Academy › Build › Bookings and orders
When a size or a color deserves its own product listing
You can tell whether a purchase option belongs on the same product page or deserves its own product, whether or not your store uses variants, before you build your whole catalog the wrong way.
By Yodai · Published September 6, 2026 · Updated October 12, 2026
You've got t-shirts in four colors and five sizes. Or jars of jam in strawberry, peach, and plum. You sit down to build the product page and you're not sure if one single page is enough, where the customer says which version they want, or if you need a separate page for each version.
The temptation is to solve it out of sheer fatigue: lump it all together because making twenty pages sounds exhausting, or split it all apart because that way everything has its own place. Neither one is the right reason. The right reason is something else, and once you see it clearly, it applies itself.
The question isn't how many options you have, it's whether the option changes the decision
A variant is a version of the same buying decision. The customer already decided they want the t-shirt; the color gets settled afterward, almost as an afterthought. That almost as an afterthought part is the test: if changing the option doesn't make the customer rethink whether to buy, it's a variant. Google sees it the same way: in its definition of variants, they're similar products that differ only in certain details, like color and size in clothing. And splitting them up for no reason has a cost: in tests by the Baymard Institute, when a store listed each color as a separate product, shoppers got overwhelmed, had trouble finding all the versions of what they were looking for, and some left thinking the store didn't carry it.
A separate product is a different decision disguised as an option. A birthday cake with a photo print and a wedding cake aren't two sizes of the same thing: say one gets ordered a week ahead and the other six weeks ahead, and the wedding cake's price doesn't come from a price list but from looking over the order. Putting them on the same product page with a dropdown forces the customer to read terms that don't apply to them.
There's a quick test. Change the option in your head and see if the price shifts outside a reasonable range, if the delivery time changes, or if the question you'd ask the customer before accepting the order changes. If even one of those three things changes, it's no longer a variant. Price and turnaround aren't just details: for online sales, Article 97 of the Consumer Rights Act requires giving the customer, before they commit, the total price with taxes (or how it's calculated, if it can't be fixed in advance) and the date you're committing to deliver.
Knowing whether something is a variant doesn't tell you how to set it up yet, because not every online store has variants, that dropdown inside the product page for picking size, color, or dimensions. Without it, there are two approaches that work. If the version changes the price or the turnaround, use one page per version, each with its price and turnaround in plain view and with a name that starts the same way ("Strawberry jam, 8 oz," "Strawberry jam, 32 oz"), so customers recognize them as the same jam. If they all cost the same and ship the same way, like the colors of a t-shirt, use a single page, and have the customer write down which one they want in the order notes: that way you don't fill your catalog with duplicates. That single page can also carry a "starting at" price, as long as it states what each option costs and you confirm the final price with the customer before charging them. If your store does have variants, whatever changes needs to show up when the customer picks: in the example Google uses to explain variants, changing the size or color in the dropdowns updates the photo, price, and availability on the page without reloading it.
- The customer picks color, size, or flavor without leaving the page: they write it in the order notes, or choose it from a dropdown if your store has variants
- The text is the same for all of them. With variants, the store tracks stock for each combination and swaps the photo when one is picked; without them, stock is tracked for the whole page, and if you run out of a color, you take it out of the text yourself
- Each version has its own photo and its own text
- The price can be very different from one version to another without the customer feeling misled
- Each one shows up separately in your catalog, with its own name, photo, and price
- The delivery time or the conversation beforehand can be different for each one
Which one should you pick: If you're not sure, go with one page per version, with its price and delivery time in plain view: it causes the fewest surprises. Combine versions that cost the same and ship the same way into a single page, like colors or sizes, with the choice in the order notes or in variants if your store has them. And always split them apart as soon as one version starts needing its own delivery time or its own back and forth beforehand: that's the sign it's stopped being an option and become a different product.
- You know how to apply the price, delivery time, and prior-question test to tell whether an option is a variant or a separate product
- You've written a sample product page that doesn't hide the price of any version and tells the customer what to put in the order notes
- You can recognize the moment a variant starts needing its own delivery time or its own back and forth beforehand, and why that means it has to be split off
Test yourself
Answer before opening each one. If one gives you trouble, go back to the section that explains it.
1. You sell candles in three sizes. The price goes from $8 for the small one to $22 for the large one, but the delivery time is the same for all three. One page or three?
It's the same purchase: the delivery time doesn't change, and a bigger candle costing more doesn't break any expectations. But the price does change, so if your store doesn't have variants, use three pages, one per size, each with its price and a name that starts the same way. If it does have variants, use one page with variants, as long as the price on screen updates as soon as the customer picks the size and doesn't stay stuck on the cheapest one.
2. You offer regular haircuts as well as coloring, and coloring requires the customer to send photos over WhatsApp before you can give them a price. Does that go in as just another option inside "Hair Salon Services"?
No, it gets pulled out into its own page. Coloring changes the question you need answered beforehand: before accepting, you need to see the customer's hair, and that doesn't fit as just another option on a page that gets ordered without asking anything first.
3. You have bags with the same design in leather and in canvas. The leather costs twice as much and takes a week longer because you order it from a different supplier. Is it still a material variant?
Split it up. The price changes, and the delivery time changes too because it depends on a different supplier. That combination is the sign you already have two products that look alike, each with its own purchase decision behind it.
With that page properly split, the cart already knows what it's selling. What it doesn't know yet is what order amount makes it worth preparing: that's the number you set now.
Sources
- Item group ID [item_group_id]. Google Merchant Center Help, accessed October 2026.
- Combine Variations of Products into One List Item (12% Don’t). Baymard Institute (Mark Crowley), 2021.
- Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of November 16, approving the revised text of Spain's General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users and other related laws. Spain's Official State Gazette (BOE), consolidated text (last update published 02/28/2026).
- Structured data for product variants (ProductGroup, Product). Google Search Central, updated 2026.
In Yodai the store comes with the Free plan, with a catalog, a cart and orders. See how to create your online store for free.
NextThe order won't start below this number