The Variant Principle: When to Consider Product Variants

To variant or not to variant? That is the question! If you’re a wholesaler offering product variants, this dilemma may lead you to a whirlwind spiral resembling Hamlet’s.

The truth is that if you offer products with variants, you may wonder how you should organize and handle these in your wholesale website to fit your sales policy, commercial strategy, and deals.

Before making a final decision, read for our take on when to create product variants and when to treat them as separate items. To do so, we’ve taken some of the most usual cases in which wholesalers may consider whether they should create product variants, and we explore the best solution for each.

But first: What are product variants?

Product variants (or child variants) are different options of a “master” (or parent) product that share common characteristics and some different attributes, such as shape, color, size, or material. For example, imagine you sell homeware online, and a customer orders a blanket available in various colors (e.g., blue, white, gray). In this example, color is the main variant for this product. Other examples of product variants are size, material, flavor, and shape.

Making the case: When to use product variants

To help you make the right decision, we explore below six common cases in which you may wonder how to manage your products and if you should or shouldn’t consider using variants.

Case #1: You offer many products with multiple variants

Recommendation: Create product variants

If your catalog mainly includes many products with multiple options, creating product variants makes it easier for your customers to cut through the noise and find the products they need. How so? First, each variant has its unique code (SKU). Importantly, all variants of your master product will appear on the same page, making it easier for customers to find, compare, and order them.

In addition, variants simplify inventory management for wholesalers as most ordering systems allow you to monitor and manage each variation’s available quantity in a single place. What’s more, customers can see each child’s stock quantity on the same page just by selecting their preferred option(s).

And if these arguments aren’t compelling enough, creating variants allows you to manage pricing effortlessly if each item’s variation has a different price point (e.g., a sweater in black costs more than the same sweater in red). Instead of adjusting prices in many other listings, you do this through the master product’s page for each variant.

Case #2: You want to promote variants that are not performing well

Recommendation: Create product variants

If you have child variants that aren’t performing well and want to boost sales, consider creating product variants. Why? First off, if you present the “underperforming” variant on the master product’s page, you increase the likelihood of customers considering purchasing that option.

Also, you can apply volume discounts to encourage customers to buy more by offering reduced prices for higher quantities. In this case, you can create a combo volume discount that includes product variants that sell well with variants that don’t sell as much. For instance, let’s say you have a company that sells clothing wholesale, and your best-selling item is a blue T-shirt. However, the yellow variant of the T-shirt isn’t performing as well. So the company can set up a combo offer for customers who buy ten yellow and ten blue T-shirts to pay half the price for any more shirts they purchase after that.

Case #3: Your B2B store is public, and you want to increase traffic to it

Recommendation: Create product variants

According to a Forrester report, 74% of B2B buyers state that they research at least half of their work purchases online. Similarly to B2C buying habits, when customers look for a product online, they usually narrow their search by adding extra characteristics, such as color or material (e.g., white cable knit blanket), to avoid spending hours researching. If you use variants, customers may land on the product’s page on your storefront, as it will appear at the top of their search results.

Case #4: You want to offer different discounts for product variants

Recommendation: Create individual product listings

While handling varying prices for child products is easier when you create variants, you may need to reconsider if your marketing and sales strategy includes offering different discounts for each variation. By organizing them as separate items on your online B2B ordering platform, you can create dedicated offers for each variant easier and more efficiently.

Case #5: Your product range is limited

Recommendation: Create individual product listings

If you don’t offer a broad range of products, but these items have variants (e.g., color), you should consider showcasing them on separate pages on your storefront. For example, you’re an ice cream supplier with five flavors in your catalog: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, mango, and pistachio. However, suppose one of your products has additional combinations, for instance, vanilla with chocolate chips. In that case, you can list these mixed flavors distinctly to give customers a rich, more compelling, and comprehensive offering.

Case #6: You want specific customers to view and buy certain product variants

Recommendation: Create individual product listings

If you have commercial agreements with certain customers to sell specific product variants, consider treating them as separate items. By doing so, you can effortlessly set particular products and variants as private and allow access to these listings only to individual customers.

Manage product options and variants easily with B2B Wave

Deciding to create product variants or use separate listings for each variation can be challenging. However, as Polonius states in Halmet, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” So, if you reflect on your product offering, marketing and sales strategy, and commercial agreements, you can make a case for what makes more sense for your business.

In B2B Wave, you can easily set your product options, create variants, and configure product pricing and privacy. And if you don’t believe that product management can be a walk in the park, start your free 14-day trial today to take our B2B eCommerce platform for a test drive.