WooCommerce – Convert Simple Products into Variable Products

Learn how to convert hundreds of simple products into variable products by following very simple steps.

Imagine you create 200 T-Shirts as simple products; then you realize that they needed to be variable products, so the customers can select T-Shirt sizes and colors during the checkout process.

It can be a real pain in the neck if you have to open and edit product by product. That’s the way you would do it with WooCommerce.

However, we want to show you how to do it faster. How to convert hundreds or thousands of simple products to variable products with WP Sheet Editor.

Install WP Sheet Editor

This plugin helps you easily manage your WooCommerce store. It contains powerful tools such as the “Bulk Edit” tool, which allows you to apply changes to hundreds of products with a few clicks.

Skip this step if you have the plugin installed and activated.

When you open WP Sheet Editor, you’ll see a spreadsheet containing all your products and their complete information, so you can edit freely.

1. Convert simple products to variable products

Converting individual simple products to variable products is really simple with WP Sheet Editor. You just need to follow these easy steps:

a) Change the product type from simple to variable in the spreadsheet

To do this, just go to the Type column by right-scrolling the spreadsheet, where you need to change the value from “simple” to “variable”.

b) Select the variation attributes

Once you’ve changed the values from “simple” to “variable”, you need to select the variation attributes. For this, go to the Edit attributes column and hit the Edit attributes button on that column.

IMPORTANT! Here you’re not creating attributes but choosing from the ones you’ve previously created.

Once there, you need to do this:

• Write the attribute names in the Name column. For example, you may write Color or Size if you have previously created those attributes.
• Enter the attribute values in the Value column, separated by a vertical bar (|). If you have entered Color in the Name column, then you need to write the colors in the Value column. For example, you can write Black | White | Red.
• Set the attributes as visible by checking the Is visible? checkbox.
• Check the Used for variations? checkbox. This is important because if you don’t check it, you’ll not be able to use those attributes for variations.
• Hit the Execute now button.

c) Create product variations

To create product variations, you need to open the Create variations tool on the toolbar.

After that, you need to do this in order to create product variations:

• Hit the Create variations button.
• Enter the products for which you’ll create variations (the ones you’ve just changed from simple to variable) in the The variations are for these products field.
• Select the number of variations you’ll create. Here you have TWO OPTIONS: You can create a variation for each combination of attributes or you can create a specific number of variations.
• Hit the Run search button.

2. Copy variations from 1 product to 200

After converting simple products to variable products, you can copy those variations to 200 products if you want. It’s really simple and fast.

For example, if you are converting 100 T-Shirts to variable products. You can create 1 variable product with all the variations and just copy everything into the other products. You will save a lot of time this way.

READ: WooCommerce – Copy Variations from One Product to 100 Products with a few Clicks

3. Edit product variations

After creating the product variations, you can edit their prices, images, etc.

Let’s see some examples:

Edit product variation prices

To edit variation prices, you need to open the Bulk Edit tool, which will help you apply changes to your products:

Once you’ve opened the Bulk Edit tool, you need to select the I want to search rows to update option in the Select the rows that you want to update dropdown, which will help you filter your product variations. There you need to search for your product variations.

To look for your product variations, you can write the product keyword in the Contains product keyword field or a category in the Enter tags field.

After that, tick the Search on variations checkbox and hit the Run search button.

After that, you need to set the price, so do this in the Bulk Edit tool:

• Check the I understand it will apply the posts from my search checkbox.
• Select Regular price as the field you’ll edit.
• Select Set value as the type of edit you’ll apply.
• Write a new price (5.99 for example).
• Hit the Execute now button.

Edit product variation images

Images are really important, so maybe you want to upload images to your recently created product variations.

That’s why we provide you with an important article on how to upload images to your product variations.

READ: WooCommerce – How to Upload Images to Lots of Product Variations

Do you want to convert variations into simple products?

If you want to do the opposite, watch this video tutorial showing how to convert variations into simple products.

Done!

As you can see, converting hundreds of simple products to variable products is really simple with WP Sheet Editor.