size. The message says "this product's variants do not all use the same options, so nothing was created".

Option names and values are compared without extra spaces and without caring about capital letters. So "Red" and " red " count as the same value. The text Everstock writes to Shopify is always the supplier's own spelling.

New variants on products you already have

Sometimes a supplier adds a new size or colour to a product you already sell. Open the connection and find New variants on existing products in the Variants & new products section. It has three choices:

• Don't add is the default. Your product stays exactly as it is.
• Add automatically adds the new variant to your product on the next real sync.
• Hold for my approval lists the new variant in each run as Planned, with the message "Held: waiting for your approval". Nothing is added.

Save your choice with Save in the Shopify admin save bar. This setting does not need Create missing products to be on.

Hold for my approval is a safe way to see what a supplier has added before you let it in.

Approve held variants

When a sync or preview holds new variants, the connection page shows a banner that says how many are waiting. Select Review variants to open that run. The held variants are listed there as Planned.

When the list looks right, select Approve and sync in the banner on the run page. Everstock runs a sync straight away and adds the new variants to your products. The approval covers that one sync only. The setting stays on Hold for my approval, so the next new variants wait for you too.

If the connection also has changes waiting for approval, the same Approve and sync button approves them together.

When a new variant is not added

Everstock adds a variant only when it is sure where it belongs. The other variants in the supplier's group must already be matched to exactly one product in your store.

If those variants are spread across more than one of your products, Everstock does not guess. The row goes to review with a message that says the product's other variants are spread across more than one product in your store.

The new variant's options must also match the options your product already has. Shopify does not let Everstock add a new option to an existing product. So before it writes, Everstock reads the live product and checks. If the options do not fit, nothing is added. The row is marked Skipped, and the Message column names the options your product has and asks you to review the item.

Everstock never removes a variant. It never changes the options on a variant you already have.

Read it in the run

Open the run from Sync history. A variant Everstock added reads New variant in the Change column, with the status Applied. On a preview, or while it waits for your approval, the status is Planned. Rows that went to review show the reason in the Change and Message columns.

Undo an added variant

A revert does not remove a variant a run added. Everstock cannot check whether the variant has sold since, so it does not guess. In the revert, that row reads Skipped with the message "Everstock cannot undo an added variant yet". If you want it gone, delete the variant in Shopify yourself. See Read the per-record audit trail.

Need help? Visit the support page or email hello@usenormalize.com.