Add Bulk Variations in WooCommerce – The Complete Guide

Are you looking for the best way to create WooCommerce product variations in bulk? We know creating product variations can take a lot of time. So in this post, we’ll show you how to add WooCommerce bulk variations and save a lot of time. You’ll bulk create product variations much faster than you normally would in WooCommerce.

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 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 and edit variations with a few clicks.

We’re talking about the WP Sheet Editor plugin, which has been designed to simplify your WooCommerce products management and improve your productivity.

WP Sheet Editor has many features that simplify variations management:

• 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.

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.

2- Select the products to create variations in bulk

WP Sheet Editor‘s advanced search tool allows you to search and select the products you want to edit. In this case, it will allow you to select the products for which you want to create variations.

In this example, we are going to create variations for all products in the “Fashion” category.

For this we need to open the Search tool.

After opening the Search tool, you can filter the products by any search parameter:

• Contains keyword: Enter any keyword to filter all posts containing it in their titles.
• Enter type, visibility, categories, tags shipping classes, or attributes: Enter any taxonomy.
• Search on variations: Enable this to filter variations (not necessary at this time)
• Enable advanced filters: You can use any product field as a search parameter. Examples: search for variable products (product type), search for products with a specific price or price range, search for products by SKU, stock, stock status, etc.

For this example, we’re going to filter the products by keyword, so just enter the keyword in the right field and click Run Search.

Note – In this tutorial, we will show you the complete process of converting simple products into variable products and then adding bulk variations for those products. But if you want to search for variable products, you can do the following:

• Tick the Enable advanced filters checkbox
• Field: Select the Type (product_type) column
• Operator: =
• Value: variable
• Click on Run search

After filtering the products for which you’ll add the variations in bulk, you will see the products displayed in the spreadsheet.

3- Add WooCommerce bulk variations quickly

With WP Sheet Editor, you don’t have to use any codes to create hundreds of variations for your WooCommerce products in bulk.

Just follow these simple steps:

Step 1 – Convert the products from simple into variable

Note – We assume you’re converting the products into variable, but if you already selected variable products and just want to add bulk variations, you can go to Step 2.

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

Once the tool is open, you need to select these values to bulk edit WooCommerce product type and convert the simple products into variable:

• Select the rows that you want to update: Edit all the rows from my current search
• What field do you want to edit: Type
• Select type of edit: Set value
• Replace existing value with this value: Select Variable
• Click on Execute now.

Step 2 – Edit the attributes to create variable products (Optional)

In case you have not added attributes to your products before, you can do it using the spreadsheet as follows:

– Add attributes using the spreadsheet

For this, you just have to enter the new attributes from the list of attributes that will be displayed once you click on the cell, or you can also create new ones.

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

– Add attributes in bulk

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

To do it, you have to use the Bulk edit tool, located in the toolbar.

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 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.

After executing the edit, you’ll see that the attributes were added successfully.

Step 3 – Make attributes usable for variations

You need to enable the product attributes of these products for variations. For that, just 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.

Step 4 – Create bulk variations for the products

This plugin includes the Create variations tool, which you need to open in order to create variations in seconds. It’s located on the plugin’s toolbar, so just click on it.

Once you’ve opened the Variations Manager, you need to select the Create variations button.

After that, in the Create variations section, you need to select the products on which you are going to create the variations in The variations are for these products section.

Here you’ll have the following options:

• Select individual products
• Select all products from a search
• Select all the variable products

In this case, we will select all the products in a search to create the variations, since we are creating variations for all the products that contain a specific keyword. If you select the same option, the Search tool will open, so you can follow the steps outlined in point 1 of this tutorial.

Now you have to decide between the two options the plugin gives you:

• Create variations for every combination of attributes
• Create this number of variations – If you want to create a specific number of variations, you need to enter the number here. With this option, you can CREATE 100 VARIATIONS for each of your selected products.

Finally, you need to click on the Execute button to create the variations.

4- Bulk edit variations data (optional)

Once you have created the variations in bulk, you can start bulk updating the variations data.

For this you can use the spreadsheet or edit hundreds of variations at once with the Bulk Edit tool.

Below you can see how the spreadsheet allows you to easily update variations data.

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

5- Copy data between variations (optional)

With this plugin, you can quickly configure hundreds of variations. 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:

Step 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.

Step 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.

6- Copy variations from 1 product to 100

With the Sheet Editor Products Spreadsheet plugin, you can easily copy variations from one product to 100. It takes only some seconds, and you don’t need to use any PHP snippets.

Here you have an interesting and useful article about it.

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

7- Some tutorials on how to edit hundreds of variations

Here we provide you with some articles on how to find and edit your variations. Just click on them to open the articles in a new tab.

• Bulk edit variation prices
• Delete WooCommerce variations in bulk
• Remove SKU from product variations in bulk
• Delete duplicate variations in bulk
• Set the same image to all variations
• Bulk delete out of stock variations

There is no doubt that the WP Sheet Editor Products Spreadsheet plugin will help you save a lot of time when bulk creating variations and making other massive changes to your WooCommerce products easily.