The more options you give customers, the harder it can be for them to make a decision or a purchase.
So it’s important to make good design choices when you offer many items.
One of the best design choices you can make?
Following these product variant design guidelines.
Let’s just cover the basics…
Product variations vs. Different products
There’s a significant difference between “product variations” and “different products”:
- When you have one product — like a T-shirt, for example — that comes in different colors, materials, sizes, patterns, etc., that’s a product variation.
- When you have similar products — like long-sleeve T-shirts and short-sleeve T-shirts — which have different descriptions or features, then you have different products.
So how should you organize the different products and variations?
- Give different products different listings.
- Display product variations in the same product listing.
Here’s why organizing your store this way is so important:
When you group different products in the same listing, users may not be aware that the item they selected has different features than the other ones.
That’s especially true with more complex products.
Plus, most shoppers have already done some research and decided on which product to buy.
So when you send them to a page showing similar but different products, you’re actually pushing them backward in the funnel and adding friction to the buying process.