Global variant options and variant generator

[genox]

I happen to work on a store for clothing. Clothing with lots of sizes and colours.

While evaluating other stores including medusa, I saw that medusa neither supports global attributes used for variant creation nor does it offer a variant generator per se. This would be enormously practical to enter data in an efficient manner.

In a nutshell, most solutions I checked out handle it like this:

1. a global attribute list, e.g. to manage size and color names in one place
2. during variant creation, one selects the attributes and their values that the product is available in (red, black; xl, l, s, m)
3. the generator generates a list of all possible combinations with SKU fields that contain some unique ID that can be replaced with a SKU

[pevey]

Magento handles variants similarly. You could set up different attributes and then also set up an attribute set of one or more attributes, and then assign an attribute set to a product. This was extremely handy not only in saving time, but also improving consistency/reducing errors. It can also help with reporting on sales by attribute.

It is probably the one and only thing I actually miss from Magento.

[voxsar]

For some reason the v1 did not have the ability to set metadata for product options and their values, I have created a plugin that allows to add such metadata

Use Cases, lets say you want to store the option's image or the option's values image like

E.g. A shoe product with color option, each option value can have meta data for a variant image (red, blue etc), (which can also be done using variant images, but it's just an example)

Another example is using the meta data to inform how the react front end should render the options, a select box, radio buttons

/admin/products/{id}/options/{id}/option

{
metadata: {
inputtype: 'select'
}

I made this plugin that extends the functionality of the medusa 1.x to allow adding metadata to options and values

[tsvetann]

I like this feature

[genox]

The headless commerce solutions I checked out also for some reason have trouble providing color swatch attribute lists, which is one of the most basic requirements for many stores that offer configurable products.

You might want to check out the way swell.is is handling this, it's the perfect template. Saleor offers the same and has a more advanced variant editor (essentially editing a spreadsheet in the browser with copy/paste of cells, very convenient for 10+ variants)

Attribute lists are just nice. In frontends, we always have to map and hardcode user entered data to UI select options. A typo entered in the product admin UI can literally brick a frontend if not handled correctly (lets just assume the "real world" scenario). Offering predefined, controlled attribute lists (key/value pairs) essentially completely solves that issue.

As soon as the use case grows into a little bit more complex needs, you will face issues like this and they are - in my naive world - easily solvable. :)

Since you will be going down the route of generating OpenAPI clients at some point, those same attribute lists can become an option to type properties on products for even more easier development support. Something you will never have on a field typed "string".

[Frioo]

+1 for sure! If I remember correctly, even GoDaddy WYSWIG e-commerce creator allows specifying a global list of options and variant generation. Would be great to see this in medusa. Also optional thumbnails/swatches for option values. Currently I'd have to resort to a separate CMS to store these additional presentation fields.

[HarleySalas]

Has anyone come up with a solution or plugin for this? It's something I need in every single project. Really surprised this hasn't gotten more demand/attention.

[chiuwah]

@genox What solution did you find for your fashion store? Were you able to customize Medusa? I am looking for the same feature for my project. I stumbled on this plugin: https://github.com/vholik/medusa-custom-attributes However, it is only on the product level, and not on the variant level, when creating a product.

I created a test account on swell.is, but could not find the mentioned template function. Could you maybe share some more information how swell.is implented this function?

[genox]

Since my project depends on an import workflow for products, I save all variant information into metadata. It is not exactly convenient to administer it in the admin UI for obvious reasons like this. But it reduces code complexity by a lot.

I hope 2.0 adds this out of the box or makes it easier.

[chiuwah]

Yes, I guess the metadata is the best solution for now, without having to extend the model and services. One thing that comes to my mind is how performance with search and filtering on metadata is?

[genox]

To reduce API requests and circumvent limitations on filtering/search, feature wise and speed, I customised the meilisearch index based on the available plugi. data is only directly grabbed from the API to get specific products and their variations, e.g. the detail views.

[Pigamo]

I agree with this post. I was going to write something similar. Options should build up to a variant. It's extremely inconvenient to have to retype the variant option for each one.

This also makes filtering more challenging as now I have to match titles and build it up from there.

Options should be global and variants generated!

[NicolasGorga]

Hello, has anyone found a viable alternative for this in v1?

[qFlensT]

+1 in 2025