Manage a product's variants, options and metadata

Why it matters

The same model often sells in several sizes, colors or volumes, and each has its own price and stock. Without variants, you create ten almost identical products, or you lose track of which size is left on the shelf. Variants file these versions under a single product.

Summary

Options describe what changes from one item to another (Color, Size...); each combination of values gives a variant, with its own price, stock, SKU and barcode. Metadata are free key / value pairs, which you can add on the product or on a variant, for your own use.

Before you start

• products.create or products.update permission.

Steps: options and variants

1. Open the product record (/products/:productId) or the creation page (/products/create).
2. Under Product options ("Add options like color, size, etc"), enter the option name then its values (one value per field; an empty field is added automatically).
3. The Variants section lists the combinations. For each: price, cost price, price before, stock.
4. Shortcuts: "Apply same price to all variants", "Apply same stock to all variants", and "Toggle mask unused variants" to hide the combinations you do not sell.
5. Save.

Without options, the product has a single default variant: its price, SKU and barcode are entered directly on the record. With several variants, these fields open variant by variant, from the Stocks button on each row.

A variant's fields

Metadata: what are they for?

The Metadata card exists at two levels:

• on the product, at the bottom of the record;
• on each variant, with the note "Add some metadata to your variant for your own use".

Each row is a free-text key / value pair (for example material = cotton, supplier_ref = A-1290). Genuka saves them and returns them as they are; no feature interprets them, except one case: on a service, a product metadata whose key follows the format order_<name>_<type> becomes a question asked to the customer on the public booking page (the value is the text of the question).

Typical uses: keeping internal information that has no dedicated field, or passing data to a website or integration that reads the Genuka API.

Edge cases and common mistakes

• Metadata are not private. The shop's public API returns the metadata of products and variants with the rest of the record (only a digital product's download link is removed for visitors). Never put confidential information in them (purchase price, supplier contact details...).
• Metadata or custom fields? Custom fields are defined once for the whole business (Global Settings › Products tab › Custom fields) and appear on every record; metadata are free, product by product.
• Excel import. The metadata column of the import file fills the product's metadata (not a variant's), in the format key=value;key2=value2.
• Variants imported without options. If several rows of the same product give a variant_title without variant_composition, the import creates a Variant option with one value per title (two identical titles become "Title" and "Title (2)"), so each variant stays distinct.
• The "Key" / "Value" labels of the metadata rows are shown in English whatever the interface language.

FAQ

What are the variants' key-value pairs for? To store free information for your own use. They change neither the price, nor the stock, nor the display at the register.

Do my customers see the metadata? Your website or an integration can read them through the public API. Consider them public.

How do I sell a T-shirt in several sizes and colors? Create two options (Color, Size) with their values: Genuka generates one variant per combination, each with its own price and stock.

See also

• Create a product and publish it (creer-produit)
• Barcodes and SKUs (codes-barres-sku)
• Import products (importer-produits)