Bulk Create WooCommerce Product Variations

Let’s learn how to bulk create product variations in WooCommerce? We know that creating product variations can take a lot of time. But we will show you how to add WooCommerce variations in bulk and save a lot of time. You will be able to bulk generate product variations much faster than you normally do in WooCommerce.

Table of Contents

What are WooCommerce product variations?

WooCommerce product variations are the different options or versions of a product that you can offer in your online store.

These variations allow customers to choose between different product attributes or features, such as size, color, material, or any other relevant factor. For example, if you sell T-shirts, variations could include different sizes and colors.

Each variation can have its own price, stock quantity and SKU (Stock Keeping Unit), allowing you to customize the product offering to meet your customers’ needs and preferences.

Why is adding WooCommerce variations so difficult?

In WooCommerce, you can configure and manage these variations through the admin interface.

There can be many cases where you need to create hundreds of variations for your WooCommerce products, but let’s put it like this:

You have 100 variable products, but they’re missing variations
To add variations to these variable products, you need to open each product, assign product attributes and make them usable for variations
Only after adding attributes and making them usable for variations can you start adding variations to one product
Assuming that adding variations for one product takes you about 5 to 10 minutes, you will need between 8 and 17 hours to add variations to 100 WooCommerce products

This is why you need a way to create WooCommerce product variations in bulk and save a lot of hours.

Bulk adding WooCommerce variations with WP Sheet Editor

We have seen that converting simple products into variable and adding variations to them is time-consuming. But here we want to show you the simplest way to bulk create product variations in a spreadsheet.

You’ll be able to view and manage your WooCommerce products and variations in a table or grid product editor. This table editor for WooCommerce products will allow you to bulk create product variations and edit them with a few clicks.

We will use the WP Sheet Editor plugin. It’s the best plugin for bulk creating WooCommerce variations.

You can download the plugin here:

Download WooCommerce Products Spreadsheet Plugin - or - Check the features

WP Sheet Editor has many features that simplify variations management. You can:

Display variations in the spreadsheet and manage both products and variations in one place
Create variations in bulk for every combination of attributes
Copy variations from one product to multiple products
Search for products and/or variations by keyword, category, attribute, price, stock, SKU, etc.
Bulk edit products and variations with a few clicks
Duplicate variable products with their variations
Bulk export variations to a CSV file
Bulk import variations from a CSV file

Keep reading and follow the steps in the sections below to add WooCommerce bulk variations.

Step 1. Open the spreadsheet

Once you install and activate the WP Sheet Editor, you can open the spreadsheet by going to WP Sheet Editor > Edit products.

You’ll see a spreadsheet containing all your products and their complete data.

In the sections below, you’ll learn how to create WooCommerce product variations, how to copy variations between products, how to copy variations info and some tutorials on how to bulk update your WooCommerce product variations.

3 ways to create product variations in bulk

WP Sheet Editor allows you several ways or methods to add variations to your variable products. You can create variations for specific variable products, search for variable products to which you will add variations, or even create variations for all variable products. Let’s see each method.

You need to start by opening the Create variations tool. The Variations Manager is the best WooCommerce bulk variation creator tool!

Now select the Create variations option.

Now you have three options to bulk create variations for your WooCommerce products.

1- Create variations for specific variable products

You can add variations to specific variable products. For this method, you need to know which variable products in your store you want to add variations to.

Select these values in the Variations Manager:

The variations are for these products: Select individual products
Type the names of the variable products to which you want to add variations. We have selected 4 products.
You can decide how many variations to create, or you can create one variation for each combination of product attributes.
Click on Execute to create the variations for all the selected products.

2- Search for products and create variations

If you want to edit many variable products that share the same characteristics (category, attribute, tag, price, shipping class, etc.), you can search the products and edit all the search results.

In this example, we are going to find all the variable products in the “Clothing” category and add bulk variations to them.

In The variations are for these products, you need to select the Select all the products from a search option, which will open the Search tool.

Once you’re in the Search tool, you need to select the search terms. In this example, we will find all variable products within the “Clothing” category.

In the taxonomy terms field, add the category and the product type you want to find.

Once you’ve selected the search terms, click on Run search.

Back in the Variations Manager, you need to tick the I understand it will update the products from my search checkbox.

Decide how many variations to create, or create one variation for each combination of product attributes.

Once you’re ready, click on Execute to start generating the variations in bulk for all the selected products.

3- Create variations for all variable products

If you want to generate bulk variations for all the variable products you have in your WooCommerce store, just select these values in the Variations Manager:

The variations are for these products: All the variable products
Decide how many variations to create, or create one variation for each combination of product attributes.
Click on Execute to create the variations for all the variable products in your store.

Convert simple products into variable products and create variations

With WP Sheet Editor, you can convert simple products into variables and bulk generate variations for them. Just follow the steps below.

1- Select the products you want to edit

The first thing you need to do is to select the simple products that you want to convert into variables. For this, there are at least three options:

a) Edit all the products

You can edit all the products in the store, in case you only have single products. For this, just go to the next step.

b) Filter all simple products

You can filter the simple products using the quick search. Just hover the mouse cursor over the Search tool and select Type = Simple. Once you have selected the search terms, click on Search.

Once you run the search, you will see all the simple products displayed on the spreadsheet.

Note: You can use the “Search” tool to find simple products by category, tag, attribute, price, shipping class, etc.

c) Select specific simple products

You can select specific products in the spreadsheet using the checkbox picker.

2- Convert simple products into variable products

To convert all the products into variables. For that, you need to open the Bulk Edit tool, which is on the toolbar.

Select these values to bulk edit WooCommerce product type and convert the simple products into variable:

Select the rows that you want to update: Depending on how you have selected the products to edit, you can select:
- Edit all the rows from my current search (all products, all products from a search)
- Edit the products that I selected manually in the spreadsheet
What field do you want to edit: Type
Select type of edit: Set value
Replace existing value with this value: Variable
Select Edit only parent products
Click on Execute now.

3- Optional — Add product attributes

In case you have not added attributes to your products, you can do it with WP Sheet Editor:

a) Add attributes using the spreadsheet

Go to the column of the product attribute you want to edit and enter the new attributes from the list of attributes that will be displayed once you click on the cell; you can also create new ones.

Once you’re done, don’t forget to save the changes.

b) Add attributes in bulk

Another way to add attributes to your products to create variations is in bulk.

To bulk add attribute terms to your products, open the Bulk edit tool.

Once the tool is open, enter the following values:

Select the rows that you want to update: Edit all the rows from my current search
What field do you want to update: Product Color (or any other product attribute)
Select type of edit: You can select any of the options below:
- Set value: Use this option to set new attributes to all the selected products
- Replace: With this option, you will be asked to enter a term to replace and a new term
- Append: This option adds more attributes to the existing ones
Terms: Enter the new attributes separated by commas.
Click on Execute now.

Now you have added some attribute terms to your WooCommerce products.

4- Make attributes usable for variations

You need to enable the product attributes of these products for variations. Open the Bulk Edit tool again and select these values:

Select the rows that you want to update: Edit all the rows from my current search
What field do you want to update: Product Attributes
Select type of edit: Change attribute settings
What setting do you want to change? Used for variations
New value: Yes
What attribute do you want to edit? All
Click on Execute now.

5- Create variations in bulk

Open the Create variations tool.

Select the Create variations button.

Select these values in the Variations Manager:

The variations are for these products: All the variable products
Decide how many variations to create, or create one variation for each combination of product attributes.
Click on Execute to create the variations for all the variable products in your store.

Up to this point, we have seen how to bulk create product variations in WooCommerce. But WP Sheet Editor also allows you to bulk edit variations with a few clicks.

Optional — Bulk edit variations (optional)

Once you have created the variations in bulk, you can start bulk updating the variation data. For example, you can select different prices, stock, etc.

Some use cases for bulk updating product variations:

Edit variation prices
Update variation SKUs
Upload variation images
Manage variation stock

a) Edit variations in the spreadsheet

Click on Display variations and start editing the data in the spreadsheet.

Once you’re done, click on Save to apply the changes.

You can read this tutorial to learn how to bulk edit variations.

b) Bulk update variations

If you want to change values of any field on hundreds or thousands of variations, make sure you apply the bulk edit to the product variations:

Optional — Copy data between variations

WP Sheet Editor allows you to copy data between product variations with a few clicks.

For example, if one of your products has 100 variations, you can set values for 10 of them and then just copy that info to the other 90.

This will help you save lots of hours because you won’t have to edit the rows one by one.

Just follow these simple steps:

1 – Sort the columns you’ll use (optional)

Not all the columns will be available to be copied because some of them are just for the parent products.

Fortunately, you can sort the columns in by going to Top toolbar > Settings > Hide/Display/Sort columns.

Once there, just disable all the columns you won’t need by moving the columns from the left side to the right side.

Finally, click on Apply settings.

2 – Copy the info from some columns to the rest

Now you need to select the cells from the variations, right-click, and Copy or Ctrl + C.

Then, just select the empty variation cells and Paste the information using CTRL + V.

Finally, just click on Save to apply the changes.

Optional — Copy variations from one product to multiple products

WP Sheet Editor allows you to copy variations from one product to multiple products.

READ: Copy Variations from One Product to 100 Products with a Few Clicks

Some tutorials on how to edit hundreds of variations

Here are some articles on how to bulk edit different fields of your WooCommerce product variations:

WP Sheet Editor is best plugin for bulk creating WooCommerce variations. Your best companion to managing bulk variations in WooCommerce. You can easily bulk add product variations and manage them in a spreadsheet.